I work in the security field (we build anti-fraud and authentication software and services for financial services and electronic commerce companies like banks, etc). Recently I've been asked by a significant number of people why certain banks are being phished in such large volumes. Now, while I don't write about specific financial institutions or security events (that would not be appropriate), I can tell you that any given bank has little to no control over whether or not it is made a target in the first place. All the big banks (and many tiny ones) get hit hard at some point. What they do have control over is their chosen prevention, mitigation and response plans and methodologies.

In the end, the most effective solution is the fairly simple one: Make it hard enough for the fraudsters and eventually they will move on to another bank. Stopping phishing and other online fraud is really just like everyday police work - It's not actually about ending crime, it's about making it go elsewhere. In the real world, the cops just push the burglars, drunks and drug dealers to someone else's town. We don't solve these problems, we just move them somewhere else.

So, eventually the scammers' targets and victims change. The real problem with online fraud is that we can't put an end to it with infrastructure technology they way it is now. We can get way out in front of it (where I work, we write software that can help prevent most phishing attacks from being launched in the first place, as well as strong authentication software to help stop bad guys from getting in the door even if they have a key). But it's way too easy to run a phishing scam, and prosecution is not an effective solution. Prevention is the way to go, and that means diligence on the part of financial institutions, using the right kinds of technology where needed, and a implementing a whole-community effort to stop the problem before it ever gets started. Tools are out there to let the bank get in front of the problem, and but it off at the knees before the crime occurs - a lot like stopping the bank robber well before he walks into the bank's branch office. Preventing the robbery is a lot less messy than cleaning up afterwards, explaining it to everyone, and trying to convince your customers that have just been held hostage not to leave your bank for another one.

Email is, as designed, one significant part of the problem we face. It's just too easy to abuse. Without getting too far into the whole "email-limitation" debate (Sidebar: When I spoke at a security conference last week one attendee tried to lure me into taking a political position on whether charging to send each email is a good idea... Heh, no I think not...), it's clear at least that there are many problems with the medium. Educating people not to respond and not to click on links will not solve the problem, as has been proven time and time again. Email is an  insecure method of information transport, and unless access can somehow be reasonably curtailed, this problem won't go away. The real question is, can email be restricted for bad guys while still keeping it free and in the spirit of the open Internet for everyone else? If so, how? Something tells me the debate and answers have not changed much over the years.

Ah, what the heck, let's just kill email completely. Block port 25 at the backbone routers. It's a counter-productive way to communicate much of the time anyhow. Imagine all the misunderstandings we'd avoid. The tangible and intangible benefits would be many. :)

But seriously, in the real world, there are three basic approaches to tackling this problem (phishing and cyber-fraud) if you're a financial institution. I'll mention them here briefly, and will likely dive into them in more detail in another post sometime soon:

• Option One - Purely Reactive Posture - Apologize to customers when they call and tell you there's a problem, refund their accounts, change their passwords for them, hope they don't leave you for another bank.
• Option Two - Hybrid Reactive Posture - Watch for phishing emails and when you see them, use technology to block them and see if the sites in the emails are real, and if so try to get them taken down, either on your own or through a professional take-down service. Apologize to less customers, and hopefully change their passwords before the bad guys get into the accounts.
• Option Three - Preemptive Approach - Prevent the fraud attack from being launched in the first place, shut down fraudulent sites before the victims receive an email, make it difficult for the attackers, and protect your customers from being victimized at all.

Which option do you think is best? Which posture do you expect your bank to adopt? For my part, I vote for leveraging all three options, with a strong primary emphasis on Option Three, where prevention is the main focus. That's the area where I spend the majority of my professional time, with a team of developers and forensic techies who build software that prevents attacks and gives banks what they need to protect customers from becoming victims. It's a worthwhile job.

Microsoft's Windows Live ID team has started a blog to communicate information about the new product, which is a replacement/upgrade for the Passport service. From the inaugural post:

"Windows Live ID is the upgrade/replacement for the Microsoft Passport service and is the identity and authentication gateway service for cross-device access to Microsoft online services, such as Windows Live, MSN, Office Live and Xbox Live.  Is this the authentication service for the world?  No   It's primarily designed for use with Microsoft online services and by Microsoft-affiliated close partners who integrate with Windows Live services to offer combined innovations to our mutual customers.  We will continue to support the Passport user base of 300+ Million accounts and seamlessly upgrade these accounts to Windows Live IDs.  Partners who have already implemented Passport are already compatible with Windows Live ID.
 
"Windows Live ID is being designed to be an identity provider among many within the Identity Metasystem.  In the future, we will support Federated identity scenarios via WS-* and support InfoCards.
 
"For developers we will be providing rich programmable interfaces via server and client SDKs to give third party application developers access to authenticated Microsoft Live services and APIs.
 
