Columbus

Winter Meeting
On February 15th from 8AM to noon, the Columbus ISSA chapter and the Columbus OWASP chapter will be holding a joint meeting at J. Liu in Worthington. A number of awesome topics will be covered. More information in Current Meetings.

OWASP Membership
At the Q3 meeting, there were a lot of questions about membership. Membership supports the many projects that OWASP in involved in, including ESAPI. Learn more about membership here. Remember to tell them you are interested in membership in the Columbus chapter.

Stay in touch with Columbus OWASP

 * The first stop to connecting with the community is our mailing list, feel free to contribute and interact with the list - it's not just for listening!


 * We're a group on LinkedIn as well, please join us.

Become a voting member
We encourage organization and individual supporters of our ethics &amp; principals to become a voting MEMBER. Please review the Chapter Rules and the OWASP overview, and [mailto:columbusowasp(at)gmail.com contact the chapter leaders] for more information.

The professional association of OWASP Foundation Inc., is always free and open to anyone interested in learning more about application security.

We want your participation!
To submit educational topics for upcoming meetings, [mailto:columbusowasp(at)gmail.com submit your ideas and slide deck] (if available) using the OWASP Template and include a speaker BIO. It doesn't have to be formal, we're happy to provide some assistance in organizing your thoughts. You only need an interest and knowledge of your independent research or related software security topic.

Sponsorship, too!
There are myriad opportunities to sponsor the chapter, including meeting space, food, marketing, and monetary donations. We're always looking for assistance. Inquiries regarding chapter or per-meeting sponsorship opportunities can be directed to [mailto:columbusowasp(at)gmail.com the chapter leaders]. As a 501(3)c non-profit professional association your support and sponsorship of a meeting venue and/or refreshments is tax-deductible and all financial contributions can be made online right now:  Columbus 

Winter 2012 Meeting
Our winter 2012 meeting will be February 15th from 8 AM to noon at the J. Liu in Worthington. This is a joint meeting with ISSA, the first of many collaborations within the thriving Columbus security community for 2012.

Three topics will be presented, including a case study relating to security analysis at a large banking concern. This meeting will be a must-attend, as much important information will be presented. More details will be available shortly about the speakers and topics. Hope to see you there!

Meeting details
Our chapter meets quarterly; we're organizing several different event styles in addition to traditional presentations. There will be opportunities for Columbus OWASP members to meet other local security groups through event cross-participation and cooperation. The next quarterly meeting is being planned for August 18th, 2011.

Feel free to contact us at columbusowasp@gmail.com with any questions.

Q4 Meeting December 1, 2011 at 1PM
On December 1, 2011, from 1PM to 4PM at the Conference Center of BMW Financial, the Columbus OWASP chapter presented it's Third Quarter Meeting.

Dan Houser was our first speaker. Dan is a Senior Security & Identity Architect for a Global 100 healthcare organization, based in Columbus, Ohio. In addition to providing Information Security Architecture and Risk Management subject matter expertise, he drives the organization's Identity and Access Management strategy. Mr. Houser is a published author, with primary research and many papers in security, holds the CISSP-ISSAP, CISM, CISA and CGEIT designations, and is an often sought after instructor and speaker.

Dan presented a introduction to basic cryptography for developers.

Mark Feferman was our second speaker. Mark has over 18 years of IT security experience beginning as one of the original four software developers of the BindView suite of products. As a career software developer, who later became involved in IT security, Mark’s role as an application security professional is focused on strategic initiatives, like secure coding standards, threat modeling, and the integration of static code analysis into the SDLC. Mark currently services as the practice director for Application Security at FishNet Security. He, along with his 18 direct reports, located around the US, perform the advisory services for the practice.

Mark presented: Application Security…it’s not just a tactical effort…it’s both a Strategic and Tactical affair. This will include The State of Application Security: The Strategic, the Tactical, and the Do-Nothings, Consultant Perspectives: Application Security in the PCI World, and Secure SDLC, Where to Start, What are the essentials.

