About 2,5 weeks ago I was at the Cloud Identity Summit in Keystone, Colorado.
I went here to gain more knowledge about today's identity management solutions in the cloud.
I met wonderful people, had interesting discussions and in 3 days I learned a lot about identity in the cloud.
I can tell a lot about my days at this conference, but I can summarize it with one sentence: get rid of the passwords.
How to really do this is still an academic question, but the people I met on the Summit are eager to solve this problem.
Perhaps I can help them test their solutions and together we can make it happen.
We'll see at the next Summit.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Can your system work with mine? A case of interoperabilty and open standards
SaaS-applications (apps) are developed and distributed rapidly on the internet (the cloud) these days and companies want to integrate these SaaS-applications. Just look at this Salesforce-site.
A SaaS-application can be tested for different reasons: functionality, performance, security etc.
For integration of SaaS-apps a test should be done.
Yeah nice Cordny, interoperability tests, what's new??
Well, this post is not only about interoperability, but also about open standards which are at the moment a big item in the cloud (SaaS is a part of this)-community and the digital (politics)agenda.
Both interoperability and open standards have a similar goal (provide exchange between systems). With respect to software, interoperability is used to describe the capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of exchange formats, to read and write the same file formats, and to use the same protocols.
For Open Standards, according to Microsoft, an open standard is publicly available, and developed, approved and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. But it applies both parties should be part of this process. At my PC Microsoft itself still can't open a ODF-document.
But there are protocols which are also open standards. One of them is SAML2.0, which you know, if you already have read my blog,is an open standard for authentication and authorization exchange.
And yes, Microsoft can deal with this protocol, see here.
However, both SAML2.0 and Microsoft (with AFDS 2.0) are evolving, so interoperability tests still have to be done. Especially because SAML2.0 is very flexible. Can Microsoft keep up?
A SaaS-application can be tested for different reasons: functionality, performance, security etc.
For integration of SaaS-apps a test should be done.
Yeah nice Cordny, interoperability tests, what's new??
Well, this post is not only about interoperability, but also about open standards which are at the moment a big item in the cloud (SaaS is a part of this)-community and the digital (politics)agenda.
Both interoperability and open standards have a similar goal (provide exchange between systems). With respect to software, interoperability is used to describe the capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of exchange formats, to read and write the same file formats, and to use the same protocols.
For Open Standards, according to Microsoft, an open standard is publicly available, and developed, approved and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. But it applies both parties should be part of this process. At my PC Microsoft itself still can't open a ODF-document.
But there are protocols which are also open standards. One of them is SAML2.0, which you know, if you already have read my blog,is an open standard for authentication and authorization exchange.
And yes, Microsoft can deal with this protocol, see here.
However, both SAML2.0 and Microsoft (with AFDS 2.0) are evolving, so interoperability tests still have to be done. Especially because SAML2.0 is very flexible. Can Microsoft keep up?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Google SSO hacked?
Yesterday I read a disturbing post on one of my favorite security-blogs.
It covers a New York Times Article reporting that Google’s password system (Gaia) was compromised during a targeted attack last December (see also this post)
This zdnet-post summarizes all the posts I made about phishing, SSO and SaaS and exemplifies my argument of not taking SaaS and SSO too lightly for security reasons.
The New York Times Article said the hack started with an IM message to a Google employee in China who was using Microsoft (ahaa!) MSN Messenger:
By clicking on a link and connecting to a “poisoned” Web site, the employee inadvertently permitted the intruders to gain access to his (or her) personal computer and then to the computers of a critical group of software developers at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Ultimately, the intruders were able to gain control of a software repository used by the development team.
People are still wondering how the 'poisoned' web site did his 'evil' job (own quote!).
Some think it was done by using a Trojan horse and ínstall these in the global Google data centres, but this is too difficult because of detection.
Others think it was done by having access to the source code in the software repository. For hackers that's the real jackpot!
People, this was not a impulsive attack, but a 'planned' one.
Also, if you know that other companies (Adobe, Juniper) were having similar Cyberattacks, this cyberattack can't be just be seen as lucky.
Cyber-Criminals (just plain crooks if you ask me) are trying to get the intellectual property from the companies they attack and this damages the companies ,the clients and the general adoption of the cloud.
Security breaches will ever be there,we all(!) just have to be wary of them and try to diminish or eliminate the risks.
PS: One other thing, this post explains the vulnerability in Microsoft MSN Messenger and that Microsoft will deal with it
It covers a New York Times Article reporting that Google’s password system (Gaia) was compromised during a targeted attack last December (see also this post)
This zdnet-post summarizes all the posts I made about phishing, SSO and SaaS and exemplifies my argument of not taking SaaS and SSO too lightly for security reasons.
