Rational Survivability

Hypervisors Are Becoming a Commodity...Virtualization Is a Feature?

A couple of weeks ago I penned a blog entry titled "The Battle for the HyperVisor Heats Up" in which I highlighted an announcement from Phoenix Technologies detailing their entry into the virtualization space with their BIOS-enabled VMM/Hypervisor offering called HyperCore.

This drew immediate parallels (no pun intended) to VMware and Xen's plans to embed virtualization capabilities into hardware.

The marketing continues this week with interesting announcements from Microsoft, Oracle and VMware:

1. VMware offers VMware Server 2 as a free virtualization product to do battle against...
2. Oracle offering "Oracle VM" for free (with paid support if you like) which claims to be 3 times as efficient than VMWare -- based on Xen.
3. Microsoft officially re-badged its server virtualization technology as Hyper-V (nee Veridian)
   detailing both a stand-alone Hyper-V Server as well technology integrated into W2K8 Server.
   

It seems that everyone and their mother is introducing a virtualization platform and the underpinning of commonality between basic functionality demonstrates how the underlying virtualization enabler -- the VMM/Hypervisor -- is becoming a commodity.

We are sure to see fatter, thinner, faster, "more secure" or more open Hypervisors, but this will be an area with less and less differentiation.  Table stakes.  Everything's becoming virtualized, so a VMM/Hypervisor will be the underlying "OS" enabling that transformation.

To illustrate the commoditization trend as well as a rather fractured landscape of strategies, one need only look at the diversity in existing and emerging VMM/Hypervisor solutions.   Virtualization strategies are beginning to revolve around a set of distinct approaches where virtualization is:

1. Provided for and/or enhanced in hardware (Intel, AMD, Phoenix)
2. A function of the operating system (Linux, Unix, Microsoft)
3. Delivered by means of an enabling software layer (nee platform) that is deployed across your entire infrastructure (VMware, Oracle)
4. Integrated into the larger Data Center "Fabric" or Data Center OS (Cisco)
5. Transformed into a Grid/Utility Computing model for service delivery

The challenge for a customer is making the decision on whom to invest it now.  Given the fact that there is not a widely-adopted common format for VM standardization, the choice today of a virtualization vendor (or vendors) could profoundly affect one's business in the future since we're talking about a fundamental shift in how your "centers of data" manifest.

What is so very interesting is that if we accept virtualization as a feature defined as an abstracted platform isolating software from hardware then the next major shift is the extensibility, manageability and flexibility of the solution offering as well as how partnerships knit out between the "platform" providers and the purveyors of toolsets.

It's clear that VMware's lead in the virtualization market is right inline with how I described the need for differentiation and extensibility both internally and via partnerships. 

VMotion is a classic example; it's clearly an internally-generated killer app. that the other players do not currently have and really speaks to being able to integrate virtualization as a "feature" into the combined fabric of the data center.  Binding networking, storage, computing together is critical.  VMware has a slew of partnerships (and potential acquisitions) that enable even greater utility from their products.

Cisco has already invested in VMware and a recent demo I got of Cisco's VFrame solution shows they are serious about being able to design, provision, deploy, secure and manage virtualized infrastructure up and down the stack, including servers, networking, storage, business process and logic.

In the next 12 months or so, you'll be able to buy a Dell or HP server using Intel or AMD virtualization-enabled chipsets pre-loaded with multiple VMM/Hypervisors in either flash or BIOS.  How you manage, integrate and secure it with the rest of your infrastructure -- well, that's the fun part, isn't it?

I'll bet we'll see more and more "free" commoditized virtualization platforms with the wallet ding coming from the support and licenses to enable third party feature integration and toolsets.

/Hoff

Oh SNAP! VMware acquires Determina! Native Security Integration with the Hypervisor?

Hot on the trails of becoming gigagillionaires, the folks at VMware make my day with this.  Congrats to the folks @ Determina.

Methinks that for the virtualization world, it's a very, very good thing.  A step in the right direction.

I'm going to prognosticate that this means that Citrix will buy Blue Lane or Virtual Iron next (see bottom of the post) since their acquisition of XenSource leaves them with the exact same problem that this acquisition for VMware tries to solve:

VMware Inc., the market leader in virtualization software, has acquired Determina Inc., a Silicon Valley maker of host intrusion prevention products.

...the security of virtualized environments has been something of an unknown quantity due to the complexity of the technology and the ways in which hypervisors interact with the host OS.  Determina's technology is designed specifically to protect the OS from malicious code, regardless of the origin of the attack, so it would seem to be a sensible fit for VMware, analysts say.

In his analysis of the deal, Gartner's MacDonald sounded many of the same notes. "By potentially integrating Memory Firewall into the ESX hypervisor, the hypervisor itself can provide an additional level of protection against intrusions. We also believe the memory protection will be extended to guest OSs as well: VMware's extensive use of binary emulation for virtualization puts the ESX hypervisor in an advantageous position to exploit this style of protection," he wrote.

I've spoken a lot recently  about how much I've been dreading the notion that security was doomed to repeat itself with the accelerated take off of server virtualization since we haven't solved many of the most basic security problem classes.  Malicious code is getting more targeted and more intelligent and when you combine an emerging market using hot technology without an appropriate level of security... 

Basically, my concerns have stemmed from the observation that if we can't do a decent job protecting physically-seperate yet interconnected network elements with all the security fu we have, what's going to happen when the "...network is the computer" (or vice versa.)  Just search for "virtualization" via the Lijit Widget above for more posts on this...

Some options for securing virtualized guest OS's in a VM are pretty straight foward:

1. Continue to deploy layered virtualized security services across VLAN segments of which each VM is a member (via IPS's, routers, switches, UTM devices...)
2. Deploy software like Virtual Iron's which looks like a third party vSwitch IPS on each VM
3. Integrate something like Blue Lane's ESX plugin-in which interacts with and at the VMM level
4. As chipset level security improves, enable it
5. Deploy HIPS as part of every guest OS.

Each of these approaches has its own sets of pros and cons, and quite honestly, we'll probably see people doing all five at the same time...layered defense-in-depth.  Ugh.

What was really annoying to me, however, is that it really seemed that in many cases, the VM solution providers were again expecting that we'd just be forced to bolt security ON TO our VM environments instead of BAKING IT IN.  This was looking like a sad reality.

