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Accuvant Labs' Charlie Miller talks to Tom's Hardware about theDefender's Dilemma, the security of data in the cloud, looking forvulnerabilities in notebook batteries, and the ramifications ofusing Apple's iPad in an enterprise environment. If you're not already familiar with Charlie Miller, check out Behind Pwn2Own: Exclusive Interview With Charlie Miller and Hacking The iPhone, iPod, And iPad With A Web Page , two of our previous interviews with him. Alan: Hi Charlie, thanks again for taking the time to sit down andtalk with me and the readers of Tom s Hardware. I know how busy itgets around Black Hat. Charlie: Yep, between my "day job" doing consulting and writingslides and finishing research, this is my second busiest time ofthe year. The only worse time is right before Pwn2Own! I can't waituntil Black Hat and DEF CON are finished to relax and start somenew research. Alan: A lot has changed since the last time we chatted. The impactand critical importance of computing security has really just begunto be appreciated by mainstream users. The New York Times had agreat feature on the development of Stuxnet and detailed how thegood guys undermined and crippled Iran s nuclear program. We veseen the bad guys attack Lockheed Martin through a targeted effortthat began with compromising RSA SecurID. Lastly, we ve seenend-users directly impacted by the actions of groups like Anonymousand LulzSec. It s the good, the bad, and the ugly. So for today, I m hoping I can get your thoughts on somebig-picture stuff before I pick your brain on the new iOS jailbreakand the battery firmware vulnerability. Charlie: Well, who the bad guys and who the good guys are can be abit hard to determine sometimes. I'm sure the Iranians don'tconsider Stuxnet to be a force for good. But yes, let's talk aboutthe big picture. Alan: Well, I know I'm a good guy, and you're a good guy. Peoplecan trust us. We're doctors. Anyway, after the Brighton Bombing in 84, the IRA released a statement that included the line"...remember we only have to be lucky once. You have to be luckyalways." When it comes to computing security, it seems like it sthe same challenge. Only in this case, it s even worse. The badguys are coming from multiple fronts. You have targeted attacks,automated botnets, and broad social engineering spam. You also havedifferent motives ranging from espionage and financial or politicalgain to activists looking to make a statement. While there was apolitical process that could bring peace to the United Kingdom,you re not going to be able to negotiate with someone looking tosteal credit card info or sensitive data. Can we actually win this war or are we just hoping to minimize ourlosses? Charlie: Yes, we call it the Defender's Dilemma. Defense is alwaysharder because you have to be perfect, where attackers only have tofind one flaw. This is why it s so much more fun to attack Applethan to work for Apple! I have to say, things are a bit bleak when you put it that way.There will always be vulnerabilities and there will always becriminals, so it s hard to figure the way out. Especially as endusers there is almost nothing you can do; you have to rely on thesecurity of the software you run and have little control over howsecure it is. As a society, we cannot eliminate computer attacks.However, what we can do (and this is the approach the industry issort of taking) is make it so hard and expensive to pull offattacks that it becomes economically infeasible for most attackers.And even for those with the expertise to still pull off the attack,it minimizes the number of attacks they can perform. The way wemake it more difficult is to reduce the number of vulnerabilitiesand ensure users software is up to date and "secure by default .Also, make the OS resilient to attack with things like stackcanaries, ASLR, DEP, and sandbox applications so that multipleexploits are needed. We also need to better control the softwareloaded on our devices (i.e. Apple's App Store model). So, insteadof having to write a single exploit, it takes three or four inorder to perform an attack. This means most attackers won't be ableto pull it off, and those who can will have to spend much more timeworking it out. I am an expert from uninterrupted-power-supply.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Product Showcase , Low Frequency Online UPS Manufacturer, High Frequency Online UPS,and more.
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