Neil MacDonald

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Entries Categorized as 'Application Security'


Intrusion Prevention Systems? We Need Intrusion Resilient Systems

by Neil MacDonald  |  February 3, 2012  |  1 Comment

I’ve blogged before about advanced threats that easily bypass our traditional protection mechanisms and reside undetected for extended periods of time on our systems. On one of the panels I moderated on APTs, Dave Merkel from Mandiant put it best. “You are compromised, get over it”. Others in the US Government have come to the [...]

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Category: Application Security Beyond Anti-Virus Cloud Cloud Security Next-generation Security Infrastructure Security Intelligence     Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Interactive Application Security Testing

by Neil MacDonald  |  January 30, 2012  |  8 Comments

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) solutions test applications from the “outside in” to detect security vulnerabilities. In contrast, Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions test applications from the “inside out” by looking a source code, byte code or binaries. Both approaches have their pros and cons and, until recently, the market for these tools has [...]

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Category: Application Security Security Intelligence     Tags: , ,

DevOps Needs to Become DevOpsSec

by Neil MacDonald  |  January 17, 2012  |  Comments Off

DevOps seeks to bridge the development and operations divide through the establishment of a culture of trust and shared interest among individuals in these previously siloed organizations. However, this vision is incomplete without the incorporation of information security, which represents yet another silo in IT. Breakdowns in communications and processes across development, operations and security [...]

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Category: Application Security Next-generation Security Infrastructure     Tags: , , , , , ,

Link Web Application Firewalls to Dynamic Application SecurityTesting Tools

by Neil MacDonald  |  January 9, 2012  |  6 Comments

I called this a “security no brainer” years ago and the advice is absolutely still relevant today. In Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant for Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) solutions for clients, one of the evaluation criteria we looked at was whether or not the vulnerability knowledge of the DAST solution could be exported and used [...]

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Category: Application Security Security Intelligence     Tags: , , ,

The Market for Dynamic Application Security Testing is Anything but Static

by Neil MacDonald  |  January 4, 2012  |  1 Comment

We’ve just published a new Magic Quadrant for Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) for Gartner clients. In Gartner research, we use the term DAST to refer to testing solutions and techniques that are designed to test an application from the “outside in” to detect conditions indicative of a security vulnerability in an application in its [...]

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Category: Application Security Applications Cloud Cloud Security     Tags: , ,

Security Observations from European Symposium

by Neil MacDonald  |  November 14, 2011  |  1 Comment

I spent the last week in Barcelona with 4,000+ attendees at the 2011 Gartner European Symposium. It was a new venue for Gartner (we were displaced from Cannes by the G20), and I’m happy to say it was a fantastic with record attendance. Security was front and center of attendee interests. We had a total [...]

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Category: Application Security Cloud Security Virtualization Security     Tags: , , , ,

US Symposium Summary from a Security Perspective

by Neil MacDonald  |  October 24, 2011  |  1 Comment

Last week I attended Gartner’s US Symposium conference in Orlando. With 8,000+ attendees (25% of which were CIOs) and at least 1,000 more analysts, vendors and support staff, you can imagine it was quite a scene. In addition to three presentations, I had more than 30 fantastic one on ones with attendees over the four [...]

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Category: Application Security Beyond Anti-Virus Cloud Cloud Security Information Security Microsoft Security Next-generation Security Infrastructure Virtualization Virtualization Security     Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Protecting Intellectual Property in Source Code Requires a Two Prong Strategy

by Neil MacDonald  |  August 5, 2011  |  1 Comment

I had a discussion with a client today looking to protect sensitive intellectual property in their source code. I discussed two primary areas of risk: 1) that the developers (some of which were offshored) might take the code and 2) once the code was distributed to customers, it might be reverse engineered or copied Addressing [...]

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Category: Application Security Applications Information Security     Tags: , , ,

Some Thoughts on RSA SecurID Risk

by Neil MacDonald  |  June 9, 2011  |  1 Comment

On 3 June 2011, RSA, the Security Division of EMC, confirmed that Lockheed Martin had proof that hackers attacked its network partly by using data stolen in a March 2011 attack on RSA. Subsequently, on 6 June 2011, RSA announced a program to replace customers’ RSA SecurID one-time password (OTP) authentication product tokens We’ve updated [...]

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Category: Application Security Endpoint Protection Platform Information Security     Tags: , , , ,

Four Security Breaches, Four Security Lessons

by Neil MacDonald  |  May 23, 2011  |  2 Comments

There’s been a bunch of highly publicized attacks recently. Each one has a major lesson for information security. 1) Barracuda’s breach Major lesson: Test all of your web-enabled applications for vulnerabilities as a part of the ongoing application development and change process. This was the root cause of the breach. Minor lesson: Web application firewalls [...]

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Category: Application Security Cloud Cloud Security Information Security     Tags: , , , , ,