I'll get into details in another post about Determina's solution, but I am encouraged by VMware's acquisition of a security company which will be integrated into their underlying solution set.  I don't think it's  a panacea, but quite honestly, the roadmap for solving these sorts of problems were blowing in the wind for VMware up until this point.

"Further, by using the LiveShield capabilities, the ESX hypervisor could be used 'introspectively' to shield the hypervisor and guest OSs from attacks on known vulnerabilities in situations where these have not yet been patched. Both Determina technologies are fairly OS- and application-neutral, providing VMware with an easy way to protect ESX as well as Linux- and Windows-based guest OSs."

Quite honestly, I hoped they would have bought Blue Lane since the ESX Hypervisor is now going to be a crowded space for them...

We'll see how well this gets integrated, but I smiled when I read this.

Oh, and before anyone gets excited, I'm sure it's going to be 100% undetectable! ;)

/Hoff

The 4th Generation of Security Devices = UTM + Routing & Switching or New Labels = Perfuming a Pig?

That's it.  I've had it.  Again.  There's no way I'd ever make it as a Marketeer.  <sigh>

I almost wasn't going to write anything about this particular topic because my response can (and probably should) easily be perceived as and retorted against as a pissy little marketing match between competitors.  Chu don't like it, Chu don't gotta read it, capice?

Sue me for telling the truth. {strike that, as someone probably will}

However, this sort of blatant exhalation of so-called revolutionary security product and architectural advances disguised as prophecy is just so, well, recockulous, that I can't stand it.

I found it funny that the Anti-Hoff (Stiennon) managed to slip another patented advertising editorial Captain Obvious press piece in SC Magazine regarding what can only be described as the natural evolution of network security products that plug into -- but are not natively -- routing or switching architectures.

I don't really mind that, but to suggest that somehow this is an original concept is just disingenuous.

Besides trying to wean Fortinet away from the classification as UTM devices (which Richard clearly hates
to be associated with) by suggesting that UTM should be renamed as "Flexible Security Platform," he does a fine job of asserting that a "geologic shift" (I can only assume he means tectonic) is coming soon in the so-called fourth generation of security products.

Of course, he's completely ignoring the fact that the solution he describes is and has already been deployed for years...but since tectonic shifts usually take millions of years to culminate in something noticeably remarkable, I can understand his confusion.

As you'll see below, calling these products "Flexible Security Platforms" or "Unified Network Platforms" is merely an arbitrary and ill-conceived hand-waving exercise in an attempt to differentiate in a crowded market.  Open source or COTS, ASIC/FPGA or multi-core Intel...that's just the packaging and delivery mechanism.  You can tart it up all you want with fancy marketing...

It's not new, it's not revolutionary (because it's already been done) and it sure as hell ain't the second coming.  I'll say it again, it's been here for years.  I personally bought it and deployed it as a customer almost 4 years ago...if you haven't figured out what I'm talking about yet, read on.

Here's how C.O. describes what the company I work for has been doing for 6 years and that he intimates Fortinet will provide that nobody else can:

We are rapidly approaching the advent of the fourth generation security platform. This is a device that can do all of the security functions that are lumped in to UTM but are also excellent network devices at layers two and three. They act as a switch and a router. They supplant traditional network devices while providing security at all levels. Their inherent architectural flexibility makes them easy to fit into existing environments and even make some things possible that were never possible before. For instance a large enterprise with several business units could deploy these advanced networking/security devices at the core and assign virtual security domains to each business unit while performing content filtering and firewalling between each virtual domain, thus segmenting the business units and maximizing the investment in core security devices.

One geologic shift that will occur thanks to the advent of these fourth generation security platforms is that networking vendors will be playing catch up, trying to patch more and more security functions into their under-powered devices or complicating their go to market message with a plethora of boxes while the security platform vendors will quickly and easily add networking functionality to their devices.

Fourth generation network security platforms will evolve beyond stand alone security appliances to encompass routing and switching as well. This new generation of devices will impact the networking industry it scrambles to acquire the expertise in security and shift their business model from commodity switching and routing to value add networking and protection capabilities.

Let's see...combine high-speed network processing whose routing/switching architecture was designed by the same engineers that designed Bay/Welfleet's core routers, add in a multi-core Intel processing/compute layer which utilizes virtualized, load-balanced security applications as a  service layer that can be overlaid across a fast, reliable, resilient and highly-available network transport and what do you get?

This:

Up to 32 GigE or 64 10/100 switching ports and 40 Intel cores in a single chassis today...and in Q3'07 you'll also have the combination of our NextGen network processors which will provide up to 8x10GigE and 40xGigE with 64 MIPS Network Security cores combined with the same 40 Intel cores in the same chassis.

By the way, I consider that routing and switching are just table stakes, not market differentiators; in products like the one to the left, this is just basic expected functionality.

Furthermore, in this so-called next generation of "security switches," the customer should be able to run both open source as well as best-in-breed COTS security applications on the platform and not constrain the user to a single vendor's version of the truth running proprietary software.

-----

But wait, it only gets better...what I found equally as hysterical is the notion that Captain Obvious now has a sidekick!  It seems Alan Shimel has signed on as Richard's Boy Wonder.  Alan's suggesting that again, the magic bullet is Cobia and that because he can run a routing daemon and his appliance has more than a couple of ports, it's a router and a switch as well as a multi-function UTM UNP swiss army knife of security & networking goodness -- and he was the first to do it!  Holy marketing-schizzle Batman! 

I don't need to re-hash this.  I blogged about it here before.

You can dress Newt Gingrich up as a chick but it doesn't mean I want to make out with him...

This is cheap, cheap, cheap marketing on both your parts and don't believe for a minute that customers don't see right through it; perfuming pigs is not revolutionary, it's called product marketing.

/Hoff

Really, There's More to Security than Admission/Access Control...

Dr. Joseph Tardo over at the Nevis Networks Illuminations blog composed a reasonably well-balanced commentary regarding one or more of my posts in which I was waxing on philosophically about about my beliefs regarding keeping the network plumbing dumb and overlaying security as a flexible, agile, open and extensible services layer.

It's clear he doesn't think this way, but I welcome the discourse.  So let me make something clear:

Realistically, and especially in non-segmented flat networks, I think there are certain low-level security functions that will do well by being served up by switching infrastructure as security functionality commoditizes, but I'm not quite sure for the most part how or where yet I draw the line between utility and intelligence.  I do, however, think that NAC is one of those utility services.

