information security Archives - The Silicon Underground

Don’t e-mail yourself a list of all your passwords and bank account numbers to yourself from work

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 11:00:04 +0000

So my buddy, we’ll call him Bob, runs Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for a big company. DLP is software that limits what you can do with sensitive information, in order to block it from going out of the company. The NSA wasn’t

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Books every infosec professional needs to read

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 11:00:52 +0000

Firewall maker Palo Alto Networks is sponsoring the Cyber-Security Canon, a sort of Hall of Fame of timeless, classic information security books. I have to say I haven’t read every book on the list, by a long shot, but the

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How to become an Info Assurance Analyst

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 11:00:14 +0000

So, CNN/Money ran a story on the best 100 jobs in the United States, based on pay, projected job growth over the next 10 years, and quality of life ratings. And there was my job title, at #9. I think

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Non-competes and me

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:00:23 +0000

I’ve read the stories this week about how fast-food chains like Jimmy John’s are forcing employees to sign non-compete agreements. I’ve been asked to sign a non-compete exactly twice in my career, and signed one once, but neither of them

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IT jobs shortage? Slide over to security

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:00:19 +0000

IT jobs are getting scarce again, and I believe it. I don’t have a cure but I have a suggestion: Specialize. Specifically, specialize in security. Why? Turnover. Turnover in my department is rampant, because other companies offer my coworkers more

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The phantom tech worker shortage

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 11:00:18 +0000

I saw a story yet again about the tech worker shortage, and the backlash against H1-B visas. Reading the comments on Slashdot, I increasingly got the feeling the shortage is a mirage. The people are out there, but the matchups

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Don’t run unknown executables for a dollar. And PLEASE don’t for a penny!

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 11:00:32 +0000

I can’t bribe my preschooler with a penny anymore, but, sadly, a consortium of Carnegie Mellon University, NIST and Penn State University found that 22% of respondents through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk were willing to run a dodgy unknown executable in

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How I find podcasts to listen to

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 11:00:33 +0000

Last week I raved about podcasts, and a reader comment asked how I find them. Good question–worthy enough to be the subject of a post, rather than just a two-line comment in response. There are several ways to find them,

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Young people aren’t interested in information security? I think it depends on your definitions.

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 11:00:58 +0000

I saw an assertion on Slashdot today that Millennials aren’t interested in information security, in spite of the average salary in the field being six figures. I’m not sure I agree with the article’s assertion that 24% of those polled

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Another benefit of not having debt

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:00:30 +0000

I’ve written about how not having debt gives you power, though I can’t find the particular post at the moment. But I remember when I got my first mortgage. I went to a party, and my boss was there, along

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