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Final thoughts on the Houston Astros’ database

Dave Farquhar Baseball, security June 18, 2015breach, cardinals, passwords

One of my college buddies (Hi Christian!) shared my previous post on Facebook, pointing out that I’m a long-suffering Royals fan in Cardinals country, and adding that what I said was balanced and dispassionate.

I’m normally anything but dispassionate. But in this case, it’s not a baseball matter–it’s a business matter, and neither my employer nor any past employer is involved, so it’s easy to be detached and dispassionate. I guess you can say my take on hacking has changed. I was going to say “evolved,” but “changed” is more dispassionate.

What I would have done to secure the Astros’ database

Dave Farquhar Baseball, security June 18, 2015August 12, 2018breach, Korea, Major League, Major League Baseball, SQL, Two-factor authentication

The now-infamous breached Houston Astros database sounds like a classic case of what security professionals call Shadow IT: a project that the business needs, done without adequate involvement from security and, most likely, from the IT department as well.

These kinds of things happen a lot. A go-getter implements it, cutting through red tape to get a useful project done in record time, and it’s great until something goes wrong.

In this case, “wrong” meant a competitor got into the database and stole trade secrets.

Minor-League hacking in the MLB

Dave Farquhar Baseball, security June 17, 2015June 17, 2015breach, cardinals, FBI, license plate, Major League, password list, prison

So, about a year ago, the Houston Astros announced their internal player database had been breached. This week, more details emerged, pointing right at the St. Louis Cardinals.

It wasn’t a terribly sophisticated attack. You knew I’d write about this, but I’ll explore it from an IT security perspective more than from a baseball perspective.

Three things to remember from Verizon’s Data Brach Investigations Report

Dave Farquhar security April 20, 2015April 18, 2015breach, CISO, Data breach, Exploitation, Mandiant, Patch Tuesday, verizon, vulnerability

Every year around this time, Verizon releases its Data Breach Investigations Report, referred to in the trade as simply the “DBIR.” Verizon is one of two companies you call if you’ve been breached and you really want to get to the bottom of what happened and try to keep it from happening again. (Mandiant is the other.)

My CISO hates this year’s edition because of its Joy Division-inspired cover and some of the cutesy writing. But it still makes some valid points that I wish everyone would take to heart–and those points remind me why so many people in my field of work listen to Joy Division.

How to make it harder for a scammer to file your taxes for you

Dave Farquhar security March 31, 2015November 28, 2016breach, Data breach, Fraud, IRS, LinkedIn

Tax fraud is one of big payoffs from data breaches. But there’s a simple thing you can do to make it harder for a scammer to file your taxes if your employer or health insurance provider gets breached and your social security number is one of the ones that gets stolen.

Change your social networking profile.

Data breaches don’t cost anything–so here’s why they matter

Dave Farquhar security March 30, 2015March 28, 2015breach, Data breach, Microsoft Office, podcast, Rabbit Hole, sony

What seems like a million years ago, when Sony Pictures got breached, some pundits were predicting that was the end of the company. I always thought that was hyperbole, but I have to admit I never went to the extreme of saying breaches are nearly harmless, which seems to be the current popular thinking.

Indeed, a financial analyst went on the Down the Security Rabbit Hole podcast and said breaches are an investment opportunity. Just buy the dip.

In defense of Anthem declining the OIG audit

Dave Farquhar security March 17, 2015March 15, 2015breach, vulnerability

Anthem recently refused to allow the Office of Personnel Management’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) to perform an audit of its networks. Coming on the heels of a large breach, there’s been a bit of an uproar about it.

There are a few things to keep in mind, the first being that this isn’t driven by law enforcement–it’s a customer requesting an audit.

You’re telling me someone gave a stranger his password?

Dave Farquhar security February 17, 2015February 15, 2015Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, antivirus, breach, hp, IBM, LinkedIn, malware, passwords

I was talking breaches last week when a very high-up joined the conversation in mid-stream.

“Start over, Dave.”

“OK. I’m talking about breaches.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” he said, knowingly and very clearly interested.

Anthem, HIPAA, and encryption

Dave Farquhar security February 10, 2015February 9, 2015breach, insurance companies, pentium ii, vulnerability, Wall Street Journal

Late last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthem wasn’t encrypting the database containing tens of millions of health records that were stolen by sophisticated hackers.

There are numerous problems with that story, the first being that we don’t know yet whether the data was encrypted. There are other unconfirmed reports that say the attackers used a stolen username and password to get at the data, which, if that’s true, likely would have allowed them to decrypt the data anyway.

Still, I’m seeing calls now for the government to revise HIPAA to require encryption, rather than merely encourage it. And of course there are good and bad things about that as well.

“It was a sophisticated attack.”

Dave Farquhar security February 9, 2015February 6, 20151980s, antivirus, breach, command prompt

Every breach report contains the words “sophisticated attack.” Security pros like me see it as pure spin. Here’s why.