I'm also unconvinced that access-grade, wiring closet switches are architected to scale in either functionality, efficacy or performance to provide any more value or differentiation other than port density than the normal bolt-on appliances which continue to cause massive operational and capital expenditure due to continued forklifts over time.  Companies like Nevis and Consentry quietly admit this too, which is why they have both "secure switches" AND appliances that sit on top of the network...

Joseph suggested he was entering into a religious battle in which he summarized many of the approaches to security that I have blogged about previously and I pointed out to him on his blog that this is exactly why I practice polytheism ;) :

In case you aren’t following the religious wars going on in the security blogs and elsewhere, let me bring you up to date.

It goes like this. If you are in the client software business, then security has to be done in the endpoints and the network is just dumb “plumbing,” or rather, it might as well be because you can’t assume anything about it. If you sell appliances that sit here and there in the network, the network sprouts two layers, with the “plumbing” part separated from the “intelligence.” Makes sense, I guess. But if you sell switches and routers then the intelligence must be integrated in with the infrastructure. Now I get it. Or maybe I’m missing the point, what if you sell both appliances and infrastructure?

I believe that we're currently forced to deploy in defense in depth due to the shortcomings of solutions today.  I believe the "network" will not and cannot deliver all the security required.  I believe we're going to have to invest more in secure operating systems and protocols.  I further believe that we need to be data-centric in our application of security.  I do not believe in single-point product "appliances" that are fundamentally functionally handicapped.  As a delivery mechanism to deliver security that matters across network I believe in this.

Again, the most important difference between what I believe and what Joseph points out above is that the normal class of "appliances" he's trying to suggest I advocate simply aren't what I advocate at all.  In fact, one might surprisingly confuse the solutions I do support as "infrastructure" -- they look like high-powered switches with a virtualized blade architecture integrated into the solution.

It's not an access switch, it's not a single function appliance and it's not a blade server and it doesn't suffer from the closed proprietary single vendor's version of the truth.  To answer the question, if you sell and expect to produce both secure appliances and infrastructure, one of them will come up short.   There are alternatives, however.

So why leave your endpoints, the ones that have all those vulnerabilities that created the security industry in the first place, to be hit on by bots, “guests,” and anyone else that wants to? I don’t know about you, but I would want both something on the endpoint, knowing it won’t be 100% but better than nothing, and also something in the network to stop the nasty stuff, preferably before it even got in.

I have nothing to disagree with in the paragraph above -- short of the example of mixing active network defense with admission/access control in the same sentence; I think that's confusing two points.   Back to the religious debate as Joseph drops back to the "Nevis is going to replace all switches in the wiring closet" approach to security via network admission/access control:

Now, let’s talk about getting on the network. If the switches are just dumb plumbing they will blindly let anyone on, friend or foe, so you at least need to beef up the dumb plumbing with admission enforcement points. And you want to put malware sensors where they can be effective, ideally close to entry points, to minimize the risk of having the network infrastructure taken down. So, where do you want to put the intelligence, close to the entry enforcement points or someplace further in the bowels of the network where the dumb plumbing might have plugged-and-played a path around your expensive intelligent appliance?

That really depends upon what you're trying to protect; the end point, the network or the resources connected to it.  Also, I won't/can't argue about wanting to apply access/filtering (sounds like IPS in the above example) controls closest to the client at the network layer.  Good design philosophy.   However, depending upon how segmented your network is, the types, value and criticality of the hosts in these virtual/physical domains, one may choose to isolate by zone or VLAN and not invest in yet another switch replacement at the access layer.

If the appliance is to be effective, it has to sit at a choke point and really be and enforcement point. And it has to have some smarts of its own. Like the secure switch that we make.

Again, that depends upon your definition of enforcement and applicability.  I'd agree that in flat networks, you'd like to do it at the port/host level, though replacing access switches to do so is usually not feasible in large networks given investments in switching architectures.  Typical fixed configuration appliances overlaid don't scale, either.

Furthermore, depending upon your definition of what an enforcement zone and it's corresponding diameter is (port, VLAN, IP Subnet) you may not care.  So putting that "appliance" in place may not be as foreboding as you wager, especially if it overlays across these boundaries satisfactorily.

We will see how long before these new-fangled switch vendors that used to be SSL VPN's, that then became IPS appliances that have now "evolved" into NAC solutions, will become whatever the next buzzword/technology of tomorrow represents...especially now with Cisco's revitalized technology refresh for "secure" access switches in the wiring closets.  Caymas, Array, and Vernier (amongst many) are perfect examples.

When it comes down to it, in the markets Crossbeam serves -- and especially the largest enterprises -- they are happy with their switches, they just want the best security choice on top of it provided in a consolidated, agile and scalable architecture to support it.

Amen.

/Hoff

Network Security is Dead...It's All About the Host.

No, not entirely as it's really about the data, but I had an epiphany last week. 

I didn't get any on me, but I was really excited about the -- brace yourself -- future of security in a meeting I had with Microsoft.  It reaffirmed my belief that while some low-hanging security fruit will be picked off by the network, the majority of the security value won't be delivered by it.

I didn't think I'd recognize just how much of it -- in such a short time -- will ultimately make its way back into the host (OS,) and perhaps you didn't either.

We started with centralized host-based computing, moved to client-server.  We've had Web1.0, are in the  beginnings of WebX.0 and I ultimately believe that we're headed back to a centralized host-based paradigm now that the network transport is fast, reliable and cheap.

That means that a bunch of the stuff we use today to secure the "network" will gravitate back towards the host. I've used Scott McNealy's mantra as he intended it to in order to provide some color to conversations before, but I'm going to butcher it here. 

While I agree that in abstract the "Network is the Computer," in order to secure it, you're going to have to treat the "network" like an OS...hard to do.   That's why I think more and more security will make its way back to the actual "computer" instead.

So much of the strategy linked to large security vendors sees an increase in footprint back on the host.  It's showing back up there today in the guise of AV, HIPS, configuration management, NAC and Extrusion Prevention, but it's going to play a much, much loftier role as time goes on as the level of interaction and interoperability must increase.  Rather than put 10+ agents on a box, imagine if that stuff was already built in?

Heresy, I suppose.

I wager that the "you can't trust the endpoint" and "all security will make its way into the switch" crowds will start yapping on this point, but before that happens, let me explain...

The Microsoft Factor

I was fortunate enough to sit down with some of the key players in Microsoft's security team last week and engage in a lively bit of banter regarding some both practical and esoteric elements of where security has been, is now and will be in the near future. 

