Swiss cheese applications are the norm
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Data Protection, Blog, Security on
Another of those pre-InfoSecurity surveys has emerged from my email today, and oh boy is this one a huge bringer of happiness. Well, actually, no it isn’t. What it does bring to the IT security table is the bad news that 75 percent of of the companies questioned think their applications have holes large enough to be exploited by criminal types.
One Professor Howard A. Schmidt, who happens to be a director at Fortify Software but perhaps more interestingly also a former Cyber Security Adviser to the White House, is quoted as saying “this figure of three quarters of organisations having security holes based on application vulnerabilities, while dramatic, is unfortunately not that surprising. When organisations develop applications, quality is one of the highest priorities but security vulnerabilities are seldom recognized or fixed. Priority is often given to delivering application features and business benefits without the understanding of fundamental coding errors that lead to security issues. Cybercriminals are targeting applications to steal money and information, and they know all too well how to exploit vulnerabilities not only in commercial software but are also very adept in finding security holes in applications that are developed “in house”. Business leaders need to set in place business software assurance processes including development practices designed to ensure that their applications are secure to protect the data of citizens, customers and shareholders from the new wave of threats from cybercriminals.”
He’s not wrong of course, although I disagree about the ‘not that surprising’ bit. I am absolutely gob-smacked that people wearing long trousers and one assumes getting paid decent money to take care of IT business will happily admit that the applications they use are doing a decent impression of Swiss cheese: full of holes.
Look, hackers are not in it for the fun any more. Forget the pot-boiler novel portrayal of the spotty geek wreaking havoc for the heck of it. Today those geeks can afford to have laser treatment for the spots and still have enough money left over for the latest bling-filled car. Cyber crime is big business, big and well organised business. Shame that it seems only the bad guys are taking it seriously enough though…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by - May 20, 2008 on 2:56 pm
Interesting.
I had an experience of this a while ago. I had used a printing company a couple of times then started getting spam on the email address I had given them (one address per signup usually). I told the company and registered a new email address. A little while later I started getting spam on the new address.
A quick check on the company website showed that the login was vulnerable to basic SQL injection.
I phoned the MD and told him what had happened and about the SQL Injection vulnerability. I could hear him go pale (if you see what I mean).
His response was that he didn’t thing that the developers were capable of fixing the problems.
I haven’t used them again.
Comment by - October 26, 2009 on 6:55 am
Pretty interesting, I just can’t believe it. Thank you Nick Kotarski for let us know whole your experience through your comments.
Pingback by - January 23, 2010 on 11:16 am
[…] am I going on about this time, you might be wondering although grateful that I’ve dropped the Swiss Cheese talk by now, so let me explain. The tool in question is a USB data drive and the reason it cannot be […]
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 7:43 am
will smith greatest hits download…
[…]world using the Swedish Middle Institute linked with Gymnastics. Swedish therapeutic therapeutic massage has remained […]…
Make a comment
Tag cloud
Archives
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Most commented posts
- 80 percent of viruses love Windows 7
150 comments
- Has Microsoft gone mental?
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7?
- Cuil frozen out: market share drops to next to nothing
- Xbox 360 FAIL
- The 24GB RAM Desktop is born
- Use old version of Windows instead of Linux, says teacher
- Microsoft reveals time-based licensing model
- Windows XP: the invincible OS
- Nexus Two - The Next Generation
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Why ecommerce fails (100%)
- Google Chrome stands alone at PWN2OWN (100%)
- Betting on Hubdub technology (100%)
- Has Google gone insane as GMail goes back to beta? (100%)
- Chinese whispers as government implicated in UK hack attacks (100%)
- Crimeware toolkit targets 10,000 trusted sites (100%)
- Black Hat risk to migrating VMs (100%)
- Tough on cyber crime, tough on the causes of cyber crime (100%)
- Firefox 3, Beta 4, Enhancements 900, Tested 5 (100%)
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7? (100%)
