

Cybersecurity: Here’s What Really Worries the Pentagon - cwan
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/cybersecurity-heres-what-really-worries-the-pentagon/

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nwatson
The article and its nested link [http://www.progressivefix.com/spooks-in-the-
machine-how-the-...](http://www.progressivefix.com/spooks-in-the-machine-how-
the-pentagon-should-fight-cyber-spies) recognize the "Sisyphean task" of
trying to secure networks. No matter how hard you work at designing a good
network, your inside users will somehow screw it up. "'With seven million
systems in the DoD, think how many idiots there are bound to be,' one Pentagon
cybersecurity official says."

Some security experts believe they can create the perfect firewall around an
enterprise or government. It's not foolproof -- the firewall will either
become vulnerable at some time or insiders will compromise security measures
through idiocy or subterfuge.

After implementing preliminary security measures, e.g., firewalls, the best
step any infrastructure maintainer should next do is to record and archive the
massive flow of data through the network, computers, server programs, and
applications in any enterprise. While one can't realistically capture all
network traffic or every disk write/read, one can capture the "fingerprints"
of many of these activities, at hardware-, server/application-, and at end-
user levels, including for physical security devices. Once this information is
stored and made queryable, an enterprise can pick apart and analyze their
information flows and find vulnerabilities, learn to patch them, and find
evidence of past misdeeds similar to newly discovered threats. Only with years
of queryable archives of 200GB+ daily of log data can enterprises really take
this step.

SenSage (<http://www.sensage.com>) realized this and in the early naughties
developed the SenSage log data warehouse. The NSA, IRS, U.S. Navy, U.S.
Treasury Department, and many health care informatics companies and commercial
enterprises use SenSage for this purpose. Check out the "Government" and other
sections at <http://www.sensage.com/customers>.

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dubcomesaveme
from article: "Finally, the NSA has a rich history of monitoring the
communications of Americans – sometimes legally, sometimes not."

re:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT&T](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT&T)

