Cybersecurity Expert

I have written the following article for IBM which was published on IBM's DeveloperWorks Scan your app to find and fix OWASP Top 10 2013 vulnerabilities (website) Scan your app to find and fix OWASP Top 10 2013 vulnerabilities (PDF) Today's modern web applications are more than a match for most desktop PC applications and continue to push boundaries by taking advantage of limitless cloud services. But more powerful web applications means more complicated code, and the more complicated the code, the greater the risk of coding flaws — which can lead to serious security vulnerabilities within the application. Web application vulnerabilities face exploitation by relentless malicious actors, bent on profiteering from data theft, or gaining online notoriety by causing mischief. This article looks at securing web applications by adopting industry best application development practices, such as the OWASP Top 10 and using web application vulnerability scanning tools.

HeartBleed has suddenly become a very well known security  vulnerability, because this simple vulnerability in OpenSSL has turned out to be  one of the most critical and potentially devastating of all time, with over half million trusted websites said to be vulnerable . Over the last couple of days various security advocates and vendors have been lined up by  the media , with ominous warnings of grave danger online due to Heartbleed. Heartbleed is a Catastrophic Bug in OpenSSL - Bruce Schneier However I have generally found main stream media have focused far too much on trying to sensationalise instead of explaining the vulnerability properly, and not explaining how organisations should resolve the problem, and how users can protect themselves. It is fair to say the media coverage has led to much confusion on Heartbleed, with both organisations and users alike, which I’ll attempt to dispel. Heartbleed made Simple Heartbleed, also ...