Archive for the ‘Database Security’ Category

ACM Digital Identity Management (DIM) 2008 – Deadline extended to 6 June 2008

Posted in Database Security, General by marcocasassamont on June 2nd, 2008 | No Comments
The submission deadline of the 4th ACM DIM 2008 has been extended to 6 June 2008. 

This year theme is on “Services and Identity”. The complete Call-for-Paper can be found here. Please consider submitting a paper. 

 

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My HP blog is Back in the new HP Communities Hosting Site …

Posted in Database Security, General by marcocasassamont on June 2nd, 2008 | No Comments

My HP Blog on “Research on Identity Management” is now back, in the in the new HP Communities Hosting Site.

 Enjoy … 

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Teleconference: Can You Trust Your Trusted Data?

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 29th, 2008 | No Comments

Migration of HP Blogs, including this Blog

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

I wanted to let you know that HP blogs will be migrating to a new platform over the next week. As of today, May 23, I won't be posting to my blog and won't be able to receive any comments submitted. Please hold your comments until June 1 when our new site will be live.

In this period I will anyway carry on posting on my “mirror” blog site on “Research on Identity Management”. In the meanwhile, feel free to post your comments to this mirror site.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Part II: HP and Novell Announce Migration Program for HP Identity Management Customers

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

In a previous post of mine I created awareness about a recent HP News Release, saying that: “HP and Novell announced an exclusive alliance to migrate HP Identity Center customers to Novell identity and security management solutions”.

My HP colleague, Archie Reed, has gone further: he has provided additional background and described HP current approach to Identity Management. Please have a look at his post on “HP and Identity Management”.

Archie, well done: I received a few requests for more information too – your post is addressing them all.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Migration of HP Blogs, including this Blog

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

I wanted to let you know that HP blogs will be migrating to a new platform over the next week. As of today, May 23, I won't be posting to my blog and won't be able to receive any comments submitted. Please hold your comments until June 1 when our new site will be live.

In this period I will anyway carry on posting on my “mirror” blog site on “Research on Identity Management”. In the meanwhile, feel free to post your comments to this mirror site.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Part II: HP and Novell Announce Migration Program for HP Identity Management Customers

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

In a previous post of mine I created awareness about a recent HP News Release, saying that: “HP and Novell announced an exclusive alliance to migrate HP Identity Center customers to Novell identity and security management solutions”.

My HP colleague, Archie Reed, has gone further: he has provided additional background and described HP current approach to Identity Management. Please have a look at his post on “HP and Identity Management”.

Archie, well done: I received a few requests for more information too – your post is addressing them all.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Adapting To Change In The Financial Industry Using Complex Event Processing

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments
In financial markets, the proprietary trading environment has changed significantly over the past 20 years. As we will show in this case study from a North American proprietary trading firm, time is the enemy not only of execution but also of development responsiveness when creating and undertaking trading strategies. Development and processing versatility are important to this firm; to continue to profit, it needs to avoid being pigeonholed into specific methods of developing trading strategies. Understanding what changed and how, and what is now changing, explains why this firm introduced complex event processing (CEP), as well as how it delivered a rapid application development environment for creating trading strategies.

Migration of HP Blogs, including this Blog

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

I wanted to let you know that HP blogs will be migrating to a new platform over the next week. As of tomorrow, May 23, I won't be posting to my blog and won't be able to receive any comments submitted. Please hold your comments until June 1 when our new site will be live.

In this period I will anyway carry on posting on my “mirror” blog site on “Research on Identity Management”. In the meanwhile, feel free to post your comments to this mirror site.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

HP and Novell Announce Migration Program for HP Identity Management Customers

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

HP Identity Management customers might be interested in this recent News Release by HP:

“HP and Novell today announced an exclusive alliance to migrate HP Identity Center customers to Novell identity and security management solutions.

As part of an agreement between the companies, HP and Novell will jointly offer migration services, HP will resell Novell identity and security management solutions and Novell will license HP Identity Center technology.

