The morning began with welcoming remarks and an animated hacking demonstration themed around X-Men, which consisted of using a Linux distro to disable an NT password, Internet-mining to find information about an individual, and WireShark to sniff packets. Wasn’t exactly technically deep, but certainly not boring powerpoint stuff and if anything was pretty entertaining (Indian guy in a Wolverine wig, nice).

The keynote was delivered by Philip Reitinger, National Protection and Programs Directorate for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (what a mouthful). Without powerpoint (bonus!), he discussed quite a bit on the 60-day Review(pdf) and where DHS is challenged with cybersecurity. He also candidly highlighted some of the largest challenges facing security professionals:

• Hackers getting better not just at hacking but with sharing information at a rate security professionals cannot match.
• Defenses not keeping pace with threats.
• Cybersecurity as an issue of national security (which the president recently accepted responsibility for, a great first step).
• Fostering public-private information sharing.
• Establishing reasonable metrics.

Overall a thoroughly interesting and engaging discussion. He also pushed pretty hard for good IT people, (my boss stop reading here) if you’re interested in moving into the Federal space, now might be a great time.

The three tracks I chose were Ensuring Network Protection While Meeting Compliance (PII, HIPAA, etc.), Computer Network Simulators, and Motivating People to Adopt Security Practices. You’d think these would be horribly boring, but I have to say how impressed I am not only with the conference organization but with the quality of the talks. Yes, really, I stayed engaged all day. Let me share a few tidbits of info I found particularly interesting throughout the day:

• Information Security Officers must be allowed a seat at the executive table and involved in business decisions. (there is a heavy push to remove the “wall” of security as a sub-position of IT or an afterthought)
• 35.7 million records potentially breached in 2008 *reported* – imagine what the actual number is. Dizzying.
• In 2008, missing or stolen equipment accounted for 42% of reported breach events – the second highest was employee negligence at 16%.
• Heathrow airport in England averages 900 unclaimed laptops per week – and after reasonable time unclaimed are auctioned off.
• 1 in 10 people click through SPAM and become infected with malware. On the surface, that’s not much. But think of an organization with 1000 or more people.
• There are 500,000 different variants of malware currently, 20,000 new ones are created every day.
• Personal observation: Most admins don’t have a clue how base32 encoded data looks (scary).
• People will not embrace security policies if they reduce their productivity, feel threatened, or are negatively reinforced. [Innovaites, take special note here, I listened well to this one ]

Overall I’ve found the conference very well organized, technically awesome, and the people very welcoming. I also had a few great conversations with some of the sponsoring vendors. So far a great experience, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Until then, cheers from the Albany Pump House and my beer sampler.

P.S. I’ve been tweeting some of the conference, feel free to follow me.

Chris

I was amused by the some of my favorite personalities on the team; all in the form of “I’m not coming in today” messages. Roughly in chronological order:

• Are you in the office…

– Dan by phone

• Meanwhile, in the frozen North, in the Fortress of Solitude, a structure which appears to be more born of the ice than like it was constructed by human hands, Mr. Kent, mild-mannered alter ego, logs in to his computer and begins his day.

• Anyway — I hope everyone stays safe and has a great day.

– Kent by email

• Nuts to this cold, I’m working from the warm confines of home today. 614-555-5555 if needed.

– Jon by email

• Unbeknownst to Kent, the evil Doctor Eddie was also working from his volcano home. Soon the world would tremble.

– Eddie by email

• On IM or call us:

• Chris 614.555.5555

• Chip 614.783.5555

– Chris by email

• Is anyone in the office? I don’t think I will be able to get lunch to you today. Please let me know if you are there.

– Mary by email

• Keith feels bad for his boss, the only one to make it into the office today.

– Keith by Facebook

• ************ (sensitive)

– Brian to a client via email from a ski trip

• Chad is excited, 50 degrees and sunny, going to be a good run tonight! Sorry my Ohio friends, enjoy the snow.

– Chad from Oregon

• NULL

– Bruce by silence

Wrong-o.

Macs fail a lot, yeah. But think for a minute and you’ll realize that almost every computer you’ve ever owned has failed somehow. Occasionally you’ll get the workhorse that won’t give up, the Bruce Lee of computers, but generally speaking, most fail.

Let’s definitely hold Apple’s feet to the fire for shipping units that fail, and especially so for shipping anything with a known defect. But let’s do the same to Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, and any of the other PC manufacturer’s whose products have failed on us over the years.

The database team takes care of our data
While Matt happily works on a project beta.
Dan isn’t here today, though probably working
His brain never stops, always he’s lurking.

When out of the engineering cave there arose such a wail
A project server RAID card detected drive fail.
In poured the office to see what’s the noise
Surly Jewish manager dismissed them with poise.

Get out of our cave and get back to work!
Shouted the sometimes grumpy Hebrew jerk.
A short time later, lunch did arrive
Into Schmidt’s food did everyone dive.

Full bellies have now brought us all down a tone
That’s good for Michelle because she’s on the phone.
Must get annoying how loud we sometimes are
Surprised she hasn’t run one of us down with her car.

Chip just left to visit a client
Probably fixing a BlackBerry, RIM’s devices can be so defiant!
Hope he’s back soon because he’s auditing our backups
Gotta make sure we’re never playing catch-up.

Mary’s around here somewhere, she takes such great care
Keeping after Innova can be quite an affair.
A good office manager is a wonderful thing
Unless you’re on her bad side, boy can that sting.

I have good news for Jon, he’s gonna go crazy
Apple finally shipped his dual-link DVI thing after five weeks, so lazy.
Bet he’ll be in my office in two minutes or less
As soon as I hit the “publish” button, he’s gonna come to my desk.

Chad’s on IM, doesn’t live here anymore
Moved to Oregon where there’s ducks galore.
Having a tex problem, now I gotta fix
Should wrap this up anyway, running out of sweet limericks.

I mentioned the Jew, the surly Hebrew
He is me, happy Chanukah to you.
Even though you’re all schmucks, I wish you this greeting
I love all you people, at least until our next meeting.