RE: RE: In defense of non standard ports

["Bill Royds" <bill () royds net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: firewall-wizards-admin () honor icsalabs com On Behalf Of Paul D. Robertson

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006, R. DuFresne wrote:



> Now to the end of the statement, do they have pull with mgt?  Well, they 
> are pulling in a far different direction the more they tend to ruffle 
> whole departments by crying wolf <sorry, no that trojan port your nessus 
> scan spotted means less this month then it did last month you spewed it 
> up the mgt hill on our RACF mainframe, or sorry no your nessus skills are 
> not truly honed if you think pcanywhere is running on that solaris box>.

But it's a long climb from "Hey, you're a computer person, here's a 
security hat" to "Hey, let's hire some security people."  That's a big 
jump forward- NOW we need to direct that energy more productively.  That's 
why I think we need to go back and start rattling firewall ruleset cages 
instead of looking at shiny IDS reports, we've now got to get some 
common, solid, understood security baseline industry-wide, otherwise we 
all get painted with the "ineffective" brush.
---------------------

I have just started to teach a course in computer/information security to people
studying for a community college diploma in (physical) security management. They
are not computer types but are much more aware of the principles of security
than most computer people. Perhaps these are the people to help get computer
security out of the bench jockey mode and into the "this a priority in how we
run this organization" mode. 
   Interestingly with respect to non standard ports. Yesterday I explained that
computer ports are somewhat like doors and loading bays in a building. One of
the principles of physical security is that you should never allow a door to be
unlocked without authorization (either a guard or an authorized person with the
key). They were aghast when I explained that some systems let people arbitrarily
add new ports to their servers without a security review for the necessity. It
would be a firing offence to have someone decide that they could leave a loading
dock open all week just so that someone could deliver something next Saturday.

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