Earlier this year, HP announced it will focus its investment in identity management products on existing customers rather than selling the products to new customers. To ensure that they continue to have access to exemplary identity management solutions, existing HP customers can take advantage of this program and migrate to Novell’s industry-leading offerings. Customers who choose not to migrate will continue to be supported by HP. …”

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Phorm Spoiler Launched by a Privacy Group

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

As reported in this article, a privacy group (The Anti-Phorm Group) has launched a “Phorm Spoiler”, to deal with the fact that ISPs and Phorm Advertising Services are increasingly collecting personal data and profiles based un users’ surfing behaviours. An Anti-Phorm application is available for download online:

“The AntiPhorm group - which describes itself as "a loose conglomeration of concerned individuals comprised of artists, programmers and designers" - says it wants to prevent ISPs from profiting from their customers' personal surfing habits. …

To throw Phorm off the scent, the team has developed an application called AntiPhormLite that sits in the background, visiting random sites. "It connects to the web and intelligently simulates natural surfing behaviour across thousands of customisable topics," the site claims.”

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Seminar (23 May 2008): An Empirical Analysis of Phishing Attack and Defense

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

People in UK might be interested in this Seminar by Tyler Moore, titled “An Empirical Analysis of Phishing Attack and Defense”, that is going to take place at the University of Bath, UK, on Friday, 23 May 2008. The abstract follows:

“A key way in which banks mitigate the effects of phishing attacks is to remove the fraudulent websites and abusive domain names hosting them. We have gathered and analyzed empirical data on phishing website removal times and the number of visitors that the websites attract. We find that website removal is part of the answer to phishing, but it is not fast enough to completely mitigate the problem. Phishing-website lifetimes follow a long-tailed lognormal distribution -- while many sites are removed quickly, others remain much longer. We have found evidence that one group responsible for half of all phishing, the rock-phish gang, cooperates by pooling hosting resources and by targeting many banks simultaneously. The gang's architectural innovations have significantly extended their websites' average lifetime. Using response data obtained from the servers hosting phishing websites, we also provide a ballpark estimate of the total losses due to phishing. Phishing-website removal is often subcontracted to specialist companies. We analyze three months of 'feeds' of phishing website URLs from multiple sources, including two such companies. We demonstrate that in each case huge numbers of websites may be known to others, but the company with the take-down contract remains unaware, or learns of sites only belatedly. Upon calculating the resultant increase in lifetimes caused by the take-down company's lack of action, the results categorically demonstrate that significant amounts of money are being put at risk by the failure to share proprietary feeds of URLs.”

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

HP and Novell Announce Migration Program for HP Identity Management Customers

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

HP Identity Management customers might be interested in this recent News Release by HP:

“HP and Novell today announced an exclusive alliance to migrate HP Identity Center customers to Novell identity and security management solutions.

As part of an agreement between the companies, HP and Novell will jointly offer migration services, HP will resell Novell identity and security management solutions and Novell will license HP Identity Center technology.

Earlier this year, HP announced it will focus its investment in identity management products on existing customers rather than selling the products to new customers. To ensure that they continue to have access to exemplary identity management solutions, existing HP customers can take advantage of this program and migrate to Novell’s industry-leading offerings. Customers who choose not to migrate will continue to be supported by HP. …”

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Phorm Spoiler Launched by a Privacy Group

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

As reported in this article, a privacy group (The Anti-Phorm Group) has launched a “Phorm Spoiler”, to deal with the fact that ISPs and Phorm Advertising Services are increasingly collecting personal data and profiles based un users’ surfing behaviours. An Anti-Phorm application is available for download online:

“The AntiPhorm group - which describes itself as "a loose conglomeration of concerned individuals comprised of artists, programmers and designers" - says it wants to prevent ISPs from profiting from their customers' personal surfing habits. …

To throw Phorm off the scent, the team has developed an application called AntiPhormLite that sits in the background, visiting random sites. "It connects to the web and intelligently simulates natural surfing behaviour across thousands of customisable topics," the site claims.”

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Seminar (23 May 2008): An Empirical Analysis of Phishing Attack and Defense

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

People in UK might be interested in this Seminar by Tyler Moore, titled “An Empirical Analysis of Phishing Attack and Defense”, that is going to take place at the University of Bath, UK, on Friday, 23 May 2008. The abstract follows:

“A key way in which banks mitigate the effects of phishing attacks is to remove the fraudulent websites and abusive domain names hosting them. We have gathered and analyzed empirical data on phishing website removal times and the number of visitors that the websites attract. We find that website removal is part of the answer to phishing, but it is not fast enough to completely mitigate the problem. Phishing-website lifetimes follow a long-tailed lognormal distribution -- while many sites are removed quickly, others remain much longer. We have found evidence that one group responsible for half of all phishing, the rock-phish gang, cooperates by pooling hosting resources and by targeting many banks simultaneously. The gang's architectural innovations have significantly extended their websites' average lifetime. Using response data obtained from the servers hosting phishing websites, we also provide a ballpark estimate of the total losses due to phishing. Phishing-website removal is often subcontracted to specialist companies. We analyze three months of 'feeds' of phishing website URLs from multiple sources, including two such companies. We demonstrate that in each case huge numbers of websites may be known to others, but the company with the take-down contract remains unaware, or learns of sites only belatedly. Upon calculating the resultant increase in lifetimes caused by the take-down company's lack of action, the results categorically demonstrate that significant amounts of money are being put at risk by the failure to share proprietary feeds of URLs.”

