Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises?
Thanks for the response. I already own the book and understand how to engage vendors. Where I am seeking assistance is all the work that goes on within a large enterprise before these two things occur. The ideal situation for me would be to get my hands on the five to ten page Powerpoint slide deck that others who have blazed this path before me have used to sell the notion to their executives. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 5:06 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc: SC-L Subject: Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises? In terms of creating a SDLC, pop out to Borders and get Howard and Lipner's The Security Development Lifecycle ISBN 9780735622142 http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/8753.aspx It is simply the best text I've read in a long time. You may be interested in the work Mark Curphey et al is doing at his new start up. They launched an ISM portal a couple of weeks back. http://www.ism-community.org/ If you're just after ideas on how to engage vendors, check out Curphey's blog for some nice insider posts: http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-10-tips-for-hiring-web-application-pen-testers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-ten-tips-for-hiring-security-code-reviewers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/08/top-ten-tips-for-managing-technical-security-folks/ He ran Foundstone's services for a while, and built up a pretty good consultancy. The sort of metrics you're after are notoriously hard to find out in the wild. There's some folks capturing screenshots of enterprise dashboards. This may or may not help at all. http://dashboardspy.com/ Thanks, Andrew On 3/19/07 4:12 PM, McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with your assessment of how things are sold at a high-level but still struggling in that it takes more than just graphicalizing of your points to sell, hence I am still attempting to figure out a way to get my hands on some PPT that are used internal to enterprises prior to consulting engagements and I think a better answer will emerge. PPT may provide a sense of budget, timelines, roles and responsibilities, who needed to buy-in, industry metrics, quotes from noted industry analysts, etc that will help shortcut my own work so I can start moving towards the more important stuff. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:50 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc: SC-L Subject: Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises? There are two major methods: 1. Opportunity cost / competitive advantage (the Microsoft model) 2. Recovery cost reductions (the model used by most financial institutions) Generally, opportunity cost is where an organization can further its goals by a secure business foundation. This requires the CIO/CSO to be able to sell the business on this model, which is hard when it is clear that many businesses have been founded on insecure foundations and do quite well nonetheless. Companies that choose to be secure have a competitive advantage, an advantage that will increase over time and will win conquest customers. For example (and this is my humble opinion), Oracle's security is a long standing unbreakable joke, and in the meantime MS ploughed billions into fixing their tattered reputation by making it a competitive advantage, and thus making their market dominance nearly complete. Oracle is now paying for their CSO's mistake in not understanding this model earlier. Forward looking financial institutions are now using this model, such as my old bank's (with its SMS transaction authentication feature) winning many new customers by not only promoting themselves as secure, but doing the right thing and investing in essentially eliminating Internet Banking fraud. It saves them money, and it works well for customers. This is the best model, but the hardest to sell. The second model is used by most financial institutions. They are mature risk managers and understand that a certain level of risk must be taken in return for doing business. By choosing to invest some of the potential or known losses in reducing the potential for massive losses, they can reduce the overall risk present in the corporate risk register, which plays well to shareholders. For example, if you invest $1m in securing a cheque clearance process worth (say) $10b annually to the business, and that reduces check fraud by $5m per year and eliminates $2m of unnecessary overhead every year, security is an easy sell with obvious targets to improve profitability. A well managed operational risk group will easily identify the riskiest aspects of a mature company's activities, and it's easy to justify improvements in those areas. The FUD model (used by many vendors - do this or the SOX
Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises?
JD Meier had a good post recently on influencing without authority, which is the position security finds itself in: 1. assume all potential allies 2. clarify goals and priorities 3. diagnose the allies world 4. identify relevant currencies 5. deal with relationships 6. influence through give and take http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier/archive/2007/03/09/influencing-without-authority.aspx how does this translate to app security? well i think it means find stakeholders/allies wherever you can. any group that is interested try to 1) educate them about software risks and software security and 2) give them tools/process they can bring to bear on the problem. specifically, legal teams are generally very interested in risks, so i have seen several legal teams at very large companies deploy parts of the OWASP legal project to good effect. business analysts can be trained on how specify some security concerns in use cases/user stories. qa teams can be educated on security specific testing tools and techniques, architects can learn how to design reusable security services, and so on. so whatever group that seems eager to get involved it makes sense to engage, once security concerns are embedded in test plans and use cases, aligned with business goals, the software security effort is not a one off from a developer point of view. find all allies, turn none away, arm them with knowledge, turn em loose. the other issue is that there are many security services that you cannot expect an app project to deliver on its own. skyscrapers should not have to have their own fighter jets to protect against people flying planes into them, that is why you have an air force. making the case for platform security can be hard, but that is where the architects have to help (i seem to recall that security is a nonfunctional requirement and that architects are supposed to own non functional requirements). one of the reasons i like browser-based federated identity is because you can externalize some authN code from the app, you get stronger identity tokens across the wire, you don't have developers creating their own authN code, and of course the users get SSO and SLO. this is like app armor, in my view, a reference model for security services - improved security mechanism, great usability, business value, and a simplified programming model. -gp Quoting McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Thanks for the response. I already own the book and understand how to engage vendors. Where I am seeking assistance is all the work that goes on within a large enterprise before these two things occur. The ideal situation for me would be to get my hands on the five to ten page Powerpoint slide deck that others who have blazed this path before me have used to sell the notion to their executives. