Free sites learn programming

I feel every security practitioner should at least have some basic programming skills. I have seen CISO's make useless comments like, "x% of all security risks are due to poor coding". Well yes, since this is a huge arena in itself, and anyway forms bulk of the effort to setup any technology portal.

Some free sources to learn

Learn Hacking

Learn the skills of hacking, from real hackers (and I don't mean CEH).

A world record attempt at CTF Hacking Contest

An inspirational attempt to get 3000+ security enthusiasts together and play the Capture The Flag hacking game. If successful, they will go down in the Guinness book of world records! Do watch their youtube video

Elements of a successful security awareness program

The 7 elements to make your organization's program a success.

Schneier's So You Want to Be a Security Expert

Good article for the newbies trying to get into this industry.

Hackers claim to steal 110,000 SSNs from Tenn. school system

Nothing new I guess

Users Still The Weakest Link in the Security Chain

Well, it is an age old known fact. One of the many articles that talks about it

Google Decides To Educate Users

Google is focusing on the importance of protecting personal information  in an unusual marketing campaign for a company that has been blasted for its own online privacy lapses and practices. The educational ads will start appearing Tuesday in dozens of U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and magazines, including Time and the New Yorker. Google Inc. also will splash its message across billboards within the subways of New York and Washington, as well as various Web sites.

Full story here...

Hack to Learn

One of the common questions I keep getting is, "How do I learn to hack". My usual answer is to grow up and get a life.

However, in case anyone is really interested in learning offensive security, or in other words would like to "hack to learn" from the experience, here is what I can recommend:

• Backtrack:  The must have distro, with all the tools required. The new version is called Kali
• The team which created Backtrack also runs a few certification programs. All of these are paid, but extremely helpful
• This same group also has one free training program
• To practice, and to get some experience around exploitation, here a few helpful and hack-able targets
• McAfee's Hackme - A web based exploitable application. Here is a good tutorial with Hackme
• WebGoat is a J2EE web app from OWASP, designed to teach web application security lessons

The Security Risks of Not Teaching Malware

Essay by George Ledin on the security risks of not teaching students malware (originally blogged by Bruce Schneier)