Adam Vincent

I was part of a panel titled “Developing Security Strategies to Successfully Combat Sophisticated Threats to your Network, while Protecting Customer Privacy” at the TM Forum conference two weeks ago.  Given the topic, and the interesting conversation, I wanted to highlight some of the ideas expressed around sophisticated threats. Verizon’s Marc Spitler, and AT&T’s Brian Rexroad. Daniel O’Donnel from Network Critical and Ajay Uggirala from NetScout, and Martin Huddleston from United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defense (MoD) accompanied me on the panel. In essence, cyber-attack is big business.  In 2010, studies from Symantec's newest Norton Cybercrime Report sited that the financial losses resulting from cyber-attack were resulting in similar losses worldwide to the business of illegal drug trade – 388B. Recent studies from the UK Cabinet office state that cyber espiona... (more)

Federated Service Monitoring

What is Federated Monitoring? A wise man once told me that there is a big difference between reachability and availability. Ever since I have been fascinated by the challenges that we face with net-centric information sharing and service dependencies which cross all forms of organizational, network, and even classification boundary. The reality here is that with net-centric approaches and the need to re-use services, we will have massive dependencies on services outside of our control. The Federal Government has emphasized and even mandated in some cases the use of XML, Web... (more)

Iranian Cyber Army Hacks Twitter

Twitter on Ulitzer Last night Twitter.com was hacked by a group purportedly titled the Iranian Cyber Army, at least that is what people think based on the fact that this group advertised they were responsible by displaying a redirected web page with an Iranian flag and text that takes credit, saying "This website has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army". This morning another website (mawjcamp.org), which appears to be a Iranian Reformist website based outside of Iran was also found to have been hacked. This event comes at a time when the United States Government is saying that ... (more)

WikiLeaks–How to Fix a Leak with Better Plumbing

The 9/11 Commission Report cited "pervasive problems of managing and sharing information across a large and unwieldy government that had been built in a different era to confront different dangers". Since 9/11 governments around the world have considerably adjusted their stance on information-sharing to allow more adequate and timely sharing of information. Unfortunately, the need to share information quickly in many situations had priority over the need to protect it and this left security policies, certification and accreditation practices, and existing security controls behind... (more)

Secure Your Blackberry

Ah, those popular little black devices that fit in the palm of your hand with keypads to handle corporate emails (produced by Research in Motion (RIM)) are all over the globe these days.   Rich features facilitate instant messaging, better known as BB Messenger, web browsing, email processing, Skype phone calls, and so much more.  People across the globe are maximizing their ability to multitask with their Blackberries (for business and personal use), and the latest flavor offers a touch screen-only interface. While Blackberry innovation makes life easier, you need to also underst... (more)