Boulderchaptermeetings2008.html

April 2008 Meeting Notes - Ryan C. Barnett - Dynamic Vulnerability Identification: Continuous Web Application Assessment
The sponsor was Breach Security, and the speaker was Ryan C. Barnett of Breach Security. Ryan demonstrated the concept of using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) as a means of detecting vulnerabilities.

Ryan's presentation is available in PDF format here.

Identifying web application vulnerabilities has traditionally been achieved by running vulnerability scanners. While these tools can been effective, they have some deficiencies, mainly that they are simply snap-shots in time and they often add network load on the web application. Web application firewalls can help to detect application defects in applications by monitoring the application as it is used. In this presentation, Ryan Barnett, Director of Application Security at Breach, will discuss how deploying a web application firewall can provide more value beyond simply protecting applications from attack. Due to their strategic placement within the application's communication stream, web application firewalls, can provide a great deal of visibility into how an application is used and detect defects by watching the interaction between the application and a client.

Ryan C. Barnett is a recognized security thought leader and evangelist who frequently speaks with the media and industry groups. He is the director of application security at Breach Security. He is also a faculty member for the SANS Institute, where his duties include instructor/courseware developer for Apache Security/Building a Web Application Firewall Workshop, Top 20 Vulnerabilities Team Member and Local Mentor for the SANS Track 4, "Hacker Techniques, Exploits and Incident Handling" course. He holds six SANS Global Information Assurance Certifications (GIAC): Intrusion Analyst (GCIA), Systems and Network Auditor (GSNA), Forensic Analyst (GCFA), Incident Handler (GCIH), Unix Security Administrator (GCUX) and Security Essentials (GSEC). Mr. Barnett also serves as the team lead for the Center for Internet Security Apache Benchmark Project and is a member of the Web Application Security Consortium. His web security book, "Preventing Web Attacks with Apache,” was published by Addison/Wesley in 2006.

February 2008 Meeting Notes - Michael Sutton - SQL Injection
The sponsor was HP, and the speaker was Michael Sutton of HP/SPI Dynamics. Topics included:

1. Data tampering via SQL injection (verbose and blind)

2. Guidance regarding WHAT TO DO and WHAT RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE for input validation (aka data validation).

3. SQL injection against AJAX

4. Intro and results of Michael Sutton's FUGGLE project

Michael's slide deck is available in PDF format

Michael Sutton is the co-author of "Fuzzing : Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery" and the Security Evangelist for SPI Dynamics, recently acquired by HP. Michael is responsible for identifying, researching and presenting on emerging issues in the web application security industry. He is a frequent speaker at major information security conferences, has authored much literature and is regularly quoted in the media on various information security topics. Michael is also a member of the Web Application Security Consortium (WASC), where he is project lead for the Web Application Security Statistics project.

Prior to joining SPI Dynamics, Michael was the Director for iDefense Labs, a team of world class researchers tasked with discovering and researching security vulnerabilities. Michael also established the Information Systems Assurance and Advisory Services (ISAAS) practice for Ernst & Young in Bermuda. He holds degrees from the University of Alberta and The George Washington University.

January 2008 Meeting Notes - Aman Garg - Web App Protection, Tips for QA and Testing
Aman Garg of TippingPoint presented "Success Stories for Resolving App Security Bugs". The 2 things that got my attention were common evasion techinques and his commitment to spending ~20% of available testing/QA time doing UNstructured testing. It must be working - TippingPoint is the market leader in the IPS space. Many thanks to Aman for presenting, to TippingPoint for sponsoring, and to Corporate Express for hosting as we all try to get better at writing more secure code!

Outline for January 17th:

Web app protection

My experiences running QA/testing at TippingPoint
 * php exploit demo
 * primer on php vulnerabilities and various layers at which these can be exploited
 * primer on XSS (cross site scripting) vulnerabilities
 * what you can do to make your web apps more secure


 * conventional wisdom in testing (make a million test cases, really comprehensive regression testing)
 * challenges in testing
 * tradeoff between responsiveness and thorough QA cycle
 * making processes secure & tamper proof
 * architecture issues - separating platform from application
 * best practices & recommendations from my experience

Aman's Bio: A veteran in the network security industry with over 10 years of experience, Aman Garg is currently Principal Architect at TippingPoint, where his current work focuses on design and research for new products and solutions, partnerships with other solution providers, and prototyping technology concepts. He has worn several different hats at TippingPoint - most recently, running the market /competitive analysis group, and leading the certification effort of TippingPoint products by NSS & ICSA Labs.

Mr. Garg holds an MBA from University of Texas Austin, a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, and a bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. His interests are in network security and network performance testing arenas. His research work on mitigating Denial of Service attacks has been cited by several academic journals.

Chapter Leader Links
Well-written, well-referenced SQL injection article

Cool MS Ace Team Blog

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/About_OWASP

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/How_OWASP_Works

https://www.owasp.org/index.php?title=How_OWASP_Works&diff=22690&oldid=15689 (this is a previous version of the 'How OWASP Works' page which contains some ideas about the future)

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_brand_usage_rules

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Chapter_Rules

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Chapter_Leader_Handbook

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:Chapter_Resources

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Tutorial#Editing_OWASP

And finally, if you haven't seen this amazing page created by Sebastien a while back with descirptions and links to past OWASP presentations, you must check it out now: http://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Education_Presentation

Of particular interest: https://www.owasp.org/images/d/df/OWASP_-_Presentation_for_potential_sponsorships.doc