Securosis Blog

To be honest, this is just a signing statement and, from what little constitutional law I know, kind of illegal. Basically, when Bush signed a law into effect that prohibited warrantless reading of citizens email, he added a statement that said the feds can still read email without a warrant. Wacky, huh?

February is

Rich · January 3, 2007

Securosis is officially declaring February as the “Month of No Bugs”.

This follows the trend started by HD Moore with the Month of Browser Bugs, then continued by LMH with the Month of Kernel Bugs, and now the Month of Apple Bugs. During the month of February no security researcher will release any vulnerabilities on any systems, giving IT departments and vendors valuable time to make a dent in their backlog of existing vulnerabilities to fix and patch. All cybercriminals will refrain from using…

Yep, I’m usually late to parties.

The holidays were pretty intense with various family events this year, so I blogged and worked less than expected on my vacation. I’ve also managed to come down with a nasty case of strep, which is an annoying way to start the year. Thus it’s only now, on January 2nd, that I can finally respond to Alex’s challenge/tag for my 2007 predictions. Let’s start with the 2006 recap:

HTTP Authentication: a Primer

reppep · December 24, 2006

The HTTP protocol includes encryption features, such as “Basic HTTP Authentication” and “Digest HTTP Authentication”, which are well supported by current browsers. Using either, every time you log your browser into a website with a username & password, the browser stores three pieces of information: the site’s hostname, your username, and your password. From then on, until you quit your browser, every time you visit any page on that site, your browser sends that username & password to…

Note: For some background on HTTP authentication and username/password caching, see HTTP Authentication: a Primer. I was reading Schneier yesterday, and it reminded me of all those MySpace and similar worms going around. Why are they so bad? How will they get worse in the future? Their biggest problem is that they welcome everyone, making it easy for bad people to establish themselves. The second is that even though the sites themselves are not high-security, they have security implications for…

The Three Laws of Data Encryption

Rich · December 21, 2006

Lately (as in, most of the year) I’ve been seeing a lot of chatter around encryption- driven primarily by PCI and concerns about landing on the front page of every major newspaper in the .

I’m catching up after all of last week’s travel and saw a good post by Dave over at Matasano on Safety vs. Security. Dave basically states that although one operating system might have better security than another, it doesn’t really matter if it’s more of a target. Vista might be more inherently secure than OS X, but it doesn’t matter if you are less likely to be attacked on your Mac. At least until someone decides it’s time to change targets.

If You Are a Security Blogger…

Rich · December 18, 2006

…and I haven’t already contacted you about RSA, please email me at rmogull at securosis.com. *[Email:]: Email *[Twitter:]: Twitter *[Phone:]: Phone

What a Silly Search

Rich · December 18, 2006

I went to the Broncos vs. Cardinals game yesterday here in Phoenix (Broncos won, in case you were wondering). On the way in we were subject to a pat down of the type I discussed here.

I wasn’t planning on writing about this, but with the release of a third unpatched MS Word vulnerability it’s time to be extra careful.