On the tail of Mr. Chambers' Interop keynote, the discussion was all abuzz regarding collaboration and WebX.0 and the wonders that will come of the technology levers in the near future as well as the, ahem, security challenges that this new world order will bring.  I'll cover that little gem in another blog entry.

Some of us wanted to curl up into a fetal position.  Others saw a chance to correct material defects in the way in which the intersection of networking and security has been approached.  I think the combination of the two is natural and healthy and ultimately quite predictable in these conversations.

I did a bit of both, honestly.

As you can guess, given who I was talking to, much of what was discussed found its way back to a host-centric view of security with a heavy anchoring in the continued evolution of producing more secure operating systems, more secure code, more secure protocols and strong authentication paired with encryption.

I expected to roll my eyes a lot and figured that our conversation would gravitate towards UAC and that a bulk-helping of vapor functionality would be dispensed with the normal disclaimers urging "...when it's available one day" as a helping would be ladled generously into the dog-food bowls the Microsofties were eating from.

I am really glad I was wrong, and it just goes to show you that it's important to consider a balanced scorecard in all this; listen with two holes, talk with one...preferably the correct one ;)

I may be shot for saying this in the court of popular opinion, but I think Microsoft is really doing a fantastic job in their renewed efforts toward improving security.  It's not perfect, but the security industry is such a fickle and bipolar mistress -- if you're not 100% you're a zero.

After spending all this time urging people that the future of security will not be delivered in the network proper, I have not focused enough attention on the advancements that are indeed creeping their way into the OS's toward a more secure future as  this inertia orthogonally reinforces my point.

Yes, I work for a company that provides network-centric security offerings.  Does this contradict the statement I just made?  I don't think so, and neither did the folks from Microsoft.  There will always be a need to consolidate certain security functionality that does not fit within the context of the host -- at least within an acceptable timeframe as the nature of security continues to evolve.  Read on.

The network will become transparent.  Why?

In this brave new world, mutually-authenticated and encrypted network communications won't be visible to the majority of the plumbing that's transporting it, so short of the specific shunts to the residual overlay solutions that will still be present to the network in forms of controls that will not make their way to the host, the network isn't going to add much security value at all.

The Jericho Effect

What I found interesting is that I've enjoyed similar discussions with the distinguished fellows of the Jericho Forum wherein after we've debated the merits of WHAT you might call it, the notion of HOW "deperimeterization," "reperimeterization," (or my favorite) "radical externalization,"  weighs heavily on the evolution of security as we know it.

I have to admit that I've been a bit harsh on the Jericho boys before, but Paul Simmonds and I (or at least I did) came to the realization that my allergic reaction wasn't to the concepts at hand, but rather the abrasive marketing of the message.  Live and learn.

Both sets of conversations basically see the pendulum effect of security in action in this oversimplification of what Jericho posits is the future of security and what Microsoft can deliver -- today:

Take a host with a secured OS, connect it into any network using whatever means you find
appropriate, without regard for having to think about whether you're on the "inside" or "outside." Communicate securely, access and exchange data in policy-defined "zones of trust" using open, secure, authenticated and encrypted protocols.

If you're interested in the non-butchered more specific elements of the Jericho Forum's "10 Commandments," see here.

What I wasn't expecting in marrying these two classes of conversation is that this future of security is much closer and notably much more possible than I readily expected...with a Microsoft OS, no less.   In fact, I got a demonstration of it.  It may seem like no big deal to some of you, but the underlying architectural enhancements to Microsoft's Vista and Longhorn OS's are a fantastic improvement on what we have had to put up thus far.

One of the Microsoft guys fired up his laptop with a standard-issue off-the-shelf edition of Vista,  authenticated with his smartcard, transparently attached to the hotel's open wireless network and then took me on a tour of some non-privileged internal Microsoft network resources.

Then he showed me some of the ad-hoc collaborative "People Near Me" peer2peer tools built into Vista -- same sorts of functionality...transparent, collaborative and apparently quite secure (gasp!) all at the same time.

It was all mutually authenticated and encrypted and done so transparently to him.

He didn't "do" anything; no VPN clients, no split-brain tunneling, no additional Active-X agents, no SSL or IPSec shims...it's the integrated functionality provided by both IPv6 and IPSec in the NextGen IP stack present in Vista.

And in his words "it just works."   Yes it does.

He basically established connectivity and his machine reached out to an reachable read-only DC (after auth. and with encryption) which allowed him to transparently resolve "internal" vs. "external" resources.  Yes, the requirements of today expect that the OS must still evolve to prevent exploit of the OS, but this too shall become better over time.

No, it obviously doesn't address what happens if you're using a Mac or Linux, but the pressure will be on to provide the same sort of transparent, collaborative and secure functionality across those OS's, too.

Allow me my generalizations -- I know that security isn't fixed and that we still have problems, but think of this as a half-glass full, willya!?

One of the other benefits I got form this conversation is the reminder that as Vista and Longhorn default to IPv6 natively (they can do both v4&v6 dynamically,) as enterprises upgrade, the network hardware and software (and hence the existing security architecture) must also be able to support IPv6 natively.  It's not just the government pushing v6, large enterprises are now standardizing on it, too.

Here are some excellent links describing the Nextgen IP stack in Vista, the native support for IPSec (goodbye VPN market,) and IPv6 support.

Funny how people keep talking about Google being a threat to Microsoft.  I think that the network giants like Cisco might have their hands full with Microsoft...look at how each of them are maneuvering.

/Hoff
{ Typing this on my Mac...staring @ a Vista Box I'm waiting to open to install within Parallels ;) }

Network Intelligence is an Oxymoron & The Myth of Security Packet Cracking

[Live from Interop's Data Center Summit]

Jon Oltsik crafted an interesting post today regarding the bifurcation of opinion on where the “intelligence” ought to sit in a networked world: baked into the routers and switches or overlaid using general-purpose compute engines that ride Moore’s curve.

I think that I’ve made it pretty clear where I stand.   I submit that you should keep the network dumb, fast, reliable and resilient and add intelligence (such as security) via flexible and extensible service layers that scale both in terms of speed but also choice.

You should get to define and pick what best of breed means to you and add/remove services at the speed of your business, not the speed of an ASIC spin or an acquisition of technology that is neither in line with the pace and evolution of classes of threats and vulnerabilities or the speed of an agile business. 

