Believe it or not I recently bought a Mac. It’s not as surprising as it sounds. I’ve been a bigot towards Apple for many years for various reasons that I don’t need to elaborate on. Despite that I decided to give OS X a try again - and I have to say I’m impressed.

It’s been a few years since I gave OS X a chance and things have changed. There is far more native OS X software, a much wider user base and OS X itself has become quite gorgeous (I was never a fan of the original Aqua theming - hey I run Compiz on my other workstations. I like pretty things.) Combine that with Apple’s switch to Intel/x86 and the introduction of Parallels and VMware Fusion; it’s a potent mix.

As a Linux user tried and true (been using it for over eleven years) I have always been disappointed with Microsoft operating systems and their somewhat busy methodology (look at the registry - you’ve got to be kidding me.) At home as a user I don’t do much - email, web browsing and growing my own business with it’s supporting tools (the web, word processing, spreadsheets, diagrams, etc.) There was no real reason to not use Windows. I didn’t want to be bogged down with keeping my Linux system up to date and I didn’t want to deal with training my guests how to use my computers; besides I have my Sun system and ESX server running as my playground.

Maybe I’m getting older; maybe my views are maturing. Linux just has too many options these days to let me run it as my primary workstation operating system. Combine that with the fact that running some instance of Windows is required for various systems management tools, VMware VC Client, certain FC array tools, etc. Either way you end up running Windows inside of some sort of virtualization product.

I had to ask myself what was the greater of alternatives and OS X came to light. After spending three days with an old Powerbook G4 running the latest OS X Leopard release I was sold. I didn’t even power on my Windows or Linux machines. It was that good. A slow, three year old laptop was more enjoyable to use than my up to date desktop computer; all thanks to the operating system.

Apple’s greatest mistake has been pricing. It’s their barrier to entry. Their hardware is expensive. That’s not to say that it isn’t well built; it is. Or that it isn’t well designed; it is. Just deep down there isn’t anything special about it. I’ve tried the various OSX86 released and they’ve advanced greatly (Google Leo4All for the best.) There’s just something to be said for a supported platform; one that automatic updates doesn’t break.

This post was made on a MacBook Pro

This is the first of several posts regarding PCI compliance imposed by the credit card industry. With deadlines approaching on December 31st, 2007 many organizations are not compliant - what does this mean to you?

Achieving PCI compliance has been on the forefront of many organizations as of late with compliance for Level 1 and 2 merchants looming on the 31st… and I ask myself “Why are things taking so long?” The truth of the matter is, technology is not simple and applications don’t change overnight.

Organizations are scrambling to meet compliance deadlines, with deadlines quickly approaching. A realistic approach to meeting PCI standards requires taking a step back and viewing things from 100′ above. Where are your weak points? What data can you limit access to? Are you making your changes securely? A focus on best practices is the approach to take. PCI was introduced in 2004 and now, three years later; organizations are still taken by surprise. Security standards didn’t just arrive.

A pragmatic approach deals with the immediate - is your storing of credit card data insecure? If your core method of retaining credit card data is insecure - nothing else matters. Compromise my web servers, decrypt my in-flight SSL just don’t get into my database. Companies need to approach PCI and security compliance in general from a PR and business standpoint. A compromise will ruin your business.

So what can a systems architect do? You can begin by ensuring all in flight data is secure, that stored data is secure, use finite lifetime tokens, PKI for applications and protect that information. Store your source securely, restrict it’s access. Systems administrators - control your infrastructure, build it securely, use images, use kickstart/jumpstart, manage your software/packages centrally, integrate logins centrally, log all data, use Splunk to mine your logged data for all events. Securely managing an enterprise infrastructure is a full time job. It takes effort to audit logs - automate it.

Take security scans with a grain of salt but don’t ignore the glaring issues - are you putting it off because it’s not valid or because it’s a lot of work?

The First Line of Defense:

Every online presence, Point of Sale and organization has dozens of entry points to its data. Protect each one. Having a firewall need not mean security. The greatest threat to any organization is its own employees. They are already inside your environment and considered trusted.

I figured it was about time that I stopped running old servers in my closet and moved my content online… voila!

More to come.