The misleading microscopic view

English, Property Degrees, Security, Vulnerability, Wahrnehmung

The Guardian lists 10 gross ingredients you didn’t know were in your food, ingredients like arsenic, hair, or silicone breast implant filler. Should we react with nausea and disgust? Of course not. Yummy food is yummy food, neither a just detectable trace of someting (arsenic) nor the source of an ingredient (hair) nor possible other uses of the same ingredient (breast implants) have any noticeble impact. That’s by definition: if a dose of anything has a proven adverse health impact, it will be banned from being used in food. The Guardian’s list is an example of microscopic properties that don’t matter macroscopically. Yummy food is yummy food.

We commit the same error when, in security, we look just at the software defects and neglect their security impact. All software has defects; we might easily assemble a list of 10, or 100, or 1000 defects you didn’t know were in your programs. This does not mean they’d all matter and need to be removed. A system is secure if it evokes a predictable and controlled incident profile over its lifetime. some software defects in some systems affect this incident profile in such a way that their removal matters. Others are just traces of poison, or issues appearing problematic by analogy. The problem is: we often don’t know which is which.

Das Angstgeschäft – ein Verriss

Angst, Bedrohung, Geschäft, Propaganda, Security, security-industrial complex, Zahlenspiele

Für den Tagesspiegel nimmt Kevin P. Hoffmann die allgegenwärtge Sicherheitspropaganda auseinander. Kostprobe:

»Gleichwohl sind Bürger heute bereit, mitunter 60 bis über 100 Euro für ein Fahrradschloss auszugeben, um damit ein Rad zu schützen, das kaum doppelt so teuer war.

Auffällig ist auch, mit welcher souveränen Arroganz Vertreter der Sicherheitsbranchen ihrer potenziellen Kundschaft entgegentreten. Bürger seien zu dumm, Gefahren richtig einzuschätzen, hört und liest man immer wieder.«

(Tagesspiegel: Nach den Anschlägen von Boston: Gute Geschäfte mit der Angst)

Mit Sicherheit ist kein Geschäft zu machen. Investitionen in Sicherheit sind erzwungener Konsum; wer bei Verstand ist, wird die Ausgaben für Sicherheit minimieren und allerlei Risiken einfach hinnehmen. Geschäfte macht man mit Angst, und mit Produkten, die Angst reduzieren. Auf Sicherheit kommt es dabei nicht an.

Number Crunching

Bedrohung, Erich fragt, Geschäft, Propaganda, Risiko, Zahlenspiele, Zwischenruf

HP veröffentlicht den 2012 Cyber Security Risk Report. Neben dem Security Report 2013 von Checkpoint sieht HP natürlich alt aus, aber dafür legen die mit der neuen Forschungsabteilung jetzt ja 14-tägig neue Hot Topics auf den Tisch. Es gab mal Zeiten, da mangelte es an Zahlen, aber mittlerweile gibt es mehr als genug davon. Leider gibt es immer noch zu wenig Maßgebliches oder Interessantes. Gibt es eigentlich eine Statistik über die Anzahl der IT-Sicherheitsstatistiken?

Cyber Security goes Ballistic

English, Regierungsviertel

I really liked the headline, though I didn’t like what the article said, i.e. that the U.S. President might start a cyber war /launch a preemtive strike without a real conflict with the state in question. The commentator at the Homeland Security Blog gets the point: „While Presidential Policy Directive 20 is secret, what is known about it is sufficient to raise global concern. The US arsenal is stupefying as it is, and cyber capabilities add a new dimension; and preemption brings us back to the fear and insecurity of the chilliest Cold War years. The undertones of the new policy are aggressive and, as of now, there are no known restrictions.“

Unterschätzte Risiken: Turmspringen gen Osten

Angst, Regierungsviertel, Safety, Unterschätzte Risiken, , , , , ,

Im Dieburger Freibad bleibt die obere Hälfte des Sprungturms künftig gesperrt. Der Grund:

»Nach den neuen Vorgaben europaweit geltender Richtlinien muss gewährleistet sein, dass sportliche Badegäste „nicht gegen die Sonne springen“, und dabei Schwimmer im Becken etwa wegen Blendung übersehen, so Thomas. Es dürfe nur noch „nach Norden“ gesprungen werden. Der Sprungturm in Dieburg zeigt nach Osten.«

(Echo Online:
Plötzlich steht der Sprungturm im Dieburger Freibad falsch)

Den Turm erst mittags zu öffnen, wenn die Sonne nicht mehr aus dem Osten scheint, wäre wohl zu einfach gewesen. Das Vorsorgeprinzip hat uns dank der EU fest im Griff – sicher ist sicher, da gibt es keine Diskussion. Oder steckt vielleicht die Freibadsanierungslobby dahinter?