The focal point of his post, however, was to suggest that the real issue is the fact that all of this intelligence requires exposure to the data streams which means that each component that comprises it needs to crack the packet before processing.   Jon suggests that you ought to crack the packet once and then do interesting things to the flows.  He calls this COPM (crack once, process many) and suggests that it yields efficiencies -- of what, he did not say, but I will assume he means latency and efficacy.

So, here’s my contentious point that I explain below:

Cracking the packet really doesn’t contribute much to the overall latency equation anymore thanks to high-speed hardware, but the processing sure as heck does!  So whether you crack once or many times, it doesn’t really matter, what you do with the packet does.

Now, on to the explanation…

I think that it’s fair to say that many of the underlying mechanics of security are commoditizing so things like anti-virus, IDS, firewalling, etc. can be done without a lot of specialization – leveraging prior art is quick and easy and thus companies can broaden their product portfolios by just adding a feature to an existing product.

Companies can do this because of the agility that software provides, not hardware.  Hardware can give you scales of economy as it relates to overall speed (for certain things) but generally not flexibility. 

However, software has it’s own Moore’s curve or sorts and I maintain that unfortunately its lifecycle, much like what we’re hearing @ Interop regarding CPU’s, does actually have a shelf life and point of diminishing return for reasons that you're probably not thinking about...more on this from Interop later.

John describes the stew of security componenty and what he expects to see @ Interop this week:

I expect network intelligence to be the dominant theme at this week's Interop show in Las Vegas. It may be subtle but its definitely there. Security companies will talk about cracking packets to identify threats, encrypt bits, or block data leakage. The WAN optimization crowd will discuss manipulating protocols and caching files, Application layer guys crow about XML parsing, XSLT transformation, and business logic. It's all about stuffing networking gear with fat microprocessors to perform one task or another.

That’s a lot of stuff tied to a lot of competing religious beliefs about how to do it all as Jon rightly demonstrates and ultimately highlights a nasty issue:

The problem now is that we are cracking packets all over the place. You can't send an e-mail, IM, or ping a router without some type of intelligent manipulation along the way.

<nod>  Whether it’s in the network, bolted on via an appliance or done on the hosts, this is and will always be true.  Here’s the really interesting next step:

I predict that the next bit wave in this evolution will be known as COPM for "Crack once, process many." In this model, IP packets are stopped and inspected and then all kinds of security, acceleration, and application logic actions occur. Seems like a more efficient model to me.

To do this, it basically means that this sort of solution requires Proxy (transparent or terminating) functionality.  Now, the challenge is that whilst “cracking the packets” is relatively easy and cheap even at 10G line rates due to hardware, the processing is really, really hard to do well across the spectrum of processing requirements if you care about things such as quality, efficacy, and latency and is “expensive” in all of those categories.

The intelligence of deciding what to process and how once you’ve cracked the packets is critical. 

This is where embedding this stuff into the network is a lousy idea. 

How can a single vendor possibly provide anything more than “good enough” security in a platform never designed to solve this sort of problem whilst simultaneously trying to balance delivery and security at line rate? 

This will require a paradigm shift for the networking folks that will either mean starting from scratch and integrating high-speed networking with general-purpose compute blades, re-purposing a chassis (like, say, a Cat65K) and stuffing it with nothing but security cards and grafting it onto the switches or stack appliances (big or small – single form factor or in blades) and graft them onto the switches once again.   And by the way, simply adding networking cards to a blade server isn't an effective solution, either.  "Regular" applications (and esp. SOA/Web 2.0 apps) aren't particularly topology sensitive.  Security "applications" on the other hand, are wholly dependent and integrated with the topologies into which they are plumbed.

It’s the hamster wheel of pain.

Or, you can get one of these which offers all the competency, agility, performance, resilience and availability of a specialized networking component combined with an open, agile and flexible operating and virtualized compute architecture that scales with parity based on Intel chipsets and Moore’s law.

What this gives you is an ecosystem of loosely-coupled BoB security services that can be intelligently combined in any order once cracked and ruthlessly manipulated as it passes through them governed by policy – and ultimately dependent upon making decisions on how and what to do to a packet/flow based upon content in context.

The consolidation of best of breed security functionality delivered in a converged architecture yields efficiencies that is spread across the domains of scale, performance, availability and security but also on the traditional economic scopes of CapEx and OpEx.

Cracking packets, bah!  That’s so last Tuesday.

/Hoff

Security: "Built-in, Overlay or Something More Radical?"

I was reading Joseph Tardo's (Nevis Networks) new Illuminations blog and found the topic of his latest post ""Built-in, Overlay or Something More Radical?" regarding the possible future of network security quite interesting.

Joseph (may I call you Joseph?) recaps the topic of a research draft from Stanford funded by the "Stanford Clean Slate Design for the Internet" project that discusses an approach to network security called SANE.   The notion of SANE (AKA Ethane) is a policy-driven security services layer that utilizes intelligent centrally-located services to replace many of the underlying functions provided by routers, switches and security products today:

Ethane is a new architecture for enterprise networks which provides a powerful yet simple management model and strong security guarantees.  Ethane allows network managers to define a single, network-wide, fine-grain policy, and then enforces it at every switch.  Ethane policy is defined over human-friendly names (such as "bob, "payroll-server", or "http-proxy) and  dictates who can talk to who and in which manner.  For example, a policy rule may specify that all guest users who have not authenticated can only use HTTP and that all of their traffic must traverse a local web proxy.

Ethane has a number of salient properties difficult to achieve with network technologies today.  First, the global security policy is enforced at each switch in a manner that is resistant to poofing.  Second, all packets on an Ethane network can be attributed back to the sending host and the physical location in which the packet entered the network.  In fact, packets collected in the past can also be attributed to the sending host at the time the packets were sent -- a feature that can be used to aid in auditing and forensics.  Finally, all the functionality within Ethane is provided by very simple hardware switches.       

The trick behind the Ethane design is that all complex functionality, including routing, naming, policy declaration and security checks are performed by a central controller (rather than in the switches as is done today).  Each flow on the network must first get permission from the controller which verifies that the communicate is permissible by the network policy.  If the controller allows a flow, it computes a route for the flow to take, and adds an entry for that flow in each of the switches along the path.       

With all complex function subsumed by the controller, switches in Ethane are reduced to managed flow tables whose entries can only be populated by the controller (which it does after each succesful permission check).  This allows a very simple design for Ethane       switches using only SRAM (no power-hungry TCAMS) and a little bit of logic.    

I like many of the concepts here, but I'm really wrestling with the scaling concerns that arise when I forecast the literal bottlenecking of admission/access control proposed therein.

