An Information Security Place

OK, let me start this out with a disclaimer: I am going to work for Accuvant (as most of you know by now since I can’t stop blogging about it), and they are a big Juniper reseller.  They do not sell Cisco, so they drink the purple Kool-Aid.  Also, I am a fan of Juniper when it comes to many of their security products (I love their SSL VPN and their firewall / VPN devices, but their IPS leaves something to be desired).  All that being said, you might think I am going to say something positive about this deal between Juniper and Symantec.  Well, you’re right and wrong.

First, I agree with Mike Rothman’s comments:

…adding Symantec’s anti-spam, IPS signatures, and vulnerability research to Juniper’s products will make them better and I think it will actually happen. Why wouldn’t Juniper do this, given they are pretty much irrelevant in the IPS space and don’t really have a compelling UTM platform? They’ve got nothing to lose.

I also agree with Mike that this mostly comes from a “We Hate Cisco” reaction.  I don’t think Cisco is the best out there in most things that they do.  They do many things decently, but they are not the top in quality.  But they ARE Cisco, and they are taking so much of the market for the simple fact that nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco.

The fact that Richard Stiennon hates this deal is not surprising.  Stiennon is negative on just about anything that ever happens in security nowdays simply because he doesn’t agree with the direction security is taking, namely “host plus network security”.  However, his perspective that Juniper and Symantec have not taken advantage of opportunities given to them is correct.  Symantec is the epitome of the “bumbling giant”.  I don’t think Juniper is anywhere close to that yet, but Stiennon has to lump them in because, again, he is negative about anything to do with NAC, UTM, etc.

I don’t like this deal because it is with Symantec.  I just don’t like how Symantec works and I don’t like John Thompson (especially after his keynote at RSA 2005).  But I like this deal from the fact that it can help Juniper leverage Symantec’s knowledge.  Juniper NEEDS to become a premier security knowledge source on the par of Symantec or TippingPoint if they ever hope to be completely respected in this arena.  Building boxes ain’t gonna do it.  What I am hoping is that they use Symantec to maybe help them learn how to do this themselves.

Vet

OK, I am usually fairly impressed by InfoWorld’s articles and other writings.  I get the magazine, I subscribe to their news feed.  But this InfoWorld article read like it should be in the Times or something.  They put a title of “Hackers Striking Databases in Record Numbers”, give us a couple of stats, and then go on to explain SQL injection attackes.  Who is InfoWorld’s target audience?  

Here’s something from the “About” section of InfoWorld’s website:

InfoWorld Media Group delivers in-depth coverage and evaluation of IT products for technology experts involved in major purchase decisions for their companies. InfoWorld reaches the most influential readers through its integrated online, print, events, and research channels.
 
InfoWorld provides specialized IT coverage for the CTO, senior-most company executives who are deeply steeped in technology expertise and experience.

I am not usually one to attack, but this is ridiculous.  If you are a “senior-most company executive” who is “steeped in technology expertise and experience”, then you know what a SQL injection attack is.  This article really does not give any useful information.  Couldn’t there have been some more in depth detail on some of the attacks?  It just felt like the top paragraph was written, then there was a cut and paste from some other article.

Vet