Neil MacDonald

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

Entries Tagged as 'Defense-in-Depth'


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: , , , , , , , , ,

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: , , , , , ,

Data Loss Prevention Needs to Evolve

by Neil MacDonald  |  October 11, 2011  |  1 Comment

Traditional data loss prevention has been focused on looking for signatures and patterns of sensitive data at rest within the organization and as it moves throughout the organization, including to destinations outside of the enterprise (the latter is where most organizations have started). <digress> You noticed I didn’t use the term “DLP”. That’s because I [...]

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Category: Information Security Next-generation Security Infrastructure Security Intelligence     Tags: , , ,

Does Protecting Desktops Require a Different Vendor/Product than Protecting Servers?

by Neil MacDonald  |  September 29, 2011  |  2 Comments

I’ve made it a point over the past 6 months to ask clients if they are combining their endpoint protection platform contracts across desktops, laptops and servers. In most cases (about 75%), the answer is yes – contracts are being combined in order to reduce complexity and costs. Is protecting a desktop different than a [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Endpoint Protection Platform Next-generation Security Infrastructure     Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Windows 8 Raises the Bar for Security

by Neil MacDonald  |  September 28, 2011  |  1 Comment

I’ve been out the past two weeks visiting with clients and have been meaning to summarize my impression of the upcoming Windows 8 (expected mid 2012) from a security point of view. I attended Microsoft’s recent BUILD conference for developers where Windows 8 made its first official appearance. You can see my real-time tweets and [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Information Security Microsoft Security Windows 7     Tags: , , , , , , ,

Full Drive Encryption is not just for Laptops

by Neil MacDonald  |  August 22, 2011  |  3 Comments

I’ve had two discussions with clients today already on the role of full drive encryption ( FDE technologies such as Microsoft’s BitLocker, McAfee Total Protection, Sophos/Utimaco, Symantec PGP, Check Point, Trend/Mobile Armor etc) for fixed desktops. Full drive encryption should be considered mandatory for laptops and most organizations have implemented this – either with Windows [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Endpoint Protection Platform Information Security Windows 7     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: , , ,

Sand Castles and Advanced Persistent Threats

by Neil MacDonald  |  July 11, 2011  |  Comments Off

I’ve been absent from blogging for 2 weeks – first we had the Gartner Information Security Summit in DC and then I took some time off for a much-needed vacation. We spent some time at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. They’ve got a pretty amazing flat beach where the difference between high tide and [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Information Security Next-generation Security Infrastructure     Tags: , , , , , ,

Don’t Trust Your Servers

by Neil MacDonald  |  June 17, 2011  |  3 Comments

One of the toughest problems in information security is addressing advanced intrusions that have bypassed traditional security controls and now reside undetected on enterprise systems. With financially motivated attacks and state-sponsored “advanced persistent threats” both on the rise, intrusions can remain undetectable for extended periods of time. We have reached a point where our systems [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Next-generation Security Infrastructure Virtualization Virtualization Security     Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Improving Security by Killing Server and Desktop Workloads

by Neil MacDonald  |  June 16, 2011  |  Comments Off

It sounds counterintuitive, but today’s advanced threat environment requires new approaches to the ongoing security and management of server and desktop workloads. The trouble with Advanced Persistent Threats is that, by definition, they have evaded our traditional network and endpoint security controls and now reside undetected in our IT Systems. How many advanced intrusions will [...]

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Category: Beyond Anti-Virus Next-generation Security Infrastructure Virtualization Virtualization Security     Tags: , , , , , , ,