Furthermore, and more importantly, while SANE speaks to being able to define who "Bob"  is and what infrastructure makes up the "payroll server,"  this solution seems to provide no way of enforcing policy based on content in context of the data flowing across it.  Integrating access control with the pseudonymity offered by integrating identity management into policy enforcement is only half the battle.

The security solutions of the future must evolve to divine and control not only vectors of transport but also the content and relative access that the content itself defines dynamically.

I'm going to suggest that by bastardizing one of the Jericho Forum's commandments for my own selfish use, the network/security layer of the future must ultimately respect and effect disposition of content based upon the following rule (independent of the network/host):

Access to data should be controlled by security attributes of the data itself.

• Attributes can be held within the data (DRM/Metadata) or could be a separate system.
• Access / security could be implemented by encryption.
• Some data may have “public, non-confidential” attributes.
• Access and access rights have a temporal component. 

 

Deviating somewhat from Jericho's actual meaning, I am intimating that somehow, somewhere, data must be classified and self-describe the policies that govern how it is published and consumed and ultimately this security metadata can then be used by the central policy enforcement mechanisms to describe who is allowed to access the data, from where, and where it is allowed to go.

...Back to he topic at hand, SANE:

As Joseph alluded, SANE would require replacing (or not using much of the functionality of) currently-deployed routers, switches and security kit.  I'll let your imagination address the obvious challenges with this design.

Without delving deeply, I'll use Joseph's categorization of “interesting-but-impractical”

/Hoff

On Flying Pigs, DNSSEC, and embedded versus overlaid security...

I found Thomas Ptacek's comments regarding DNSSEC deliciously ironic not for anything directly related to secure DNS, but rather a point he made in substantiating his position regarding DNSSEC while describing the intelligence (or lack thereof) of the network and application layers.

This may have just been oversight on his part, but it occurs to me that I've witnessed something on the order of a polar magnetic inversion of sorts.  Or not.  Maybe it's the coffee.  Ethiopian Yirgacheffe does that to me.

Specifically, Thomas and I have debated previously about this topic and my contention is that the network plumbing ought to be fast, reliable, resilient and dumb whilst elements such as security and applications should make up a service layer of intelligence running atop the pipes. 

Thomas' assertions focus on the manifest destiny that Cisco will rule the interconnected universe and that security, amongst other things, will -- and more importantly should -- become absorbed into and provided by the network switches and routers.

While Thomas' arguments below are admittedly regarding the "Internet" versus the "Intranet," I maintain that the issues are the same.  It seems that his statements below which appear to endorse the "...end-to-end argument in system design" regarding the "...fundamental design principle of the Intenet" are at odds with his previous aspersions regarding my belief.  Check out the bits in red.

Here's what Thomas said in "A Case Against DNSSSEC (A Matasano Miniseries):

...You know what? I don’t even agree in principle. DNSSEC is a bad thing, even if it does work.

How could that possibly be?

It violates a fundamental design principle of the Internet.

Nonsense. DNSSEC was designed and endorsed by several of the architects of the Internet. What principle would they be violating?

The end-to-end argument in system design. It says that you want to keep the Internet dumb and the applications smart. But DNSSEC does the opposite. It says, “Applications aren’t smart enough to provide security, and end-users pay the price. So we’re going to bake security into the infrastructure.”

I could have sworn that the bit in italics is exactly what Thomas used to say.  Beautiful.  If, Thomas truly agrees with this axiom and that indeed the Internet (the plumbing) is supposed to be dumb and applications (service layer) smart, then I suggest he should revisit his rants regarding how he believes the embedding security in the nework is a good idea since it invalidates the very "foundation" of the Internet.

I wonder what that'll do internal networks? 

That's all.  CSI is on.

/Hoff

(Written @ Home drinking Yirgacheffe watching UFC re-runs)

The semantics of UTM messaging: Snake Oil and Pissing Matches

Those of you who know me realize that no matter where I go, who I work for or who's buying me drinks, I am going to passionately say what I believe at the expense of sometimes being perceived as a bit of a pot-stirrer. 

I'm far from being impartial on many topics -- I don't believe that anyone is truly impartial about anything --  but at the same time, I have an open mind and will gladly listen to points raised in response to anything I say.  I may not agree with it, but I'll also tell you why. 

What I have zero patience for, however, is when I get twisted semantic marketing spin responses.  It makes me grumpy.  That's probably why Rothman, Shimmy and I get along so well.

Some of you might remember grudge match #1 between me and Alex Niehaus, the former VP of Marketing for Astaro (coincidence?)  This might become grudge match #2.  People will undoubtedly roll their eyes and dismiss this as vendors sniping at one another.  So be it.  Please see paragraphs #1 and 2 above. 

My recent interchange with Richard Stiennon is an extension of arguments we've been having for a year or so from when Richard was still an independent analyst.  He is now employed as the Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet. 

Our disagreements have intensified for what can only be described as obvious reasons, but I'm starting to get as purturbed as I did with Alex Neihaus when the marketing sewerage obfuscates the real issues with hand-waving and hyperbole. 

I called Richard out recently for what I believed to be complete doubletalk on his stance on UTM and he responded here in a comment.  Comments get buried so I want to bring this back up to the top of the stack for all to see.  Don't mistake this as a personal attack against Richard, but a dissection of what Richard says.  I think it's just gobbledygook.

To be honest, I think it took a lot of guts to respond, but his answer makes my head spin as much as Anna Nicole Smith in a cheesecake factory.  Yes, I know she's dead, but she loved cheesecake and I'm pressed for an analogy.

The beauty of blogging is that the instant you say something, it becomes a record of "fact."  That can be good or bad depending upon what you say. 

I will begin to respond to Richard's retort wherein he first summarily states:

Here is where I stand. I hate the huge bucket that UTM has become.  Absolutely every form of gateway security can be lumped in to this category that IDC invented. We discussed this at RSA on the panel that Mr. Rothman so graciously hosted.

I also assume that this means Richard hates the bit buckets that Firewall, IPS, NAC, VA/VM, and Patch Management (as examples) have become, too?   This trend is the natural by-product of marketers and strategists scrambling to find a place to hang their hat in a very crowded space.  So what.

UTM is about solving applied sets of business problems.  You can call it what you like, but the only reason marketeers either love or hate UTM usually depends upon where they sit in the rankings.  This intrigues me, Richard, because (as you mention further on) Fortinet pays to be a part of IDC's UTM Tracker, and they rank Fortinet as #1 in at least one of the product price ranges, so someone at Fortinet seems to think UTM is a decent market to hang a shingle on.