"Over the next few weeks as we complete our deployment, you will see the Windows Live ID service come alive through our respective partners sites and services.  The first thing you’ll notice as early as today is that the word Passport is being replaced by Windows Live ID.  But isn't a rebranding exercise -- there is stuff going on under the hood.  This will be more understandable in the coming weeks and months when you start seeing the new, exciting Windows Live sign-in UI.  Not only is the page load time significantly reduced, but you will see some really cool innovative features that we’re sure you’ll love :)"

I'll likely be writing here on this weblog about Infocard (which I have early some experience with), authentication and other related topics, since I have a professional connection to all of the above. Glad to see the Live ID team getting their blog start - this is the beginning of what should be a great phase of changes and improvements in the area.

Travel, travel and then some more travel... That's where I've been lately.

This week I'm in (well okay, near) Orlando, Florida at the Omni Orlando Resort (which is a very nice place), where I will be speaking on a panel Wednesday morning about operational security of online banking web sites and working with law enforcement. Then I will be hanging around for the rest of the conference through Thursday or Friday, learning and exchanging ideas.

Anyone in the area wanna grab coffee? Let me know. Comment, email or phone (it's in the menu bar at the right).

Wow - this is great news. MS Virtual Server Enterprise Edition for free, plus ability and support for running Linux as a guest OS. Look out, VMWare - the battle is on:

Today Microsoft announced that Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now available as a free download. This also will apply to the forthcoming service pack 1 of Virtual Server 2005 R2. In addition, Microsoft announced the availability of virtual machine add-ins for Linux and a technical product support model for Linux guest operating systems running on Virtual Server 2005 R2.

Read more here.

Matt points out that tonight is a special, won't happen again in our lifetimes event:

Tonight, at 123 seconds past 1 a.m. the time will be 1:02:03 04/05/06. Now if you take into account that we're only using two digits for the year this event won't happen again for another 1000 years in the year 3006. If you happen to be out and about at that time of the night you way wish to find a 7/11 and purchase a lottery ticket :)

Now I have to decide if I am going to stay up or not. Gah!

Are you staying up? One time chance!

It's been seven weeks since I underwent surgery on my lower back up near Seattle, Washington. I was the recipient of a Kineflex lumbar artificial disc, a three-part, all-metal mechanical replacement for the torn, herniated and collapsed (degenerated) disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. That's the lowest one in your spine.

This surgery has truly given me my life back.

Before the procedure, I was always - and I quite literally mean always - in pain. Real pain, the kind that wears you down every minute of every day. The kind of chronic pain that people can't fully understand until they've lived with it themselves. It wears you down, chews you up, and eventually spits you out. "Normal" for me was a lot like the "normal" road noise is for someone who lives right next to a freeway: Spend your whole life around it and your brain tunes it out just to cope, but it's always there. Sure, louder noises still annoy you, but the mind has a way of coping with whatever you throw at it, at least as best it can. But that background pain still has an effect, progressively more so over time. When the sound is gone, it's almost deafening. And when the pain is gone, you finally realize just how bad it's been.

I feel ten times better than I've felt in more than ten years. Seriously.

Yeah, I am a guinea pig of sorts - the artificial disc I was fortunate enough to receive was provided to me as part of an FDA trial - not very many people have this hardware in their bodies. I did more than a year of careful and critical research on artificial disc surgery before I decided to take the leap. I considered bone fusion (which is the classic and most common treatment for my condition) and I tried every other treatment that was available to me - physical therapy, exercise, medicine, cortisone injections, minimally invasive procedures, you name it. When it came down to it, it was a choice between bone fusion or ADR (artificial disc replacement) procedure. the ADR device allows the joint to remain mobile instead of locking it up permanently, and I am only 38 years old (well for a few days anyhow), so staying mobile is  important to me. Because I had a 50/50 chance of receiving either a Charite or Kineflex artificial disc (they split the patients randomly, half and half), I also had to become confident in both technologies (the Charite is two metal plates with a plastic core, while the Kineflex is the same basic idea, but with a different design and a metal core). I can tell you that I was lucky and got the one I really wanted (the Kineflex), but either would have been okay with me.

Not everyone is the same, and surgery is rough stuff. The procedure is a serious one with potential side effects that one has to be ready to accept. Everyone's body is different and surgery is in large part an art, which means they all go slightly differently. Many people benefit from the new technology, while some are not so fortunate. That said, I am so grateful for my decision and to my doctors and the staff that have given me so much back. I did not fully realize how bad off I was until now, and still each day I keep feeling better. It will likely be many months before I can say I am healed and recovered, but I can see and believe that day's coming, which is something I had almost given up hope on before.

I write this from what used to be one of the most painful places in my life: An airliner seat at 37,000 feet. And guess what?

It doesn't hurt anymore.