The New York Times Article said the hack started with an IM message to a Google employee in China who was using Microsoft (ahaa!) MSN Messenger:
By clicking on a link and connecting to a “poisoned” Web site, the employee inadvertently permitted the intruders to gain access to his (or her) personal computer and then to the computers of a critical group of software developers at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Ultimately, the intruders were able to gain control of a software repository used by the development team.
People are still wondering how the 'poisoned' web site did his 'evil' job (own quote!).
Some think it was done by using a Trojan horse and ínstall these in the global Google data centres, but this is too difficult because of detection.
Others think it was done by having access to the source code in the software repository. For hackers that's the real jackpot!
People, this was not a impulsive attack, but a 'planned' one.
Also, if you know that other companies (Adobe, Juniper) were having similar Cyberattacks, this cyberattack can't be just be seen as lucky.
Cyber-Criminals (just plain crooks if you ask me) are trying to get the intellectual property from the companies they attack and this damages the companies ,the clients and the general adoption of the cloud.
Security breaches will ever be there,we all(!) just have to be wary of them and try to diminish or eliminate the risks.
PS: One other thing, this post explains the vulnerability in Microsoft MSN Messenger and that Microsoft will deal with it
Monday, April 12, 2010
Open standards and the cloud
With every client I work for, I start to look for interesting subjects that client is involved with.
As a software testconsultant I had a lot of different clients the last six years, so you can imagine the diversity of areas I've seen.
For me one of the most interesting areas is the financial services area. Not because of the arithmetics (still not my cup of tea), but because of the innovative way these services try to adapt to the changing financial environment.
I started to see this in the beginning of internet banking and at the moment I see financial services woven into social networks like Hyves, web 2.0 as you may call it.
Very interesting for a tester, because these financial services and social networks will form an 'in silico' ecosystem (I'm still a biologist :-)), and like a living ecosystem very intricate and therefore very susceptible to errors.
To minimize this error-proneness (Open) Standards (like XBRL) were developed to make interoperability between the systems possible and to prevent also vendor-lockin.
But even standardization does not fully minimize the errors, because using standardization in design and development is still a human job, resulting in possible errors.
And what I've seen in online financial services, things can get very messy if an XML-tag of a webservice is not well tagged.
Standardization increases interoperability, but does not mean errors can't be made.
As a software testconsultant I had a lot of different clients the last six years, so you can imagine the diversity of areas I've seen.
For me one of the most interesting areas is the financial services area. Not because of the arithmetics (still not my cup of tea), but because of the innovative way these services try to adapt to the changing financial environment.
I started to see this in the beginning of internet banking and at the moment I see financial services woven into social networks like Hyves, web 2.0 as you may call it.
Very interesting for a tester, because these financial services and social networks will form an 'in silico' ecosystem (I'm still a biologist :-)), and like a living ecosystem very intricate and therefore very susceptible to errors.
To minimize this error-proneness (Open) Standards (like XBRL) were developed to make interoperability between the systems possible and to prevent also vendor-lockin.
But even standardization does not fully minimize the errors, because using standardization in design and development is still a human job, resulting in possible errors.
And what I've seen in online financial services, things can get very messy if an XML-tag of a webservice is not well tagged.
Standardization increases interoperability, but does not mean errors can't be made.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Cloud computing: a secure thing?
Financial services are very interested in cloud computing.
But one of their main worrries, as Phil Wainewright says in his blog is the risk of data being exposed to third parties in a multi-tenant environment.
Secure authentication by SSO or PKI is one way to avoid this.
But what happens when you have a man-in-the-browser-attack?
An MitB is a trojan, infecting a web browser and capable to modify pages, modify transaction content or insert additional transactions,invisible to both user and host application. Mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and/or Two/Three Factor Authentication are useless against it, because it works on transaction level, not authentication level!
Solution? Simple, think out of the browser, by using another channel to verify the transaction process: an automated telephone call.
So, now you have a “three-factor” defense against criminal activities exploiting your SaaS-application.
All three 'factors' have to be tested individually and also as an end-to-end-process/chain to minimize possible defects and risks.
Just a (simplified) scene in which a security tester can find himself while testing a SaaS-application for an online bank for example.
But one of their main worrries, as Phil Wainewright says in his blog is the risk of data being exposed to third parties in a multi-tenant environment.
Secure authentication by SSO or PKI is one way to avoid this.
But what happens when you have a man-in-the-browser-attack?
An MitB is a trojan, infecting a web browser and capable to modify pages, modify transaction content or insert additional transactions,invisible to both user and host application. Mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and/or Two/Three Factor Authentication are useless against it, because it works on transaction level, not authentication level!
Solution? Simple, think out of the browser, by using another channel to verify the transaction process: an automated telephone call.
So, now you have a “three-factor” defense against criminal activities exploiting your SaaS-application.
All three 'factors' have to be tested individually and also as an end-to-end-process/chain to minimize possible defects and risks.
Just a (simplified) scene in which a security tester can find himself while testing a SaaS-application for an online bank for example.
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