My girlfriend and I are currently in the process of buying a new house. After being in an apartment for some time, we're excited to get a little more space and our own yard. I'm looking forward to many cookouts this summer (something I couldn't really do on the tiny balcony at our apartment).

Once we take possession of our new home, securing the property will be one of the first priorities (along with painting multiple rooms and thinning the jungle of vegetation that makes up much of the yard). Keeping ourselves safe and protecting our stuff from theft is, after all, fairly important.

As part of my plan to secure the property, I plan to have all of the locks rekeyed (who knows who all has keys to the front door) and to install a home alarm system. It's a nice neighborhood and all, but why take chances?

Home Security vs. IT Security

Often, when I’m asked what Solutionary does by people who are not involved in the IT... read more >

Most people assume IRP stands for “Incident Response Plan,” but after providing managed security services, as well as identifying and helping our clients respond to security incidents for 13+ years, Solutionary takes a different view.

Incident Response is about how you respond to an incident. While this is an accurate statement, it is not quite as simple as that sounds. Think about how this works in real-life.

Company A: Has an incident response plan but has done nothing to prove it actually works; they have great technical staff, and are confident in their ability to react to an incident if one happens. When they are breached, they react using an unproven plan. Someone calls the database administrator (DBA) who, unfortunately, left the organization 6 months beforehand. After some scrambling, the replacement DBA steps in. He does not have the same skills as his predecssor and accidentally... read more >

Computer security is a fickle thing. It demands attention. It demands scrutiny. It demands follow through. When devising a security plan for your network, ensure that the protection completely encompasses your network.

In the physical security realm, if you put up a fence to keep people out, then install razor wire because you really want people to stay out, but don’t put razor wire over that part of fence in the corner, your security has failed. Or if you check badges at the front gate but leave the back gate unlocked, your security has failed. Sure, you could put cameras at the weak points in the fence. “Defense in depth” exists for a reason. The point I’m making is that the original defense was a failure because of a fundamental flaw in its design and implementation. Even though security was in place it, was unable to properly deter a determined opponent.

This is akin to leaving ports open. In this day and... read more >

Followers of the Solutionary Minds blog and frequent visitors to Solutionary.com may have noticed some significant changes to the web site. First-time visitors will not realize that anything has changed at all (trust me, it has). After months of work, the Solutionary team is happy to unveil the latest iteration of the Solutionary web presence.

A few of the highlights include:

• More video – See Solutionary team members discussing a variety of topics.
• Resource Center – Find Solutionary content like datasheets, white papers and webinars here.
• News and Events – See our recent...

In my last blog I talked about proactive threat mitigation and using incidents to improve security for increased safety from further attacks. So how do we get to the point where we realize we have an incident on our hands? Sometimes it's easy. Hacktivism has made some hacks very public and easily recognizable. However, the scariest attacks generally go unseen by the public eye. That's where network analysts come in.

Analyzing a network is a time consuming activity. Much of the time is spent watching endless events pass by on SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) screens. This can easily become monotonous and make consistent attention difficult. The analyzer needs to take an active role in mitigation to maintain awareness of what is occurring on the network and what needs to be done to properly recognize malicious activity. Both the organization and the person doing... read more >