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 5:06 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc: SC-L Subject: Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises? In terms of creating a SDLC, pop out to Borders and get Howard and Lipner's The Security Development Lifecycle ISBN 9780735622142 http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/8753.aspx It is simply the best text I've read in a long time. You may be interested in the work Mark Curphey et al is doing at his new start up. They launched an ISM portal a couple of weeks back. http://www.ism-community.org/ If you're just after ideas on how to engage vendors, check out Curphey's blog for some nice insider posts: http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-10-tips-for-hiring-web-application-pen-testers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-ten-tips-for-hiring-security-code-reviewers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/08/top-ten-tips-for-managing-technical-security-folks/ He ran Foundstone's services for a while, and built up a pretty good consultancy. The sort of metrics you're after are notoriously hard to find out in the wild. There's some folks capturing screenshots of enterprise dashboards. This may or may not help at all. http://dashboardspy.com/ Thanks, Andrew On 3/19/07 4:12 PM, McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with your assessment of how things are sold at a high-level but still struggling in that it takes more than just graphicalizing of your points to sell, hence I am still attempting to figure out a way to get my hands on some PPT that are used internal to enterprises prior to consulting engagements and I think a better answer will emerge. PPT may provide a sense of budget, timelines, roles and responsibilities, who needed to buy-in, industry metrics, quotes from noted industry analysts, etc that will help shortcut my own work so I can start moving towards the more important stuff. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:50 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc
[SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises?
I am attempting to figure out how other Fortune enterprises have went about selling the need for secure coding practices and can't seem to find the answer I seek. Essentially, I have discovered that one of a few scenarios exist (a) the leadership chain was highly technical and intuitively understood the need (b) the primary business model of the enterprise is either banking, investments, etc where the risk is perceived higher if it is not performed (c) it was strongly encouraged by a member of a very large consulting firm (e.g. McKinsey, Accenture, etc). I would like to understand what does the Powerpoint deck that employees of Fortune enterprises use to sell the concept PRIOR to bringing in consultants and vendors to help them fulfill the need. Has anyone ran across any PPT that best outlines this for demographics where the need is real but considered less important than other intiatives? * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. * ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. ___
Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises?
In terms of creating a SDLC, pop out to Borders and get Howard and Lipner¹s ³The Security Development Lifecycle² ISBN 9780735622142 http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/8753.aspx It is simply the best text I¹ve read in a long time. You may be interested in the work Mark Curphey et al is doing at his new start up. They launched an ISM portal a couple of weeks back. http://www.ism-community.org/ If you¹re just after ideas on how to engage vendors, check out Curphey¹s blog for some nice insider posts: http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-10-tips-for-hiring-web-application- pen-testers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/07/top-ten-tips-for-hiring-security-code-r eviewers/ http://securitybuddha.com/2007/03/08/top-ten-tips-for-managing-technical-sec urity-folks/ He ran Foundstone¹s services for a while, and built up a pretty good consultancy. The sort of metrics you¹re after are notoriously hard to find out in the wild. There¹s some folks capturing screenshots of enterprise dashboards. This may or may not help at all. http://dashboardspy.com/ Thanks, Andrew On 3/19/07 4:12 PM, McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with your assessment of how things are sold at a high-level but still struggling in that it takes more than just graphicalizing of your points to sell, hence I am still attempting to figure out a way to get my hands on some PPT that are used internal to enterprises prior to consulting engagements and I think a better answer will emerge. PPT may provide a sense of budget, timelines, roles and responsibilities, who needed to buy-in, industry metrics, quotes from noted industry analysts, etc that will help shortcut my own work so I can start moving towards the more important stuff. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:50 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc: SC-L Subject: Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises? There are two major methods: 1. Opportunity cost / competitive advantage (the Microsoft model) 2. Recovery cost reductions (the model used by most financial institutions) Generally, opportunity cost is where an organization can further its goals by a secure business foundation. This requires the CIO/CSO to be able to sell the business on this model, which is hard when it is clear that many businesses have been founded on insecure foundations and do quite well nonetheless. Companies that choose to be secure have a competitive advantage, an advantage that will increase over time and will win conquest customers. For example (and this is my humble opinion), Oracle¹s security is a long standing unbreakable joke, and in the meantime MS ploughed billions into fixing their tattered reputation by making it a competitive advantage, and thus making their market dominance nearly complete. Oracle is now paying for their CSO¹s mistake in not understanding this model earlier. Forward looking financial institutions are now using this model, such as my old bank¹s (with its SMS transaction authentication feature) winning many new customers by not only promoting themselves as secure, but doing the right thing and investing in essentially eliminating Internet Banking fraud. It saves them money, and it works well for customers. This is the best model, but the hardest to sell. The second model is used by most financial institutions. They are mature risk managers and understand that a certain level of risk must be taken in return for doing business. By choosing to invest some of the potential or known losses in reducing the potential for massive losses, they can reduce the overall risk present in the corporate risk register, which plays well to shareholders. For example, if you invest $1m in securing a cheque clearance process worth (say) $10b annually to the business, and that reduces check fraud by $5m per year and eliminates $2m of unnecessary overhead every year, security is an easy sell with obvious targets to improve profitability. A well managed operational risk group will easily identify the riskiest aspects of a mature company¹s activities, and it¹s easy to justify improvements in those areas. The FUD model (used by many vendors - ³do this or the SOX boogeyman will get you²) does not work. The do nothing model (used by nearly everyone who doesn¹t fall into the first two categories) works for a time, but can spectacularly end a business. Card Systems anyone? Unknown risk is too risky a proposition, and is plain director negligence in my view. Thanks, Andrew On 3/19/07 11:35 AM, McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am attempting to figure out how other Fortune enterprises have went about selling the need for secure coding practices and can't seem to find the answer I seek. Essentially, I have discovered that one of a few scenarios
Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises?