Hate it or not, Fortinet is a UTM vendor, just like Crossbeam.  Both companies hang their shingles on this market because it's established and tracked.

When trying to classify a market you look for common traits and, even better, common buying patterns, to help lump vendors or products in to a category. But for Crossbeam, Fortinet, and Astaro to be lumped together has always struck me as a sign that the UTM "market" was not going to work.

You're right.  Lumping Crossbeam with Fortinet and Astaro is the wrong thing to do.  ;)

Arguing the viability of a market which has tremendous coverage and validated presence seems a little odd.  Crafting a true strategy of differentiation as to how you're different in that market is a good thing, however.

I much prefer the Gartner view (as I would) of Security Platforms. These are devices that are able to apply security policies using a bunch of different methods and they can loosely be thrown on to a grid...

So what you're saying is that you like the nebulous and ill-defined blob that is Gartner's view, don't like IDC, but you'll gladly pay for their services to declare you #1 in a market you don't respect?

Now, yes, I did join a company that IDC considers to be a major UTM player- leading in volume shipments in those parts of 2006 that they are reporting. But, I was an independent analyst and I NEVER classified Fortinet as a UTM play.

You mean besides when you said:

"By all accounts the so called UTM market is doing very well with players like Fortinet, Barracuda, Sonicwall, Astaro, and Watchguard, evidently seeing considerable success" 

Just in case you're interested, you can find that quote here.   There are many, many other examples of you saying this, by the way.  Podcasts, blog entries, etc.

Also, are you suggesting that Fortinet does not consider itself a UTM player?  Someone better tell the Marketing department.  Look at one of your news pages on your website.  Say, this one, for example -- 10 articles have UTM in the title and your own Mr. Akomoto (VP of Fortinet, Japan) says "The UTM market was pioneered by us," says Mr. Okamoto, the vice-president of Fortinet Japan. Mr. Okamoto explains how Fortinet created the UTM category, the initial popularity of UTM solutions with SMBs..." 

Heck, in the 24 categories for the security market that I maintained I did not even track UTMs. As I tracked Fortinet over the years I considered them a security platform vendor and one that just happened to be executing on my vision for the network security space.

Yes, I understand how much you dislike IDC.  Can you kindly show reference to where you previously commented on how Fortinet was executing on your vision for Secure Network Fabric?  I can show you where you did for Crossbeam -- it was at our Sales Meeting two years ago where you presented.  I can even upload the slide presentation if you like.

As you know Chris I have always been a big fan of Crossbeam and in the interest of full disclosure, Crossbeam was a client while I was a Gartner analyst and my second client when I launched my own firm. Great people and a great product.

Richard, I'm not really looking for the renewal of your Crossbeam Fan Club membership...really.

Crossbeam is the security platform of choice for running legacy security apps.

Oh, now it's on!  I'm fixin' to get "Old Testament" on you!

Just so we're clear, ISV applications that run on Crossbeam such as XML gateways, web-application firewalls, database firewalls and next generation network converged security services such as session border controllers are all UTM "legacy applications!?" 

So besides an ASIC for AV, what "new" non-legacy apps does Fortinet bring to the table?  I mean now.  From the Fortinet homepage, please demonstrate which novel new applications that Firewall, IPS, VPN, Web filtering and Antispam represent?

It must suck to have to craft a story around boat-anchor ASICs that can't extend past AV offload.  That means you have to rely on software and innovation in that space.  Cobbling together a bunch of "legacy" applications with a nice GUI doesn't necessarily represent innovation and "next generation." 

Now let's address the concept of running multiple security defenses on one security platform. Let's take three such functions, Firewalling, VPN, and IPS. Thanks to Checkpoint, firewalls and VPN are frequently bundled together. It has become the norm, although in the early days these were separate boxes. Now, you can either take a Snort implementation and bolt it on to your firewall in such a way that a signature can trigger a temporary block command ala Checkpoint and a bunch of other so called IPS devices or you can create a deep packet inspection capable firewall that can apply policies like: No Worm Traffic. To do the latter you have to start from scratch. You need new technology and several vendors do this pretty well.

It's clear you have a very deluded interesting perspective on security applications. The "innovation" that you're suggesting differentiates what has classically been described as the natrual evolution of converging marketspaces.  That over-played Snort analogy is crap.  The old "signature" vs. "anomaly detection" argument paired with "deep packet inspection" is tired.  Fortinet doesn't really do anything that anyone else can't/doesn't already do.  Except for violating GPL, that is.

I suppose now that Check Point has acquired NFR, their technology is crap, too?  Marcus would be proud.

So, given a new way to firewall (payload inspection instead of stateful inspection) what enterprise would choose *not* to use IPS capability in their firewall and use a separate device behind the firewall? See the trouble? A legacy firewall is NO LONGER BEST OF BREED! The best of breed firewall can do IPS.

Oh come on, Richard.  First of all, the answer to your question is that many, many large enterprises and service providers utilize a layered defense and place an IPS before or after their firewall.  Some have requirements for firewall/IDS/IPS pairs from different vendors.  Others require defense in depth and do not trust that the competence in a solutions provider that claims to "do it all."

Best of breed is what the customer defines as best of breed.  Just to be clear, would you consider Fortinet to be best of breed?

If you use a Crossbeam, by the way, it's not a separate device and you're not limited to just using the firewall or IPS in "front of" or "behind" one another.  You can virtualize placement wherever you desire.  Also, in many large enterprises, using IPS's and firewalls from separate vendors is not only good practice but also required.

How does Fortinet accomplish that?

Your "payload inspection" is leveraging a bunch of OSS-based functionality paired with an ASIC that is used for AV -- you know, signatures -- with heuristics and a nice GUI.  Whilst the Cosine IP Fortinet acquired represents some very interesting technology for provisioning and such, it ain't in your boxes.

You're really trying to pick a fight with me about Check Point when you choose to also ignore the fact that we run up to 15 other applications such as SourceFire and ISS on the same platform?  We all know you dislike Check Point.  Get over it.

I have spent eight of the last 12 weeks on the road meeting our large enterprise clients in the Americas, Asia, and EMEA. None of them shop comparatively for UTM appliances. Every single customer was shopping for firewall upgrades, SSL VPN, spam or virus filtering inline, etc.