Update: Erst mittags öffnen geht doch.

Mandatory Helmet Laws Reduce … Theft

English, Forschung, Risiko, Security, Studien, Unterwegs,

What happens when a government enacts and enforces a mandatory helmet law for motorcycle riders? According to criminologists, a reduction in motorbike theft follows. The 1989 study Motorcycle Theft, Helmet Legislation and Displacement by Mayhew et al. (paywalled, see Wikpedia summary) demonstrated this effect empirically looking at crime figures from Germany, where not wearing a helmet on a motorcycle is being fined since 1980. This lead to a 60% drop in motorcycle theft – interestingly, with limited compensation by increases in other types of vehicle theft.

The plausible explanation: motorcycle thieves incur higher risk of being caught when riding without a helmet after a spontaneous, opportunistic theft. Adaptation is possible but costly and risky, too: looking for loot with a helmet in one’s hand is more conspicious, and preparing specifically to steal bicycles reduces flexibility and narrows the range of possible targets.

Something to ponder

English, Geschäft, Security, security-industrial complex, Vulnerability, ,

Which of the following statements do you agree or disagree with, and why?

  1. If you get robbed, it’s your fault. You should have carried a gun and used it to defend yourself.
  2. If your home gets burgled, it’s your fault. Your should have secured your home properly.
  3. If you get raped, it’s your fault. Your shouldn’t have worn those sexy clothes, and hey, what were you doing in that park at night?
  4. If your computer gets hacked, it’s your fault. You should have patched the computer every day and used a better password.
  5. If you get run over by a car and injured in the accident, it’s your fault. You should have worn a helmet and a high-viz jacket.
  6. If someone bullies you on the Internet, it’s your fault. You should have used a pseudonym on Facebook.

Do you agree with all, some, or none of these statements? Please elaborate in the comments. I’m not so much interested in nitpicking about the causation of certain incidents – read »your fault« as »in part your fault« if you like so. What interests me rather is the consistency or incocnsistency in our assessment of these matters. If you happen to agree with some of the statements but disagree with others, why is that?

P.S. (2014-09-05): Samuel Liles and Eugene Spafford discuss this matter more thoroughly: What is wrong with all of you? Reflections on nude pictures, victim shaming, and cyber security

Levels of Crime Opportunity

Begriffe, English, Property Degrees, Security

Just came across a crime science paper that expresses an idea similar to my security property degrees:

»In addition, for any crime, opportunities occur at several levels of aggregation. To take residential burglary as an example, a macro level, societal-level cause might be that many homes are left unguarded in the day because most people now work away from home (cf. Cohen and Felson 1979). A meso-level, neighborhood cause could be that many homes in poor public housing estates once used coin-fed fuel meters which offered tempting targets for burglars (as found in Kirkholt, Pease 1991). A micro-level level cause, determining the choices made by a burglar, could be a poorly secured door.«

(Ronald V Clarke: Opportunity makes the thief. Really? And so what?)

Clarke doesn’t elaborate any further on these macro/meso/micro levels of opportunity for crime. Maybe I’m interpreting too much into this paragraph, but in essence he seems to talk about security properties – he is discussing in his paper the proposition that opportunity is a cause of crime and reviews the literature on this subject. Opportunity means properties of places and targets.

CAST-Seminar: Sichere Software entwickeln – Erfahrungen, Methoden, Werkzeuge am 25. April 2013

Events, Security, So geht das, Unterwegs, , ,

Wir veranstalten am 25. April 2013 unter dem Dach des CAST e.V. das Seminar Sichere Software entwickeln – Erfahrungen, Methoden, Werkzeuge. Es wendet sich an Praktiker der Softwareentwicklung, die für die Sicherheit der Ergebnisse verantwortlich sind. Die Themen reichen von Werkzeugen für die Praxis über Schulung und Zertifizierung für Entwickler bis zur Architektur sicherer Software. Das Vortragsprogramm steht auf der Website des CAST e.V., dort erfolgt auch die Anmeldung.

Scamming Scientists

Bedrohung, English, Security

Now this is an interesting specialization of phishing attacks:

»The scam works like this: Someone obtains of a list of articles submitted to — and under review by — a publisher, along with the corresponding author’s contact information. Then, pretending to be the publisher, the scammers send a bogus email to the corresponding author informing him that his paper has been accepted. The email also contains article processing fee information, advising the author to wire the fee to a certain person. The problem is that it’s not the publisher sending out the acceptance emails — it’s a bad guy.«

(Scholarly Open Access: Fraud Alert: Bogus Article Acceptance Letters)

I doubt this constitutes a sustainable attack business model, but the perpetrators surely deserve credit for being adaptive and creative.