attach a PPT ;) John Steven Technical Director; Principal, Software Security Group Direct: (703) 404-5726 Cell: (703) 727-4034 Key fingerprint = 4772 F7F3 1019 4668 62AD 94B0 AE7F Blog: http://www.cigital.com/justiceleague http://www.cigital.com Software Confidence. Achieved. On Mar 19, 2007, at 4:12 PM, McGovern, James F ((HTSC, IT)) wrote: I agree with your assessment of how things are sold at a high-level but still struggling in that it takes more than just graphicalizing of your points to sell, hence I am still attempting to figure out a way to get my hands on some PPT that are used internal to enterprises prior to consulting engagements and I think a better answer will emerge. PPT may provide a sense of budget, timelines, roles and responsibilities, who needed to buy-in, industry metrics, quotes from noted industry analysts, etc that will help shortcut my own work so I can start moving towards the more important stuff. -Original Message- From: Andrew van der Stock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:50 PM To: McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) Cc: SC-L Subject: Re: [SC-L] How is secure coding sold within enterprises? There are two major methods: Opportunity cost / competitive advantage (the Microsoft model) Recovery cost reductions (the model used by most financial institutions) Generally, opportunity cost is where an organization can further its goals by a secure business foundation. This requires the CIO/ CSO to be able to sell the business on this model, which is hard when it is clear that many businesses have been founded on insecure foundations and do quite well nonetheless. Companies that choose to be secure have a competitive advantage, an advantage that will increase over time and will win conquest customers. For example (and this is my humble opinion), Oracle’s security is a long standing unbreakable joke, and in the meantime MS ploughed billions into fixing their tattered reputation by making it a competitive advantage, and thus making their market dominance nearly complete. Oracle is now paying for their CSO’s mistake in not understanding this model earlier. Forward looking financial institutions are now using this model, such as my old bank’s (with its SMS transaction authentication feature) winning many new customers by not only promoting themselves as secure, but doing the right thing and investing in essentially eliminating Internet Banking fraud. It saves them money, and it works well for customers. This is the best model, but the hardest to sell. The second model is used by most financial institutions. They are mature risk managers and understand that a certain level of risk must be taken in return for doing business. By choosing to invest some of the potential or known losses in reducing the potential for massive losses, they can reduce the overall risk present in the corporate risk register, which plays well to shareholders. For example, if you invest $1m in securing a cheque clearance process worth (say) $10b annually to the business, and that reduces check fraud by $5m per year and eliminates $2m of unnecessary overhead every year, security is an easy sell with obvious targets to improve profitability. A well managed operational risk group will easily identify the riskiest aspects of a mature company’s activities, and it’s easy to justify improvements in those areas. The FUD model (used by many vendors - “do this or the SOX boogeyman will get you”) does not work. The do nothing model (used by nearly everyone who doesn’t fall into the first two categories) works for a time, but can spectacularly end a business. Card Systems anyone? Unknown risk is too risky a proposition, and is plain director negligence in my view. Thanks, Andrew On 3/19/07 11:35 AM, McGovern, James F (HTSC, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am attempting to figure out how other Fortune enterprises have went about selling the need for secure coding practices and can't seem to find the answer I seek. Essentially, I have discovered that one of a few scenarios exist (a) the leadership chain was highly technical and intuitively understood the need (b) the primary business model of the enterprise is either banking, investments, etc where the risk is perceived higher if it is not performed (c) it was strongly encouraged by a member of a very large consulting firm (e.g. McKinsey, Accenture, etc). I would like to understand what does the Powerpoint deck that employees of Fortune enterprises use to sell the concept PRIOR to bringing in consultants and vendors to help them fulfill the need. Has anyone ran across any PPT that best outlines this for demographics where the need is real but considered less important than other intiatives? This electronic message transmission contains
