Netherlands Previous Events 2007

Meeting minutes December 20th 2007
At December 20th, the Dutch OWASP chapter came together at the office of ps_testware located in Doorn. The subject of the evening was 'creating secure (web)applications. There were 3 speakers and close to 30 attendees First presentation: Practices of developing optimal security (dutch), Andre Post Andre talked from his rich experience as software auditor and code reviewer. Based on his experience he stated that developing good, secure software can only be done with developers with the right set of mind. Security should not be tested into the software, but should be a natural thing for developers to develop into the software. For this you need developers who know by heart when security flaws start to exist and how to prevent them. Developers with the necessary experience are rare and often developer teams do not have the right expertise for developing secure software. The most important conclusion of his speech was that secure software starts with security aware developers. Second presentation: Problems of developing secure and correct applications (dutch), Erik Poll Erik Poll stated that besides having developers who are aware of security, you should also have developers that now the limitations and inherent security leaks of the used language. One of the problems is that many developers are not taught the inherent security holes in programming languages during their education. Another problem is that software is often made secure for the wrong reasons. At this moment only two reasons appear to be the drive behind developing secure software: economics and laws. Security is mostly of secondary concern and as such will only be implemented at minimum requirements. Bad examples of big companies who develop insecure software and still be successful even further restrict the demand for secure software. On the positive side many developers make the same mistakes so testing for common security holes can easily be done with checklists and validation tools. These validation tools can be made more successful with the use of metatags in the code. Erik concluded his speech that improving the secureness of software can only be achieved when there is commitment, the knowledge is available and software is developed and implemented with a secure mind. Third presentation: Protecting Web services and Web applications against security threats, Rix Groenboom The third presentation was about a problem which probably will become bigger and bigger the coming years. Although security might be in the scope when developing software at this moment, it certainly was not a requirement 20 or more years ago. Despite their intrinsic insecureness, these systems are connected more and more to the world wide web to meet de demands for online availability. This imposes a major security risk which will become more evident in the years to come and might become bigger than the Y2K problem. Unlike modern software, these applications can only be made secure enough by using advanced testing strategies combined with the use of test-tools and thorough regression tests. Testing alone however is not enough; to accomplish maximum secureness all connections to these systems should be based on a 'deny unless' instead of an 'allow unless' basis. The conclusion of Rix's talk was that old systems connected to new interfaces should be treated as insecure and all possible precautions should be taken to achieve an acceptable level of secureness.

Meeting December 20th 2007: Secure Development
Summary The main goal of the upcoming OWASP-NL meeting is to provide information to developers and security professionals involved in creating secure (web-)applications. The general and specific security issues involved on project and programming level will be covered from a practical as well as a theoretical point of view. The speakers will give specific examples and of course there is time to ask questions about your own experiences. Please register before December the 14th because of the necessary catering arrangements. Location The location and catering is provided by the sponsor of this meeting: Program 17.30 - 18.30 Check-In (catering included) 18.30 – 19:00 Introduction (OWASP organization, projects, sponsor) 19.00 - 19.30 Practices of developing optimal security (dutch), Andre Post This presentation highlights a number of current practices that lead to sub-optimal security, and suggests ways of avoiding these problems, focusing on the technical side of development. André Post works for Fox-IT on a variety of projects including core product development, software architecting, security code reviews, and software project management. 19.30 – 19:45 Break 19:45 – 20:30 Problems of developing secure and correct applications (dutch), Erik Poll (slides of the presentation) This presentation will discuss different possibilities to improve software security. The problem of getting time and money available to be spend on security, not only for developing applications, but also for developing programming languages, will be raised. Erik Poll is head of the Security of Systems (SoS) group at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. His research does focus on the security and correctness of software. 20.30 - 21.00 Protecting Web services and Web applications against security threats (dutch), Rix Groenboom During this session, Rix will explore how to implement development and security best practices in the code to make sure that your webservices and applications perform solidly when they are being hacked or used in malicious ways. Rix Groenboom supports fortune 2000 companies in field automated software error prevention and correction for Parasoft. His main area of expertise is in the use of formal languages for the specification, design and validation of software applications. 21.00 – 21:30 Discussion, questions and social All OWASP chapter meetings are free of charge and you don’t have to be an OWASP member to attend. There are never any vendor pitches or sales presentations at OWASP meetings. NOTE TO CISSP's: OWASP Meetings count towards CPE Credits. The announcement and full descriptions can be found here: [[Media:Announcement_20_December.pdf]] [[Media:Announcement_20_December_2.pdf]]

