ZDNnet: Securing data from the threat within [by buying products]

["Kenneth R. van Wyk" <Ken () krvw com>]

Greetings all,

I saw a moderately interesting article this morning on ZDNet (see 
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5520016.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed for the 
full text).  The premise of the article is about how companies have been 
building external perimeters for years and now they need to also protect 
themselves from insiders, because, "...now discontented, reckless and greedy 
employees, and disgruntled former workers, can all be bigger threats than the 
mysterious hacker."

The article goes on to list some new products, technologies, and methods for 
protecting data from the insiders.  It says, "a whole new class of products 
has sprung up aimed at keeping employees and other insiders from sending 
confidential information outside the company."  It describes network-level 
products as well as the need for client-level products for monitoring and 
controlling data flow.

IMHO, what's missing here is a discussion on writing better enterprise 
applications that make effective use of concepts like role-based access 
control, transaction/event logging and monitoring, etc.  In fact, the article 
would lead an IT security manager to think that the only solution to insider 
problems is to buy more security products.  Frustrating...

To find a fairly "mainstream" article like this that is (again, IMHO) so 
thoroughly off base really makes me wonder whether the Software Security 
community is making progress or not.  Opinions?

Cheers,

Ken van Wyk
-- 
KRvW Associates, LLC
http://www.KRvW.com