The emotional content of security

I think in the security space, we spend too much time on the business justification and functional part of security (reducing risk, detection data breach violations, complying with HIPAA,  writing secure Web 2.0 applications, securing cloud services, security information management etc…). I think we’re ignoring the emotional content of security and I don’t necessarily mean […]

How to convert a web application to a multi-tenant SaaS solution

Of course, putting an application into a cloud data center is not enough. You have to think about application security, data security and compliance such as PCI DSS 2.0 or HIPAA if you are in the life science space. But – in addition to cloud security, you need to make sure that your Web application […]

Securing Web services in the cloud

Almost every SaaS (software as a service) is based on REST or XML Web services.  In this post, I’d like to provide a brief introduction to some typical threats and security countermeasures to protect Web services; Malicious Attack on the message The beauty of  HTTP Web Services is that traffic flows through port 80 and […]

Protecting your data in the cloud

Several factors combine to make data security in the cloud a challenge. Web applications have fundamental vulnerabilities. HTTP is the cloud protocol of choice for everything from file backup in the cloud to Sales force management in the cloud. HTTP and HTML evolved from a protocol for static file delivery to a protocol for 2 […]

Making security live in a performance culture

In a recent PCI seminar I attended,  the speaker (who hails from the European PCI Security Council) claimed that most European businesses were in a very bad place in terms of their data security but that that the ultimate business objective is 100 percent compliance. I’ve heard similar pronouncements from industry analysts like Forrester. This is problematic for […]

Why Rich Web 2.0 may break the cloud

There are some good reasons why cloud computing is growing so rapidly. First of all there are  the technology enablers: Bandwidth and computing power is cheap. Software development is more accessible than ever. Small software teams can develop great products and distribute it world wide instantly. But cloud computing goes beyond supply-side economics and directly […]

Data availability and integrity – the Apple/Microsoft version

I have over 2,300 contacts on my iPhone and like any reasonable person, I wanted to backup  my contacts. I figure my iPhone wont last forever. Like a fool, I thought it might be a good idea to test the restore process also. The Ubunutu One service based on Funambol doesn’t really work so that […]

Secure collaboration, agile collaboration

One of the biggest challenges in global multi-center clinical trials (after enrollment of patients) is collaboration between multi-center clinical trial teams: CRAs, investigators, regulatory, marketing, manufacturing, market research, data managers, statisticians and site administrators. In a complex global environment, pharma do not have control of computer platforms that local sites use – yet there is […]

How can we convince our VP that a network-based DLP makes sense?

My colleague, Michel Godet – sent me a link to an article that Mike Rothman recently wrote. Michel  (rightly) thinks that it supports the approach that we have been pushing in Europe for over a year now, to justify data security technology investments by using Value at Risk calculations. Mike’s article – building a business […]

USDA bans non IE browsers

The new Israeli administration has invited Microsoft to head a government IT steering comittee – the item caused a bit of a ruckus in the Israeli Open Source community a few months ago – although I personally feel that as the world’s largest software vendor – they have a lot to contribute. Now I think […]