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

IT Assets And EU E-Waste Legislation

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 20th, 2008 | No Comments
The closest the European Union (EU) has to a standard on e-waste is the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. As is the case for many such EU regulations, each country legislates for WEEE differently, and current legislation primarily focuses on household e-waste. Business WEEE remains largely a non-issue due to the "closed loop" contract nature of business-to-business IT assets, high rates of recycling, and existing service contracts that generally cover asset disposal. But where these conditions don't exist, executives should explicitly map out who is responsible for WEEE during the vendor evaluation phase of a service engagement and plan accordingly. Failing to do so can drive up the costs of IT assets right at the moment when firms need to retire them.

Teleconference: Strong Authentication: Choosing The Right Lock For Your Front Door

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 20th, 2008 | No Comments

Industry Essential: The US Retail Banking Market

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 19th, 2008 | No Comments
At the end of 2007, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured banks in the US held nearly $6.9 trillion in deposits, supported more than 73,000 branches, and employed 1.8 million people. With changing demographics, increasing choices for consumer financial services, and pressures to reduce costs, retail banks are looking to improve the efficiency and productivity of their assets and create enduring relationships with customers. Even in a challenging economic climate, the banking industry is more dependent on information technology than ever before. How should vendors position their technology to buyers and influencers in the US retail banking market? Forrester's Industry Essential report explains the structure of the US retail banking industry, its business and technology trends, and technology investment forecasts.

Chip’s Blog - Researcher at Blue Hat Convention Has Bad News for SQL Server

Posted in Database Security, General by Chip Andrews on May 18th, 2008 | No Comments
Well - SQL Server and most all other Windows services that implement impersonation - that is. Appare...

Chip’s Blog - Researcher at Blue Hat Convention Has Bad News for SQL Server

Posted in Database Security, General by Chip Andrews on May 18th, 2008 | No Comments
Well - SQL Server and most all other Windows services that implement impersonation - that is. Appare...

EU PICOS Project: Investigating Trust, Privacy and IdM in Mobile Communities

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 16th, 2008 | No Comments

The EU PICOS Project (FP7) is a consortium consisting of eleven partners from seven different countries of the EU. It involves specialists from the fields of science, research and industry.

PICOS stands for “Privacy and Identity Management for Community Services”:

“Within 3 years, PICOS will investigate and develop a state-of-the-art platform for providing trust, privacy and identity management in mobile communities”.

The official PICOS web site is now available online. On this site you can also access the PICOS fact-sheet.

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EU PICOS Project: Investigating Trust, Privacy and IdM in Mobile Communities

Posted in Database Security, General by Marco Casassa Mont on May 16th, 2008 | No Comments

The EU PICOS Project (FP7) is a consortium consisting of eleven partners from seven different countries of the EU. It involves specialists from the fields of science, research and industry.

PICOS stands for “Privacy and Identity Management for Community Services”:

“Within 3 years, PICOS will investigate and develop a state-of-the-art platform for providing trust, privacy and identity management in mobile communities”.

The official PICOS web site is now available online. On this site you can also access the PICOS fact-sheet.

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog to post anonymous (un-authenticated) comments ---

Security And Privacy Essentials For IT Outsourcing Deals

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 16th, 2008 | No Comments
Global spending on IT services and outsourcing was estimated at $488 billion in 2007 and is predicted to rise an additional 9% in 2008. At $120 billion, IT outsourcing constitutes roughly 25% of this spending. Organizations engaged in outsourcing will require sufficient security and privacy controls to protect their investments and reduce risks to their sensitive information. Security and privacy professionals should be an integral part of the outsourcing process, from developing the request for proposal (RFP) to signing the contract. But the job isn't complete just because the contract has been signed; the outsourcing relationship needs to be monitored, the contract components need to be enforced, and business value needs to be realized.

