Amrit Williams Blog
Observations of a Digitally Enlightened Mind
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Gartner Magic Quadrant Under Fire – Lawsuit Alleges Defamation and more
A storm is brewing throughout the analyst community as one of the largest and most influential technology analyst firms comes under fire for one of their highest prized research artifacts The Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) ZL Technologies has filed a lawsuit alleging damages from Gartners Email and A …
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Microsoft Security Essentials Impact on Enterprise Security
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50th “Beyond The Perimeter” Podcast HighLights
Not too long ago I embarked on a creating a podcast series that would provide more regularity than the blog. Beyond the Perimeter has been a tremendous amount of fun and as we just posted our 50th podcast I wanted to reflect on some of the highlights and wonderful guests we have been honored to [... …
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Has Technology Killed Privacy?
From Computer World UK (here) There is little doubt that advances in technology have radically changed many aspects of our lives, from healthcare to manufacturing, from supply chains to battlefields, we are experiencing an unprecedented technical revolution. Unfortunately, technology enables the a …
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The Long IT Security Industry Winter
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Peter Kuper and discuss the impact the economic crisis has had on the IT security industry on the latest Beyond the Perimeter podcast (here). Peter Kuper, former analyst Morgan Stanley and SC Gowen, now associated with the IANS (Institute for Applied N …
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Bill To Provide Presidental Authority to Turn Off the Internets
CNETs Declan McCullagh recently posted an article on aspects of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Bill would give President emergency control of the Internet The new version would allow the president to declare a cybersecurity emergency relating to non-governmental computer networks and do whats necess …
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Sysadmin of the Year – Rock on!
Is there a rock star in your midst? Were talking about sysadmins here—the unsung rock stars of IT. The kind of sysadmin that plays the network blindfolded and upside down like Stevie Ray Vaughn, makes ch, ch, changes faster than David Bowie, smashes hackers like Pete Townsend does with guitar …
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The US Cyber Challenge Wants You
As part of the administrations continuing efforts to actually do something tangible to improve the security posture of US critical infrastructure and to better deal with a severe lack of technical talent the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) announced the US Cyber Challenge (here …
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North Korea Cyber Scape Goat of the World
Never before have so many misrepresented so much about so little In all my years in the security industry I do not believe I have read more misinformation than the nonsense surrounding the recent DDoS attacks. Apparently North Korea is waging Cyber Warfare, or if not an actual all out cyberwar they …
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Client-Side Virtualization Part III: HAL 9000, Hosted Virtual Desktops, and the Death Star
Systems and security management is difficult, ineffective, costly and becoming ever more so in increasingly distributed, heterogeneous, complex, and mobile computing environments 98% of all external attacks take advantage of poorly administered, misconfigured, and unmanaged systems (Source: Veriz …
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Client-Side Virtualization Episode II: Standardization, Attack of the Clones and Desktops Reloaded
Consolidation is the major benefit or killer app for server/data center virtualization. Standardization is the major benefit or killer app for client-side virtualization. As I was pondering the challenges of current systems management processes, researching the latest and greatest from the client-s …
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Client-Side Virtualization Overview Part 1; The Good, The Bad, and The Reality
To address the increasing cost and complexity of managing dynamic IT environments organizations are trying to understand how to adopt virtualization technologies. The value proposition and “killer app” are quite clear in the data center, however less attention has been given to the opportunities for …
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The Whitehouse Releases 60 Day Cyber Security Review
Early after President Obama was nominated I wrote an open letter to President Obama for actions that I believed the administration would need to take in the first 90-days Open Letter to Barack Obama: Securing Critical Infrastructure The First 90 Days These included a policy review and some suggesti …
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The Top 5 Cyber Security Myths
Given the media hype around the Conficker worm (and now Gumblar), and the constant barrage of alarming disclosure announcements, I thought it would be a good time to take a calmer look at some of the security myths, misconceptions and mistruths that plague the industry. Many of these cyber security …
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Cloud-Computing Solves Patching Problem…IT Admins Please Report to HR for Immediate Dismissal
So apparently the latest version of the Qualys Laws of Vulnerabilty Report has Qualys jumping to some pretty outrageous claims about how cloud-computing invented by Qualys according to Courtot (insert cute smiley here) can secure IT more effectively or allow people to not patch any more or some su …
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Cybergeddon: A Cyberwarfare Fable
There has been much discussion lately about cyberwarfare. This article US Should go on Cyber Offensive in the BBC represents the typical media slant on the issue A US Air Force officer has told the BBC that his country should create an offensive botnet to target any forces that launch a cyber-attack …
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Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated…
Yes I know it has been some time since I have posted a blog entry. The pain and suffering this has caused I can only imagine has been unbearable. Many of you must be feeling the nauseating withdrawal like symptoms of not enough me, but do not fear you will no longer need to remain in a fetal positio …
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eWeek Podcast with Mike Vizard on Conficker, Hype, and the Media…
I recorded a podcast with eWeeks Mike Vizard last week discussing the media, hype, conficker and why so many organizations are falling behind in implementing even a basic level of systems and security management (here)enjoy!
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SC Magazine: Securing the Mobile Endpoint
Quotes from a recent SC Magazine article Increased Mobile Working Has Caused a Rethink on Endpoint Security (here) focuses on encryption, cloud-computing and desktop virtualization Data breaches have pointed to the importance of encryption at endpoints that contain business data, and growing numbers …
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On Conficker: The Return of the High-Profile Mass Infection Worm
Their back! It has been awhile since we had a good old fashioned, highly publicized, hysteria inducing, globally distributed, mass-infecting worm. The AV vendors (here) and (here) must be ecstatic that 2009 is really turning out to be the year of the largest security incidents since the beginning of …
Amrit Williams Blog
