Tag: infosec

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Metronidazole and Kuala Lumpur

OK, so I haven’t even posted a Weekly Wrap and it’s already Tuesday night. However the abscess on my left jaw flared up again on the weekend, and I’ve been put on more serious antibiotics, including the rather nasty metronidazole (pictured).

So, as I write this, I’m about to board Malaysia Airlines flight MH140 to Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days of Kaspersky Lab’s reportedly-generous hospitality — and I can’t have a single drop of alcohol lest I become immediately and seriously ill. Look it up. It’s true.

Bugger, eh?

More news once I touch down in KL…

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Weekly Wrap 64: Unexpected schedule changes

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. The balance of the week felt right, but Mistress Insomnia certainly made her presence felt.

My schedule also changed a lot this week, and I ended up spending the entire time in Sydney. I return to Wentworth Falls tomorrow.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 102, “Political, economic hacking needs attention”. An interview with Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, and author of Revealed: Operation Shady RAT (PDF), which exposed a hacking operation that had compromised 72 organisations.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Wednesday I spoke with Keith Conlon and John Kenneally on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa about the 20th anniversary of the web and what the future might hold.
  • On Thursday I spoke with Bernadette Young on ABC Gold Coast about the resignation of Steve Jobs. The recording failed part-way through, so I haven’t posted it here. But I will if you want me to.
  • Also on Thursday I spoke with Tom Elliott on Melbourne radio 3AW, also about Steve Jobs. I’ve already posted a recording.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I attended the Security 2011 Expo & Conference at Darling Harbour. As is usual for when one has a media pass to such events, I was given free food and drink.
  • Also on Wednesday I went to Text 100’s Christmas in August Event. Text 100 is a PR firm, and Christmas in August is where their clients show off their new consumer gadgetry that’ll be on sale for Christmas. The food and drink was free. And copious. Too copious. Way too copious.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Leichhardt Town Hall, Sydney. I wasn’t in Leichhardt at all this week. This photo was taken on 17 July 2011. I didn’t have any photos from this week that were suitable.]

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Covering the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference

As soon as I arrive back from my trip to Kuala Lumpur on 13 September, I’m off to Canberra for the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference on 14 and 15 September. No I won’t be. See the comments.

I’m covering it for CSO Online, and for the moment I’m assuming that’ll be in the form of written material. I’d also like to cover it for the Patch Monday podcast, but I don’t think that’ll be possible due to the contractual arrangements.

The event itself runs for a day and a half. An afternoon of presentations followed by a day of roundtable discussions. I’m looking forward to it.

If there’s anything else happening in Canberra either side of this event, please let me know so I can plan to attend,

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Visiting Kuala Lumpur for Kaspersky Lab

Just 10 days from now I’m flying to Kuala Lumpur as the guest of Kaspersky Lab, the information security company. It’ll be my first time to Malaysia.

The event is a briefing for Kaspersky’s partners and the media in the Asia-Pacific region about their new Endpoint Security 8 for Windows product, due for release in October.

The event itself is Thursday 8 and Friday 9 September, but I arrive early on Wednesday 7 and fly out late on Monday 12, so I’ll have three or four days to explore the city.

Any suggestions for what I should do and see?

As an aside, I’ve actually met the founder, Eugene Kaspersky. We were seated together on the panel discussion Is cloud secure enough for business? at the AusCERT Conference on information security. He’s everything you’d expect a Russian billionaire to be. However I’m fairly sure he won’t be at the KL event.

[Photo: Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, by Amber de Bruin, used under a Creative Commons BY license.]

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Weekly Wrap 62: LinkedIn and Hacking edition

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, one day late and without a picture. I find it hard to get excited about creating these posts, but I suppose they’re useful.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 100, “Cybersecurity: past, present and future”. A conversation with Dr Paul Nielsen director and CEO of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, parent of CERT.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

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Patch Monday: Cybersecurity: past, present and future

Last week I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr Paul Nielsen, director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburg. This week’s Patch Monday podcast is that entire interview.

SEI is the parent organisation of CERT, the original computer emergency response team set up with US Department of Defense funding after the Morris Worm scared the bejesus out of everyone.

Before joining SEI, Dr Nielsen had a 32-year career in the military, reaching the rank of Major General. For a time he commanded the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he managed an annual research and development budget of more than US$3 billion. We got on rather well.

For Patch Monday we talked about everything from worms and hacking to password management, the problems that local police face when prosecuting online crime, why Apple has so far had a better security experience than Android and dealing with security issues when the internet is populated with so many different kinds of devices.

We even talked about the evolution of hacking, and I’ve pulled out that part of the conversation for a story at CSO Online, LulzSec, WikiLeaks, Murdoch: hacking’s fourth wave.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.