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Many organizations have already seen the writing on the wall: the days of user name and password authentication are coming to an end. We’ve tried to overcome the weaknesses of the old username and password solution by requiring complex passwords, but users just came up with creative ways to get around password complexity requirements, and hackers came up with more sophisticated methods (such as rainbow tables) for cracking passwords. Bill Gates said at the 2004 RSA conference that passwords “just don’t meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure.” It’s clear that other methods for authenticating users must be employed to meet the security challenges of the 21st century. The solution is multi-factor authentication. Most commonly deployed as two-factor authentication, multi-factor authentication requires more than a user name and password. There must be something else provided in order to verify that the user is whom the user claims to be. That additional “factor” can be a biometric reading, a smart card, or a device that enables a one-time password. The important thing is that an authentication factor in addition to an easily stolen username and password must be required to assure that the person logging on is indeed that user. Two-factor authentication solves a lot of problems. Some of them include: Phishing attacks. With two-factor authentication, phishers could not steal user names and passwords and gain access to private information; since they cannot steal the second factor, the user name and password ends up being worthless to the attacker later on I

We’re big fans of Microsoft “Stirling” around here. We’ve been running it in a parallel production network for a while now and are mightily impressed with the security and visibility it provides for our network. With “Stirling”, I don’t have to deal with multiple consoles to get views of my network security and I also get a single management interface to configure security and incident response policies. “Stirling” was supposed to be available before the end of the year. Indeed, I was planning on getting it all put together on production networks before Christmas. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to have to wait a bit longer before that happens. Why? The Forefront Team Blog mentions a couple of major issues responsible for the delay: Forefront Client Security 2.0 and Forefront Security for SharePoint won’t be available until the first half of 2010 The Forefront “Stirling” console won’t be ready until the first half of 2010 We knew there was going to be a good chance that there would be some delays. There are a lot of products in the “Stirling” security suite, and a delay in any one of those products would lead to a delay of the entire solution. That’s exactly what happened. However, it’s worth the wait. This is a tremendous product that will change the way many of us “do security”, so it’s critical that it’s done right. Indeed, many of us around here consider Forefront “Stirling” to be a game changer, finally solidifying Microsoft as a key player in the computer security marketplace. Couple “Stirling” with hardware upgrades to the new “Nehalem” (Intel Microarchi

"The Application Architecture Guide 2.0 provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics.This guide is a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, product teams, and industry experts. This guide is related to the Application Architecture Guide v2.0 Knowledge Base Project. The App Arch Knowledge Base includes a large amount of material that elaborates on specific topics in the main guide. How Tos for example. It also includes material from the main guide that is targeted and packaged for more specifc audiences, such as the Pocket Guide series…" Get the guide at http://www.codeplex.com/AppArchGuide HTH, Tom Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSESr. Consultant / Technical Writer Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security SpecialistEmail: [email protected] MVP – Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)