RE: Application-level Attacks

["Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com>]

> "The current generation of firewalls focuses on the network level, kind
> of like the walls of a fort stopping direct attack," said Pescatore.
> "However, close to 75% of today's attacks are tunneling through
> applications. 

This sounds like typical Gartner-spew. There's nothing there
to back up the numbers, no methodology, no science. How
did Pescatore come up with that figure, is what I want to
know? My guess is he found it in the bottom of a box of
Cracker Jacks.

The reason I jumped on your post is because I strongly
believe that in order for computer security to grow up and
stop being an intellectual backwater - we need to apply a
little science and attempt to accurately quantify what we
are doing. That means no more analysts practicing
proctological numerology, no more self-selected samples
used in polls, no more proof by vigorous hand-waving.

The article you reference is a thinly-veiled puff piece for
"application security gateways" (read: marketing's new
word for proxy firewalls)

mjr. 

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