Tag: New Approach

Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that explains that “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”1 Back in March 2017, I asked “Will Deception as a Defense Become Mainstream?” No, deception hasn’t become mainstream yet. But, here and there, deception does poke its fingers into the…

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In part 1 of this blog series, we explored how to use delayed response and diversion as hack back tactics against attackers. Here, we up the game and explore some additional creative deception techniques. Potemkin Apps Back in 1787, the Empress Catherine II of Russia was touring the newly acquired Crimea via a barge trip…

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Over the years, I’ve seen articles comparing cybersecurity to martial arts, so I’ve been reluctant to write one. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no Jeremiah Grossman, black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but I have done martial arts on and off since I was in elementary school. Now that my son has begun that…

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Difficult security incidents are unique and valuable opportunities. They are the sort of testing you can’t buy: real-world, un-simulated, and direct. No pen-test or code review is going to do what a serious incident will. They are priceless jewels, but only if you use them for all they’re worth. Capturing that value is only possible…

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Information security often takes the form of an arms race, as attackers develop novel ways to use or abuse services on the web to their own benefit, and defenders scramble to adapt to and block these new techniques. Few technologies better exemplify this arms race than the web element known as CAPTCHA. This component is…

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Many companies and organizations around the world have issued mandatory work-from-home policies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When companies find themselves in a situation like we are in today, going from a zero percent remote workforce to 100 percent in a matter of days, it can be daunting. What used to be safe, thanks to…

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If we think about vulnerabilities in this way, as a matter of action signaling, then malicious actors are, in their own malicious way, members of our audience. Applications are engineered to function, but they are designed to signal. The specific ways we design apps tell our audience how we expect them to act. When we…

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What Is Cybersecurity, Anyway? Another issue in our field is that many organizations seem to build security staffing requirements around a bachelor’s degree in computer science. It is possible that this was a good strategy once, but computer science degrees and security are increasingly mismatched, for several reasons. Most people in computer science programs want…

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Five Key Cybersecurity Skills In part one, we explained why it’s better to grow your own cybersecurity experts than shop on the open market. If CISOs can find people who are inspired by security, and who are willing and humble enough to go the distance, they should hold on to them—these are the people to…

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The best practice document from Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recommends the use of an external user agent (such as a browser) to complete the flow in authorization flow code grant. When a native app wants to access private information, it needs to first get an authorization code. The native app starts its authorization request…

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