TLS, CAs, chains of trust and certificate pinning

I’ve been mocking Sun Tzu and trying to make 3D printing useful in my last articles. It’s time for some hardcore InfoSec action. More specifically how to prevent mobile apps eavesdropping. When a TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificate is assigned, there is a trust chain that is created to verify everyone from the root CA (Certificate Authority)… Continue reading TLS, CAs, chains of trust and certificate pinning

Look too much into the Sun (Tzu) and you will be blinded

You can’t go to a security conference nowadays and not hear at least 700 references to Sun Tzu and his writing, The Art of War. And how important and relevant that book is to the world of Information Security. But let’s not limit our focus to the InfoSec guys. Life coaches (whatever they are) are abusing… Continue reading Look too much into the Sun (Tzu) and you will be blinded

Short URLs are Harmful for Cloud Data Sharing

I was never a big fan of sharing cloud data through a unique link, rather than nominating the specific people that can access the data. To me it feels like security through obscurity. It looks something like this: https://{cloud_storage_provider}/?secret_token={some_unique_token} All the security of this model relies in the randomness and length of the secret token.… Continue reading Short URLs are Harmful for Cloud Data Sharing

http vs https performance

A while ago I had a huge argument with a development team regarding the usage of https. Their major concern was that the impact on performance would be so big that their servers wouldn’t be able to handle the load. Their approach was to use https just for the login sequence and plain text communication… Continue reading http vs https performance

Is application security an agile process?

No. Judging by the way it is marketed and sold today, application security is not, by any means, agile. Can it be? Well, Microsoft says so.  When it comes to security, Microsoft changed a lot in the past decade. The development frameworks they offer have built-in security features nowadays. So, if they say security can be built… Continue reading Is application security an agile process?