Security Forecasts for 2011

What will 2011 hold for information security professionals? Last year I predicted a year of change. It did not happen. But we are incubating a major crisis: legacy systems are vulnerable; existing security technologies are breaking down; a dangerous monoculture is building; and an information tsunami is heading our way.

Today's security solutions will not meet tomorrow's demands. The longer we put off change, the greater the potential damage from a major incident. The security community is slow to react to a changing problem space, however, preferring gradual evolution to radical revolution. So don't hold your breath. Nevertheless, I expect to see three major shifts in thinking during 2011.

The first is that we are likely to experience a major security incident involving the integrity of our critical national infrastructure. Not quite Die Hard 4 perhaps, but sufficient to incentivise utility companies to tackle their long-standing security vulnerabilities. Building security into the systems development cycle will need to be taken out of the "too difficult" box. The long haul towards building acceptably secure information systems will begin.    

Ubuntu 'trusted client' secures Windows and Citrix

Trusted Client, an Ubuntu-based encrypted clean boot utility, has received its Common Criteria certification and been included in the Defence Signals Directorate Evaluated Product List.

The device is designed to allow secure and safe access to a corporate or government network - even if the host machine is infected with malware.

Developed by UK-based encryption specialist Becrypt, Trusted Client is a hardened version of Ubuntu 9.04 that has been cut down to its bare components - about 500mb - and then bundled with Windows deployment tools. This is all wrapped in a layer of encryption and deployed on a standard USB drive.

David Jones, senior product consultant at Becrypt explained that in order to bypass any malware on an untrusted PC, users just boot from the Trusted Client memory stick. The PC then requests a username and password before loading Ubuntu.

The potentially infected hard drive is completely ignored.

"We boot the machine from the USB stick so you come from a known clean starting point. We never allow users to see the hard drive, we never touch it - we assume it is dirty. Instead we use the available RAM on the machine as our work area.