Meeting September 13th: putting initiatives into practice
The main goal of the next OWASP meeting is finding a way to put initiatives and all offered help into a form of structural benefit for the OWASP Netherlands local chapter. As a starting point for the discussion, examples will be taken from other European chapters and input delivered by discussions that take place on the mailing list is considered too. Let this be a call to put your ideas on the mailing list before the next meeting! The location is provided by the sponsor of this meeting: Comsec Consulting BV Rivium Boulevard 102 2909LK Capelle aan den IJssel The agenda: 18.00 - 18.30 Check-In (catering included) 18.30 - 18.45 OWASP update, Bert Koelewijn 18.45 - 19.15 Security Best Practices for .NET, Boaz Shunami 19.15 - 20.00 Discussion: collecting ideas and initiatives 20.00 - 20.15 Coffee break 20.15 - 21.00 Discussion: how to enable community commitment 21.00 - 21.30 Closing discussion and coffee Boaz Shunami Boaz is manager of the Application Security department of Comsec Europe. He has 11 years of experience in the IT Security field, and a large part of them in Application Security. Boaz did numerous application security audits in very large organizations and is recognized as one of the greatest expert’s world wide. Boaz' expertise is broad, but especially in-depth for the .NET platform. Discussion input (until now) - division of local chapter work load by multiple people - collaboration with other organizations If you want to attend send an email to owasp@irc2.com. All OWASP chapter meetings are free, there are never vendor pitches or sales presentations at OWASP meetings. NOTE TO CISSP's: OWASP Meetings count towards CPE Credits.

Meeting minutes March 9thh 2007
On 9 march, the second meeting of OWASP Netherlands local chapter took place. GetronicsPinkRoccade provided the venue, in their luxury conference centre: Connection I. Agenda: 18.00 - 18.45 Check-In (bread & drinks) 18.45 - 19.00 Opening 19.00 - 20.00 Improving Security in the Application Development Life-cycle, Migchiel de Jong 20.00 - 20.15 Coffee break 20.15 - 22.00 Form focus groups The presentation of Migchiel de Jong was found very interesting by the audience. At the end of his presentation, he demonstrated a static code analysis of the OWASP webgoat application. After the coffee break, the attendances started discussing about the largest common topics of interest in the web application security field, in relation to the OWASP Netherlands chapter. As a result, the following focus groups are formed: Testing The current OWASP Testing project and the Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual of ISECOM, provide guidelines and best practices for testers. These guidelines can be used to formalize a standard structure and a set of minimum requirements for a security test. Clients could ask a tester to adhere to these guidelines. A second idea is to standardize the testing results management report. In practice, testing could result in piles of paper with all the findings. The real value is reporting it in a usable way. For example: mapping technical findings to business risks. Frans v. Buul Peter Gouwentak Arthur Donkers Eelco Klaver Migchiel de Jong Mario de Boer First focus group meeting: Monday 27 march, 18:00h, PwC Utrecht Public Relations This focus group will try to make business aware of the security impact that developing, hosting and using web applications has. What OWASP is and how OWASP can help. This can be done by giving presentations, writing papers and articles, word of mouth, etc. etc. Remco Bakker Ronald Eygendaal Bas van Vossen Edwin van Vliet Eelco Klaver First presentation of OWASP materials: Edwin van Vliet, TestNet - Voorjaarsevenement, 5 april First focus group meeting: To be planned! Education OWASP and universities/schools could benefit from working together. For example: - OWASP provides lot's of materials usable in colleges. - Develop OWASP training course. - Students can participate in OWASP projects - OWASP can provide a platform for supporting research. Such as thesis projects, etc. - OWASP representatives could provide guest colleges. Ronald Eygendaal Erik Poll Bas van Vossen Edwin van Vliet First focus group meeting: To be planned! The presentation is available here: [[Media:OWASP_NL_Fortify_Software.pdf]]

Meeting March 9th 2007: Second meeting of the OWASP Netherlands local chapter!
In this second meeting focus groups are to be formed, to discuss common problems, develop and research common solutions in a vendor neutral environment. So this is a very good opportunity to get in contact with others, to exchange knowledge and experiences on specific topics. For every focus group the following questions has to be answered: 1. Which specific topic is to be addressed? 2. What are the deliverables? 3. What is the relation to OWASP? (Current projects, materials, expertise and knowledge interchange, etc.) 4. Who is the central contact of the subgroup? It would be nice to have a bigger and more diverse group, compared to the first meeting. So let's recall: "Please, bring at least one friend, next time." And don't hesitate to send this announcement to everybody who may be interested! We thank Getronics PinkRoccade for offering us a venue: Getronics PinkRoccade Fauststraat 1 7323 BA Apeldoorn The agenda: 18.00 - 18.30 Check-In 18.30 - 18.45 Opening 18.45 - 19.30 Improving Security in the Application Development Life-cycle, Migchiel de Jong 19.30 - 20.00 Collecting focus group initiatives 19.45 - 20.00 Coffee break 20.00 - 21.00 Form focus groups Presentation Abstract Rather than spending large amounts of time and money on proving that we have security vulnerabilities after programs go into production, companies should go to the source and correct vulnerabilities as early as possible in the development stage. It is unquestionably faster, simpler, and cheaper for developers to correct vulnerabilities as they build programs. But how can development management ensure that developers focus on security when there is no time or budget for security at the development stage? Even with the correct focus, how can they learn what to look for? How can they stay ahead of the dedicated and resourceful hacker? The answer is effective processes and better tools. With advanced software security tools, a developer can pinpoint vulnerabilities in a matter of seconds — the same vulnerabilities that would take a hacker or manual code reviewer weeks or even months to find. These same tools can give development and information security managers useful metrics on application vulnerabilities before they are released into deployment. This talk will walk through the Application Development Life-Cycle and discuss how tools can help come to grips with software security issues in a particular phase. About the presenter Migchiel de Jong has developed hardware and software for 10 years before joining Rational Software. During the 5 years at Rational Software (later acquired by IBM) he was involved in many software development process improvement projects. Currently Migchiel de Jong is working at Fortify Software, Palo Alto, California, as a software security engineer. If you want to attend send an email to owasp@irc2.nl. Please don't wait, 9 march is not that long anymore! All OWASP chapter meetings are free, there are never vendor pitches or sales presentations at OWASP meetings. NOTE TO CISSP’s: OWASP Meetings count towards CPE Credits.

