Category Archives: ISSA InfoSec Summit

Value of an ISSA Membership

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One of the most common questions that mentees ask me is about membership in different groups and organizations. One of the most valuable in the Central Ohio area is ISSA (Information Systems Security Association International). Here are a few reasons why we believe in ISSA, their mission and their work.

Specific Value of an ISSA Membership

The ISSA is the community of choice for international professionals who are interested in furthering individual growth, managing technology risk, and protecting critical information and infrastructure.

A few key reasons that a Cybersecurity professional would want to join ISSA are listed below.

  • Chapters Around The World -ISSA provides educational opportunities and local networking for information security professionals. ISSA’s members can become your strongest allies when needed, and there are 157 chapters around the world.
  • Build Your Knowledge and Reputation – There are opportunities for active participation at Board and Chapter levels. You can use the ISSA Journal and KSEs to share your insights with the industry if you are an ISSA author or speaker. If you have innovative ways to solve problems, have applied security technology to address risks, or have case studies of how you have done it, then your ideas on security challenges, management, and innovation will go a long way in establishing you as a thought leader.
  • Network Like a Pro -Make new contacts and deepen old ones on a regular basis. ISSA offers a lot of networking opportunities beyond exchanging business cards. Forging lasting ties with others who have the same professional interests and concerns is one of the things you can do as you attend local chapter meetings, become involved on a committee or take a prominent leadership role. The sources of inspiration and ideas will come from these relationships. Networking contacts are a great resource for benchmarking security practices and validation of security product features.
  • Grow Your Career – The training you receive through the ISSA will give you a means to find potential career opportunities and can help get you noticed by those looking for someone to join their team. The ISSA sponsors many meetings and conferences that you can attend in order to earn CPEs for various certifications.
  • Learn for a Lifetime – The annual conference and chapter meetings are vital educational and professional resources that provide in-depth and timely information about the information security industry. Meeting and events can help you develop skills and solve problems. In addition to comprehensive workshops, seminars and knowledgeable guest speakers, there are presentations on new technologies. ISSA gives members additional discounts to security conferences.

Summary

In summary, I think that joining ISSA is worth every penny, especially if you want to progress from beginner to practitioner to expert. It’s among some of the best money you can spend in terms of ROI for growing your knowledge and your reputation in the community.

 

3 Things I Learned Talking to InfoSec People About Crime

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Over the last several years, I have given many many talks about the behavior of criminal rings, how the criminal underground operates and black market economics. I wanted to share with my audiences some of the lessons I have learned about crime. Many people responded well and were interested in the content. Some replied with the predictable, “So what does this have to do with my firewall?” kind of response. One older security auditor even went so far as to ask me point blank “Why do you pay attention to the criminals? Shouldn’t you be working on helping people secure their networks?”  I tried to explain that understanding bad actors was a part of securing systems, but she wouldn’t hear of it…

That’s OK. I expected some of that kind of push back. Often, when I ask people what they want to hear about, or where my research should go, the responses I get back fall into two categories: “more of the same stuff” and “make x cheaper”, where x is some security product or tool. Neither is what I had in mind… 🙂 

Recently, I announced that I was taking this year off from most public speaking. I don’t think I will be attending as many events or speaking beyond my podcast and webinars. Mostly, this is to help me recover some of my energy and spend more time focused on new research and new projects at MicroSolved. However, I do want to close out the previous chapter of my focus on Operation Aikido and crime with 3 distinct lessons I think infosec folks should focus on and think about.

1. Real world – i.e.” “offline” crime – is something that few infosec professionals pay much attention to. Many of them are unaware of how fraud and black markets work, how criminals launder money/data around the world. They should pay attention to this, because “offline” crime and “online” crime are often strongly correlated and highly related in many cases. Sadly, when approached with this information – much of the response was – “I don’t have time for this, I have 156,926 other things to do right now.”

2. Infosec practitioners still do not understand their foes. There is a complete disconnect between the way most bad guys think and operate and the way many infosec folks think and operate. So much so, that there is often a “reality gap” between them. In a world of so many logs, honeypots, new techniques and data analysis, the problem seems to be getting worse instead of better. Threat intelligence has been reduced to lists of IOCs by most vendors, which makes it seem like knowledge of a web site URL, hash value or IP address is “knowing your enemy”. NOTHING could be farther from the truth….

3. Few infosec practitioners can appreciate a global view of crime and see larger-scale impacts in a meaningful way. Even those infosec practitioners who do get a deeper view of crime seem unable to formulate global-level impacts or nuance influences. When asked how geo-political changes would impact various forms of crime around the world, more than 93% of those I polled could only identify “increases in crime” as an impact. Only around 7% of those polled could identify specific shifts in the types of crime or criminal actors when asked about changes in the geo-political or economic landscapes. Less than 2% of the respondents could identify or correlate accurate trends in response to a geo-political situation like the conflict in Ukraine. Clearly, most infosec folks are focused heavily ON THIER OWN STUFF and not on the world and threats around them.

