Michael Farnum
Physical security is king
I have been in IT and security for over 16 years now, and in all that time I have been almost exclusively a PC user. I have done serious work on a Mac only about 2 or three times in my career, and all of those were trying to figure...
Bot herders using Twitter for command and control
I wrote about my worries on the future of social networking earlier this week. My point was that I was concerned because of the botnet resources some organizations had and how they could take down sites like Twitter and Facebook...
Heartland CEO gets a smackdown after his CSO interview
If you are reading this, you probably know about Heartland Payment Systems and the credit card system breach they suffered in late '08 - early '09. There a lot of details to be found, so I won't rehash it all. So let's just focus...
Social Networking and cyber attacks - is this our future?
Though I gave up my Facebook account a while ago (just seemed to conflict with my job as a security professional), I am an avid user of Twitter (@m1a1vet). So when I was trying to throw out some tweets last week and TweetDeck showed...
SSH password attacks on the rise
Looks like SSH brute force password attacks are on the rise, and they seem to be pretty successful. This is according to Daniel Wesemann over at SANS Internet Storm Center, who reported it last Friday. And Daniel wants to make sure...
Employee responsibility at conferences
In a recent article about security conferences over at Security Catalyst, Andrew Hay spoke of how sending employees to security conferences can be very valuable to the employer. He pointed out that the "field of security is a...
RSA Conference scholarship opportunity
Here's something for those security professionals out there who have attended the RSA Conference in the past and who have lost their job recently. RSA Conference just announced a special scholarship program specifically for...
Minimize disgruntled workers through furloughs
Are you a business owner hit by the recession that is considering layoffs but has worries about disgruntled workers? Do you need to save some money but don't want to lose intellectual property to your ex-employees? If so, maybe you...
Swiping your own card in Nashville
A Nashville, TN, restaurateur is offering his clients the opportunity to swipe their own credit cards when they dine in his establishment to guard against employees skimming credit cards when they take them back to the kiosk to...
Mule skinners need background checks
Don't know what a mule skinner is? Officially, it is any worker who drives mules. But the mule skinners in this case are "seasonal workers who dress in colonial garb at a historical park in Easton, Pa." who use mules to pull boats...