Doug on IP Comm » IP security

Verizon adds IPsec to wholesale VoIP offerings

Doug Mohney — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:50:57 +0000

Verizon (www.verizon.com) Global Wholesale has added IPsec tunneling to its SIP Gateway Service, toll free IP termination, and carrier IP termination transport. All three services can share a single IPsec connection.

According to Verizon, it is the only “major provider” offering IPSec, adding an additional layer of standardized security goodness without requiring vendor-specific security protocols.

Verizon says its SIP Gateway service carriers billions of minutes of use per quarter.

VC looking for security — those that are left

Doug Mohney — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:02:27 +0000

VC firms — those not cleaned out by the dot.bomb crash of 2000-2001 and the Great Recession — will be looking to invest in security companies in forthcoming funds. What with all the data breeches, stolen credit cards, and cyberwar battles across Eastern Europe over the past three years, better tools and systems are needed for such initiatives such as online health care and banking.

However, there won’t be massive hordes of firms looking to hand out money to anyone with a PowerPoint and a good idea. There will be fewer funds (see: Great Recession of 20xx) and the (mostly old-money) survivors are back to fundamentals of business plans, profitability, and investment horizons of 5 to 7 years.

The most interesting talk at DEFCON 17 you might miss

Doug Mohney — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:34:26 +0000

Launched by West Point and formalized in 2001, the annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) pits representatives from the military service academies defending a computer network against a “Red Team” staffed by some of the more devious people from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the military services.

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy – the smallest and without a computer science department – has managed to hold its own in competitions and win it in 2004, beating its better-funded and organized brothers at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), the Air Force Academy, and the Naval Academy.

How’d the Merchant Marine u-grads do it? Team adviser and assistant professor Efstratios Gavas will tell all at DEFCON 17 this year in “Asymmetric Defense: How to Fight Off the NSA Red Team with Five People or Less.” While West Point more recently had a monopoly on the CDX trophy in recent years, Gavas should have good insights for any IT security professional looking to tighten the network at home.

Kudos should also be extended to the Information Assurance staff at West Point. The Army’s professors have championed cybersecurity wayyyy way back at the undergraduate level for both military and civilian higher education. If the Chinese or Russians decide to play mean on the Internet, West Point’s influence will be involved in the defense.

DEFCON founder joins the gov't security establishment

Doug Mohney — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:15:03 +0000

DEFCON and Black Hat founder Jeff Moss now sits on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Woah!!!

Moss (aka “Dark Tangent”) will be one of 16 people providing recommendations and advice through the HSAC to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Quite a leap for the guy who started DEFCON as a big party and parlayed the event into big money when he spun up the Black Hat security conferences.

Having followed DEFCON and Moss for a number of years, he’s not one to shy away from controversy and “Speaking truth to power.” In some respects, I can’t say I’m totally surprised; Moss has been inviting “The Feds” to DEFCON over a number of years with current and former employees of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the Army speaking at DEFCON conferences. The federal security community has a level of comfort working with Moss and they know he’s a pragmatic and a holistic thinker that isn’t bottlenecked into a single practice or discipline.

Perhaps the real surprise is the relative boldness and progressiveness of The Establishment has shown in inviting Moss. We can only but hope that when Moss speaks, The Man takes the time to listen.

Source: CNET