More Green Progress In Enterprise IT

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 16th, 2008 | No Comments
Forrester completed its third survey of enterprise IT professionals in April 2008 to understand the state of green IT awareness and adoption in corporate computing. Our latest survey results show continuing advancement of both awareness and activity, but the adoption of green IT varies significantly by geography and industry. Vendor strategists looking to position their products and their firm to capture enterprise's growing green mindshare must tune their messaging to match these important variables.

“IdM Risk Management” and “Identity Analytics”: Anything Else Apart From “Bottom-Up” Approaches?

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 13th, 2008 | No Comments

I was wondering if anybody in this community could share references to relevant material/links/documents/research projects illustrating the current status of:

(1) Risk Analysis and Management in the space of Identity Management

(2) Identity Analytics

My current search and assessment of this space has identified various technologies, solutions and work coming from a “compliance management” perspective i.e. (a) assessing events and evidence (e.g. logs) against expected processes/policies and (b) providing results that indicate the level of compliance and risk exposure. This is what I call the “bottom-up” approach where the “risk assessment” is done against predefined policies and/or well defined situations.

So far I have not found good examples of “top-down” solutions that help decision makers (e.g. CIOs, CISOs, etc.) to explore trade-offs in the Identity Management space (e.g. making investments in education vs IT solutions vs outsourcing vs etc.) to understand the impact on factor of relevance for an organisation (e.g. costs, reputation, losses, trust, etc.), make compelling decisions and potentially help them to define suitable policies.

A specific example would be decision support solutions that help understanding the trade-offs between adopting (in an organisation) the usage of strong passwords, SSO, multi-factor authentication, etc. against involved costs, the value of the assets to be protected, the kind of involved users and the actual benefits in terms of security. More in general these solutions should provide insights about potential trade-offs between various possible choices in the IdM space (in terms of authentication, authorization, provisioning, federation/SSO, privacy, etc.) against complex organisational realities and their business objectives. Modelling and simulation might be required to cope with the involved complexity …

Is anybody aware of specific research/work/solutions in this space?

CIOs/CISOs are increasingly asked to justify the reasons behind their security investments and/or have to make investment choices that must “maximise” their “expected outcomes” based on ever-shrinking budgets. I see the opportunity for “top-down” decision support, modelling and simulation solutions that can effectively help these decision makers, specifically in the Identity Management space …

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Teleconference: How To Choose An AP Invoice Processing Product

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 13th, 2008 | No Comments

Teleconference: Market Overview: Emergency Notification And Communication

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 13th, 2008 | No Comments

PLING panel at WWW 2008

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 13th, 2008 | No Comments

A PLING panel has been held at the WWW 2008 conference (Beijing 23-25 April), discussing policies and Policy-aware Web.

The list of panellists includes: Renato Iannella (Moderator), Piero Bonatti, Llana Kagal, Thomas Roessler.

The slides presented in this panel are now available online.

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Biometrics: State Of The Art And Future Implications

Posted in Database Security, General by Bill Nagel on May 12th, 2008 | No Comments
Biometrics has matured to the point where several technologies have been internationally standardized and incorporated into major international and national identity verification implementations across both the public and private sectors. Because these biometrics technologies are being incorporated into mainstream government to citizen (G2C) and business to consumer (B2C) identification processes, broader adoption of these technologies can be accomplished more quickly and at lower cost than was previously possible. The prospect of biometrics becoming the principle consumer and citizen identification method through incorporation into government and commercial credentials is now close enough for CISOs to begin active consideration for adopting them in their enterprise business processes.

HP Labs Opens Research Opportunities to Academia

Posted in Database Security, General by Research on Identity Management Blog on May 7th, 2008 | No Comments

As announced in a recent press release, HP Labs are opening research opportunities to academia:

“HP today made it possible for colleges, universities and research institutions worldwide to participate in joint research with HP Labs, the company’s central research facility, through an open and competitive process.

The new HP Labs Innovation Research Program invites the worldwide academic community to submit proposals related to current research in the areas of information explosion, dynamic cloud services, content transformation, intelligent infrastructure and sustainability.

The program is the first offering of the HP Labs Open Innovation Office, which was established earlier this year as part of HP Labs’ new approach to research. The office is responsible for deepening HP Labs’ strategic collaborations with academia, the government and the commercial sector to produce mutually beneficial, high-impact research. …

Program guidelines and the online submission tool are available at www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp. Proposals will go through an extensive review process within HP Labs. Selected winners will be notified in late 2008.”

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