Q3 Meeting August 18, 2011 at 1PM
On August 18, 2011, from 1PM to 4PM at the Conference Center of BMW Financial. Two speakers were featured:

Speaker: Brent Huston CEO & Security Evangelist of MicroSolved, Inc. (MSI)

This presentation will discuss PHP and ASP malware, discovery techniques, how the attackers are staging and processing malware-based attacks, as well as the relevance of anti-virus against these forms of malware. Drawn from real world attacks and compromises, examples will be displayed and discussed. Take aways will include the architecture of attacker cells, their targeting and use of compromised hosts and insight into how simple, basic controls can assist us in fighting these forms of assault.

Speaker: Kevin Wall - ESAPI Committer / Owner at OWASP & Staff Security Engineer at CenturyLink



OWASP Enterprise Security API (ESAPI) is one of the flagship projects at OWASP, but as of yet, not many application development teams have adopted it. This presentation will provide a brief history and overview of ESAPI, including its goals and all its language implementations, before taking a deeper dive into ESAPI for Java.

The ESAPI for Java portion will discuss major changes from ESAPI 1.4 to ESAPI 2.0 and how the various ESAPI 2.0 security controls map as mitigations for the OWASP Top Ten. We will also examine the relative maturity of each security control.

This will be followed by a few examples of how to use ESAPI, including an in-depth one of using ESAPI's symmetric encryption. Finally, we will briefly describe how the OWASP AppSensor project has the ESAPI's Intrustion Detection mechanism to provid an powerful intrustion detection system at the application layer and describe some of the advantanges of this versus an more traditional IDS.

Q2 Meeting - June 10th, 1PM - Defensible .NET
Presented by Jason Montgomery, Sr. Security Specialist, Active Technologies Group, Inc.

ASP.NET and the .NET framework have become the preferred foundation underlying enterprise applications. While Microsoft has prioritized integrating security into the ASP.NET framework, attacks at the application layer are dramatically increasing. How effective are the security controls built into the ASP.NET framework? Application developers must understand the limitations of the framework and ensure their code is secure. Focusing on the OWASP top ten, Jason Montgomery will explain the latest defensive techniques specific to the ASP.NET environment. Jason is Sr. Security Specialist at Active Technologies Group, Inc. (ATGi). He is a SANS instructor in .NET application security and co-author of the secure coding certification, GSSP.NET. Jason has spent the past five years guiding software security practices at the Department of Defense, and currently leads ATGi’s secure software development and assessment practice.

3rd Annual Central Ohio Infosec Summit
The goal of this event is to educate regional Information Security professionals and support collaboration by bringing leading speakers in the information security field together to educate the community on the latest industry trends and issues.

This Information Security Conference will provide information security professionals with the most up-to-date information, tools, trends, legislative information, products, services, and strategies for addressing information security issues. The conference will focus on key topics related to information security with presentations provided by recognized experts and exhibits by some of the nation’s leading organizations.

2010 Q1 Meeting

 * PHP Security presented by Jon Canady, Web Application Developer, Innova Partners, March 23rd, 2010

Meeting Summary: PHP is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language, originally designed to produce dynamic web pages. In 2007, The PHP Group reported it was utilized on over 20 million websites and 1 million web servers. In 2008, the National Vulnerability Database claimed PHP accounted for 35% of software vulnerabilities, with nearly all caused by poor programming practices. Every PHP developer, hoster, and security professional should understand the primary attack vectors being used by attackers against PHP applications. During this OWASP meeting we dived deep into PHP security - specifically the OWASP Top 10 in the context of PHP.

In addition to the presentation, chapter leadership changes were announced as well as the new leadership's plans for increasing the visibility and participation of the chapter.

The Columbus OWASP Chapter leadership would like to thank BMW Financial Services for hosting this event and Innova Partners for providing lunch.

Presentation slide deck: [[Media:OWASP_Q12010_PHP.pdf|OWASP_Q12010_PHP]] (pdf, 4.5M)

Columbus OWASP Chapter Leaders
Please feel free to contact the chapter leaders at any time.


 * [mailto:Aaron.Ansari(at)bmwfs.com Aaron Ansari]
 * [mailto:cmatthews(at)microsolved.com Constance Matthews]
 * [mailto:bill(at)pointweb.net Bill Sempf]

You can also reach the chapter leadership at columbusowasp@gmail.com.

Other Local InfoSec Resources

 * Central Ohio InfraGard
 * Central Ohio ISACA
 * Central Ohio ISSA
 * Security MBA (Masters of Beer Appreciation)