Stealthy Goings On In the San Francisco Bay Area

Black helicopters, disguised as black helicopters, hovering on highway 101 just south of San Francisco International Airport. People wearing hoodies, on their laptops looking at the closed doors of a conference room just down the hallway. Rental cones of silence hanging from the ceiling of the conference room. White noise machines. Food tasters on call.

Some black hat operation? Secret meetings on Facebook’s upcoming IPO (Initial Public Offering)? Merger and Acquisition discussions between companies who don’t want to be seen in the same room together or at the “W”, during RSA 2012 San Francisco?

None of the above. Not even stealthy. It’s the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) members meeting,behind held prior to RSA 2012 San Francisco. These people won’t be found with the tchotchke collectors journeying the RSA exhibition hall. Quite an impressive international membership,from A to W. http://www.amtso.org/members.html No, I’m not a member. A number of these people,who easily qualify as malware “smartest guys in the room” will be trekking up to RSA 2012 San Francisco after this meeting. http://www.rsaconference.com/events/2012/usa/mightier.htm

The AMTSO does good stuff. It’s worth checking out their organization and their (free) white papers. Titles include "AMTSO Fundamental Principles of Testing" and "AMTSO Best Practices for Testing in the Cloud Security Products". There is more to evaluating a security product than clicking “like” on a fan page.

The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) was founded in May 2008 as an international non-profit association. They focus on addressing the global need for improvement in the objectivity, quality, and relevance of anti-malware testing methodologies.AMTSO membership is open to academics, reviewers, publications, testers, and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO.

www.amtso.org

RSA Conference 2012 San Francisco – SC Magazine Awards 2012 Coming to San Francisco

We're now less that a month until RSA Conference San Francisco, running February 27 through March 2. The theme, The Great Cipher, Mightier than the Sword". Free seminars, training, keynote speakers such as former Prime Minister of England Tony Blair, the Expo Hall Pub Crawl, the Codebreakers Ball, and tchotchkes! The event is great for training, to get an advance look at what may be coming up in the trade, and to network with all those people you used to work with at other security vendors.

http://www.rsaconference.com/events/2012/usa/mightier.htm

Visit kensek.blogspot.com during RSA Conference San Francisco for at least one “view from the floor” update.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• When was the last time you even used a pen, with the exception of signing a bill at a restaurant? So why are you standing in line for one or collecting them?
• That t-shirt you’re debating to attend the presentation to obtain will not impress people at your health club
• The woman walking up to you in very high heels and a LBD. She only wants you for your scannable info
• Turning your badge over prior to asking questions at a booth screams, “I work for a competitor and think that this will hide my identity.”
• Go to www.SFGate.com or www.opentable.com to look for places to munch at around Moscone
• If you are working the booth and someone is chatting with you while looking side to side or down: the former, according to neurolinguistic programming, means they are an auditory, the latter, means kinesthetic. At a trade show, it means either they are looking at the people you hired to be in the booth or they are looking for the tchotchkes.
• One letter – “W”. If you have to ask why, you may want to go back to Moscone and attend another seminar or gather some more tchotchkes

Also held during RSA, but not part of it, are the SC Magazine 2012 Awards. These are February 28 Intercontinental Hotel on 888 Howard Street (just down the block from RSA Conference 2012 and the Moscone Convention Center) in San Francisco.

To view some of the finalists for the SC Magazine Awards 2012 -

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/11/sc-magazine-awards-2012-finalist.html or a comprehensive list at http://www.scmagazineus.com/finalists/section/2386/.

Free Pass

For information on acquiring a free pass for the exhibitors hall - http://blog.proofpoint.com/2011/11/free-rsa-security-expo-2012-passes

Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization Meeting During RSA

Coinciding with RSA, on February 23-24, the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (www.AMTSO.org) will be having a members meeting. According to their website, `The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) is as an international non-profit association that focuses on the addressing the global need for improvement in the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware testing methodologies. AMTSO membership is open to academics, reviewers, publications, testers and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO. The site is also a great resource for free documents on testing guidelines and best practices.

AMTSO Guidelines on Facilitating Testability

There is another brief publication out by the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) for those who may do deep dive or even casual testing of internet security products. “AMTSO Guidelines on Facilitating Testability” This document covers ways in which “testers and vendors can collaborate and share information in order to make testing more efficient and accurate, and to enable external verification of results.” It is only six pages long but is a good read. It was published in late May. www.amtso.org

AMTSO (as I’ve previously written) has a number of useful documents for those who perform testing for companies, the “reviewers” of the world, and people who may want to be able to look at product tests and reviews at a deeper level than the casual reader. The list of titles is at http://www.amtso.org/documents.html and they’re free! These will make you much smarter than a fifth grader! No guarantees in how mentioning these documents will be useful to help meet people in clubs or cafes across North America and Europe.

If you can read only one document, I suggest “The Fundamental Principals of Testing”. It is a five-page read and will provide some points to look at tests with a more discerning eye (as well as design your own tests and reviews). Sometimes the wisdom of experts is better than the wisdom of crowds, even if the experts don’t have 300k or 500k Facebook fans. Read some of AMTSO’s documents before this season’s Internet Security 2012 reviews come out. Click here to “like”. Then send to all your friends. ;) . Check out the member organizations when you visit their site.

About AMTSO

The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, or AMTSO, is dedicated to helping improve the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware technology testing. AMTSO membership is open to industry-wide academics, reviewers, testers and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO. www.amtso.org

Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization Meeting In California

World. For a couple of days, San Mateo, California will be known for something more than the city where Boston Patriot quarterback Tom Brady played high school football and where the horse Seabiscuit raced during the 1930’s Depression. The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization is having one of their annual meetings in San Mateo the week of February 8th. Of course, next week is the RSA 2011 Conference in San Francisco http://www.rsaconference.com/2011/usa/

We’re talking about a bunch of really bright people. The smartest men and women in the room. People who get voted off the island for being too bright for the others. Much smarter than a 5th grader.

The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) is a three year old international non-profit association that focuses on the addressing the global need for improvement in the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware testing methodologies. AMTSO membership is open to academics, reviewers, publications, testers and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO.

The wisdom of crowds (unless it’s the right crowd) does not guarantee arriving at the best solution. Would you rather rely on the advice of a surgeon, team of surgeons, or 200k Facebook fans clicking or not clicking "like" and adding comments to provide the best course of action for a procedure? The third alternative is quite scary. I would go with the experts with respect to suggesting security test guidelines.

Close to 40 different organizations (the vast majority being global security and test organizations) are members. These include Trend Micro, ESET, AVG Technologies, AV-Comparatives, Virus Bulletin, Avast, Symantec, to name a few.

Many resources are available for free for anyone to download http://www.amtso.org/documents.html . Any organization or publication doing testing, at minimum, should at least be familiar with AMTSO’s (free) document “Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. The Fundamental Principles of Testing”. These principles aren’t rocket science, but you see them being violated all the time. There are a number of other articles, doing various depths of technical deep dives. Statistically valid tests, anyone ;) ?

Individuals can rely on the proverbial “like” clicks on Fan Pages for testing advice. However, that’s probably a suboptimal solution.

The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization web site is at www.amtso.org For membership information, go to http://www.amtso.org/membership.html