Re: SearchSecurity: Cyber Security and the Law

[Gary McGraw <gem () cigital com>]

hi greg,

Good question.  I'm biased of course, but I think a BSIMM type measurement
is the best way to approach this.  (See http://bsimm.com.)  However,
regardless of measurement I strongly believe that incentives are way
better than regulations and penalties.

Because the Senate bill was blocked yesterday by a Republican filibuster
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/us/politics/cybersecurity-bill-blocked-b
y-gop-filibuster.html> we may have a chance to revisit some of these ideas
next session!

On the BSIMM front, we now have 51 firms measured and will be compiling
BSIMM4 next week for release in the Fall.

gem

company www.cigital.com
podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet
blog www.cigital.com/justiceleague
book www.swsec.com

On 8/2/12 3:13 PM, "Greg Beeley" <Greg.Beeley () lightsys org> wrote:

> How would we recognize good engineering?
>
> It seems to me like the very same problem faced by the idea of software
> liability law - that it is hard to define good engineering for software
> security - would be faced by an incentive program.  If "good
> engineering" is fuzzy enough to give a big corporate legal dept the
> upper hand against an individual, wouldn't it be similarly fuzzy enough
> to counter the fairness of a tax incentive?
>
> Tax breaks are a big deal - I doubt the government is going to want to
> issue tax breaks to a company because the company claims they have
> achieved level X in a CMM -- think about the economic cost in
> demonstrating something like that to the point where it is fair and
> worth something.  I also doubt that a metric based on vulnerability
> counts will work -- that will just encourage companies to hide
> vulnerabilities, fixing them silently and/or with great delay, instead
> of disclosing them.
>
> Not that I think that incentives inherently wouldn't work -- rather I'd
> be interested in seeing some discussion here on some of the above issues.
>
> One alternative that has worked well in many other areas of
> manufacturing -- encourage some kind of limited warranty, at least in
> certain industries.  For consumer mobile devices, it might be something
> as simple as, "if your device's security is ever compromised due to a
> flaw in the bundled device software, we'll repair it free of charge".
> The big challenges are 1) getting customers to care about their device's
> security, and 2) making a vendor's commitment to security recognizable
> by the customer.  By no means ideal, but at least a talking point.
>
> - Greg
>
> Gary McGraw wrote, On 08/02/2012 08:40 AM:
> > Hi Jeff,
> >
> > I'm afraid I disagree.  The hyperbolic way to state this is, imagine
> > YOUR
> > lawyer faced down by Microsoft's army of lawyers. You lose.
> >
> > Software liability is not the way to go in my opinion.  Instead, I would
> > like to see the government develop incentives for good engineering.
> >
> > gem
> >
> > On 8/2/12 10:26 AM, "Jeffrey Walton" <noloader () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Dr. McGraw,
> > >
> > > > Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed by
> > > > there House in April) has very little to say about building security
> > > > in.
> > > I'm convinced (in the US) that users/consumers need a comprehensive
> > > set of software liability laws. Consider the number of mobile devices
> > > that are vulnerable because OEMs stopped providing (or never provided)
> > > patches for vulnerabilities. The equation [risk analysis] needs to be
> > > unbalanced just a bit to get manufacturers to act (do nothing is cost
> > > effective at the moment).
> > >
> > > Jeff
> > >
> > > On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Gary McGraw <gem () cigital com> wrote:
> > > > hi sc-l,
> > > >
> > > > This month's [in]security article takes on Cyber Law as its topic.
> > > > The
> > > > US Congress has been debating a cyber security bill this session and
> > > > is
> > > > close to passing something.  Sadly, the Cybersecurity and Internet
> > > > Freedom Act currently being considered in the Senate (as an answer to
> > > > the problematic  Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)
> > > > passed by there House in April) has very little to say about building
> > > > security in.
> > > >
> > > > Though cyber law has always lagged technical reality by several years,
> > > > ignoring the notion of building security in is a fundamental flaw.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/opinion/Congress-should-encourage-
> > > > bu
> > > > g-fixes-reward-secure-systems
> > > >
> > > > Please read this month's article and pass it on far and wide.  Send a
> > > > copy to your representatives in all branches of government.  It is
> > > > high
> > > > time for the government to tune in to cyber security properly.
> >
> >
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