Meeting minutes Januar 11th 2007
January 11th, the Dutch OWASP chapter came together at the office of Sogeti Netherlands. Subject of the evening was 'putting software security into practice'. The group was small but select. The agenda: 18.00 - 18.30 Check-In (catering included) 18.30 - 18.45 Sponsor opening 18.45 - 19.00 OWASP update, Bert Koelewijn 19.00 - 19.30 Implementation of Security by Design, Martin Knobloch 19.30 - 19.45 Panel introduction 19.45 - 20.00 Coffee break 20.00 - 21.30 Panel discussion After being welcomed by Frank Langeveld from Sogeti and Bert Koelewijn, Dutch chapter leader, the evening started with the presentation 'Security By Design'. During the presentation Martin Knobloch told about his experiences during the implementation of the Secure Development Life Cycle in a company like Sogeti Nederland B.V. The presentation is available here: [[Media:Implementation_of_Security_by_Design.ppt]] After a small break, the panel discussion started with the following panel: Henk van der Heijden - Comsec Consulting, Dr.ir. Mario de Boer - LogicaCMG and Martin Knobloch - Sogeti Nederland. During the discussion, it became clear people are struggling to get the Secure Development Life Cycle implemented in their company. The various experiences were shared with the panel and the others. Company typical problems and common misunderstandings about Software security where brought up. The consensus of the discussion was that the main problem lies in the lack of security awareness and knowledge of the managers and the developers. And this of course is exactly where OWASP comes in…

Meeting Januar 11th 2007
The OWASP meeting of 11 January is about putting software security into practice. A lot of books, standards, organizations and consultants tell us how we should develop secure software. But which methods and measures are commonly adopted and which are not and why? This will be the main focus of the discussion that we will have with a panel of people that experienced implementing software security in the field. The location is provided by the sponsor of this meeting: Sogeti Nederland B.V. "La Charmille" building Lange Dreef 17 4131 NJ Vianen The agenda: 18.00 - 18.30 Check-In (catering included) 18.30 - 18.45 Sponsor opening 18.45 - 19.00 OWASP update, Bert Koelewijn 19.00 - 19.30 Implementation of Security by Design, Martin Knobloch 19.30 - 19.45 Panel introduction 19.45 - 20.00 Coffee break 20.00 - 21.30 Panel discussion Implementation of Security by Design What is needed to implement a 'Secure Development Life Cycle' within Sogeti Nederland? The speaker started a project called 'Security by Design' in march 2006 implementing a SDLC at Sogeti Nederland. In his presentation, the speaker will share his technical and organizational experiences that he gained with the still ongoing implementation. About the speaker Martin Knobloch has more than 8 years experience in design and development of J2EE applications for customers in various sectors of the market. In September 2003 Martin Knobloch started working for Sogeti Nederland, where he does the design, development and review of J2EE applications and architectures. From this background, Martin Knobloch experienced the threats of insecure software firsthand. In march 2006, Martin Knobloch started implementing a SDLC within Sogeti Nederland. Panel discussion The panel members are: Henk van der Heijden, Managing Director - Comsec Consulting B.V. Dr.ir. Mario de Boer, Security Consultant - LogicaCMG Martin Knobloch, Senior Technologie Specialist - Sogeti Nederland B.V. In the discussion, we will try to find answers to questions like: - What are the most common security practices in software development? - How effective are those practices? - Where do we start practicing security? - What should be the most common security practices in software development? - How much does security cost? - How does the Systems Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model (SSE-CMM) fit in? If you want to attend send an email to owasp@irc2.com. All OWASP chapter meetings are free, there are never vendor pitches or sales presentations at OWASP meetings. NOTE TO CISSP’s: OWASP Meetings count towards CPE Credits.