I’m not slamming infosec folks. I love them. I want them to succeed and have devoted more than 20 years of my life to helping them. I will continue to do so. But, before I close my own chapter on this particular research focus, I think it is essential to level set. This is a part of that. I hope the conversation continues. I hope folks learn more and more about bad actors and crime. I hope to see more people doing this research. I hope to dig even deeper into it in the future.

Until then, thanks for reading, stay safe out there, and I will see you soon – even if I won’t be on stage at most events for a while. 😉

PS _ Thanks to all of the wonderful audiences I have had the pleasure to present to over the years. I appreciate and love each and every one of you! Thanks for all the applause, questions and, most of all, thanks for being there!  

See You at the Columbus ISSA InfoSec Summit

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Remember, the Columbus InfoSec Summit is this week. It starts Monday afternoon and runs through Tuesday.

I will be speaking on Monday at 5:30 in Track 1 and my topic is a deep dive into Tor hidden nodes, including how to get business intelligence from them.

Come and say hello. Have a cup of coffee or just a chat. We look forward to seeing you and wish the ISSA a great event!

Make Plans Now to Attend Central OH ISSA Security Summit 2014

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Brent will be speaking again this year at the ISSA Security Summit in Columbus. 

This year he has an interesting topic and here is the abstract:

A Guided Tour of the Internet Ghetto :: The Business Value of Tor Hidden Services

Following on the heels of my last set of talks about the underground value chain of crime, this talk will focus on a guided tour of the Internet Ghetto. You may have heard about Tor, the anonymizing network that rides on top of the Internet, but this talk takes you deep inside to visit the slums, brothels & gathering places of today’s online criminals. From porn to crimes against humanity, it is all here.

This talk will discuss Tor hidden services, help the audience understand what they are, how they operate, and most importantly, how to get business and information security value from them. If you think you know the dark side of the net, think again! Not for the feint of heart, we will explain some of the ways that smart companies are using hidden services to their benefit and some of the ways that playing with the dark side can come back to bite you.

Take aways include an understanding of Tor, knowledge of how to access and locate hidden services and underground content, methods for using the data to better focus your business and how to keep an eye on your kids to make sure they aren’t straying into the layers of the onion.

 Come out and see us at the Summit and bring your friends. It’s always interesting and a great event to catch up with peers and learn some amazing new stuff. See ya there!

Come Out and See Us at NE Ohio Security Summit

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Brent will be speaking at the NEO Security Summit again this year. He will be concluding his set of presentations on the History of Cybercrime and Toffler’s Cell Theory as its basis. TheSummit is October 24-25, 2103 in Westlake, Ohio. 

Brent speaks on Thursday at 1:15 PM in “The Champagne Room A”. (Get the thought out of your mind.. You know what Chris Rock says… NSFW…)

This is the 11th annual Summit for NEO and it has history of being a fabulous, affordable event. Come out and learn some stuff, get a ton of CPEs and re-connect with old friends. You can find out more about the event and register here. 

As always, thanks for reading and we hope to see you at the event!

UPDATE: Looks like I’ll be doing back to back sessions on Thursday at NEO Summit: 1:15 Crime History in Champagne A, 2:30 Defensive Tampering in Bordeax A. Come out and see me. That’s 2 chances in one day to get your heckle on!!!!

NE Ohio Security Summit – Come Out & See Us!

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The NE Ohio Security Summit kicks off tomorrow and runs through Friday evening. Chris Lay (@getinfosechere) and myself (@lbhuston) will be in attendance. I will be speaking on Thursday afternoon about Detection in Depth and some other models for doing nuance detection around the enterprise. 

While you are there, check out the booth of Managed HoneyPoint partner Hurricane Labs, and hit Chris up for a cup of coffee and a friendly discussion about our services, partnerships and engagements.

We look forward to a great event and give much thanks to the folks who put this amazing Summit together. They are an awesome team, with a ton of great help and a can-do attitude. Their hard work and dedication is what makes this one of the best Summit events of the year. Stop them in the hall and give them a big thanks for all they do!

As always, thanks for reading. If you mention you read the post and use the code word “snazzy” when you come up to chat, I just might have a little special treat for you. 🙂

PS – My talk is in Bordeaux B at 2:30 PM Eastern. See ya there! 

Discuss Detection in Depth at CMH ISSA Summit

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On May 18th, I will be presenting on detection in depth at the CMH ISSA Summit. I look forward to a good discussion of the ideals, organizational needs, and maturity models. Given all of the focus on re-allocating resources from “prevention only” strategies to an equal spread across the core values of prevention, detection and response, this is likely to be a useful discussion to many organizations.

Come ready with good questions. I will also be available throughout the Summit for break-out discussions, one-on-ones, and small team meetings. Please reach out via email, phone or Twitter to schedule a sit down. Otherwise, feel free to approach me in the halls and we can have an ad-hoc discussion if you want to learn more about specific detection in depth approaches.
 
I speak on Friday, May 18th at 11:15 am. I hope to see you there!