Really?  So since you don't have separate products to address these (Fortinet sells UTM, afterall) that means you had nothing to offer them?  Convergence is driving UTM adoption.  You can call it what you want, but you're whitewashing to prove a flawed theorem.

During the sales process they realize the benefit of combined functionality that comes with the ability to process payloads and invariably sign up for more than just a single security function. Does that mean UTM is gaining traction in the enterprise? To me the answer is no. It means that the enterprise is looking for advanced security platforms that can deliver better security at lower capex and opex.

...and what the heck is the difference between that and UTM, exactly?  People don't buy IPS, they buy network level protection to defend against attack.  IPS is just the product catagory, as is UTM. 

I would lay off the Bourbon Chris. Try a snifter of my 16 yr old Lagavulin that I picked up in London this Friday. It will help to mellow you out.

I don't like Scotch, Richard.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth...sort of like your response ;)

Virtualization is Risky Business?

Over the last couple of months, the topic of virtualization and security (or lack thereof) continues to surface as one of the more intriguing topics of relevance in both the enterprise and service provider environments and those who cover them.  From bloggers to analysts to vendors, virtualization is a greenfield for security opportunity and a minefield for the risk models used to describe it.

There are many excellent arguments being discussed which highlight in an ad hoc manner the most serious risks posed by virtualization, and I find many of them accurate, compelling, frightening and relevant.  However, I find that overall, to gauge in relative terms the impact  that these new combinations of attack surfaces, vectors and actors pose, the risk model(s) are immature and incomplete. 

Most of the arguments are currently based on hyperbole and anecdotal references to attacks that could happen.  It reminds me much of the ballyhooed security risks currently held up for scrutiny for mobile handsets.  We know bad things could happen, but for the most part, we're not being proactive about solving some of the issues before they see the light of day.

The panel I was on at the RSA show highlighted this very problem.  We had folks from VMWare and
RedHat in the audience who assured us that we were just being Chicken Little's and that the risk is
both quantifiable and manageable today.  We also had other indications that customers felt that while the benefits for virtualization from a cost perspective were huge, the perceived downside from the unknown risks (mostly theoretical) were making them very uncomfortable.

Out of the 150+ folks in the room, approximately 20 had virtualized systems in production roles.  About 25% of them had collapsed multiple tiers of an n-tier application stack (including SOA environments) onto a single host VM.  NONE of them had yet had these systems audited by any third party or regulatory agency.

Rot Roh.

The interesting thing to me was the dichotomy regarding the top-down versus bottom-up approach to
describing the problem.  There was lots of discussion regarding hypervisor (in)security and privilege
escalation and the like, but I thought it interesting that most people were not thinking about the impact on the network and how security would have to change to accommodate it from a bottoms-up (infrastructure and architecture) approach.

The notions of guest VM hopping and malware detection in hypervisors/VM's are reasonably well discussed (yet not resolved) so I thought I would approach it it from the perspective of what role, if any, the traditional  network infrastructure plays in this.

Thomas Ptacek was right when he said "...I also think modern enterprises are so far from having reasonable access control between the VLANs they already use without virtualization that it’s not a “next 18 month” priority to install them." And I agree with him there.  So, I posit that if one accepts this as true then what to do about the following:

If now we see the consolidation of multiple OS and applications on a single VM host in which the bulk of traffic and data interchange is between the VM's themselves and utilize the virtual switching fabrics in the VM Host and never hit the actual physical network infrastructure, where, exactly, does this leave the self-defending "network" without VM-level security functionality at the "micro perimeters" of the VM's?

I recall a question I asked at a recent Goldman Sachs security conference where I asked Jayshree Ullal from Cisco who was presenting Cisco's strategy regarding virtualized security about how their approach to securing the network was impacted by virtualization in the situation I describe above. 

You could hear cricket's chirp in the answer.

Talk amongst yourselves....

P.S. More excellent discussions from Matasano (Ptacek) here and Rothman's bloggy.  I also recommend Greg Ness' commentary on virtualization and security @ the HyperVisor here.

Uncle Mike says "Virtualization hasn't changed the fundamental laws of network architecture."

Despite Mike completely missing the point of my last point regarding Alan Shimel's rant on Tippingpoint (he defaults to "Hoff is defending Big Iron blurb,) Mike made a bold statement:

Virtualization hasn't changed the fundamental laws of network architecture

I am astounded by this statement.  I violently disagree with this assertion.

Virtualization may have not changed the underlying mechanisms of CSMA/CD or provided the capability to exceed the speed of light, but virtualization has absolutely and fundamentally affected the manner in which networks are designed, deployed, managed and used.   You know, network architecture.

Whether we're talking about VLAN's, MPLS, SOA, Grid Computing or Storage, almost every example of data center operations and network design today are profoundly impacted by the V-word.

Furthermore, virtualization (of transport, storage, application, policy, data) has also fundamentally changed the manner in which computing is employed and resources consumed.  What you deploy, where, and how are really, really important.

More importantly (and relevant here) is that virtualization has caused architects to revisit the way in which these assets and the data that flow through them, is secured.

And to defray yet another "blah blah...big iron...large enterprise....blah blah" retort, I'm referring not just to the Crossbeam way (which is heavily virtualized,) but that of Cisco and Juniper also.  All Next Generation Network Services are in a low-earth orbit of the mass that is virtualization.

"Virtualization of the routed core. Virtualization of the data and control planes.  Virtualization of Transport.  Extending the virtualized enterprise over the WAN.  The virtualized access layer."  You know what those are?  Chapters out of a Cisco Press book on Network Virtualization which provides "...design guidance" for architects of virtualized Enterprises.

I suppose it's only fair that I ask Mike to qualify his comment, because perhaps it's another "out-of-context-ism" or I misunderstood (of course I did) but it made me itchy reading it.

Mike?

Upchuck, Shrubbery, Bumps-in-the-wire & Alan does the "Shimmy"

Alan and I normally are close enough on our positions that I don't feel it necessary to argue with him.

I certainly don't feel compelled to come to the defense of a competitor that Alan's unloading on, but I'm really confused about his interpretation of what TippingPoint's Chief Architect, Brian Smith, is communicating and where Alan suggests that he and StillSecure's position lays.

To re-cap, Brian Smith was quoted in an SC Magazine Article as describing his views on how security ought to be positioned in the network thusly:

"Brian Smith, the chief architect of 3Com and a founder of TippingPoint, says his first-ever RSA keynote will focus on integrating solutions such as network access control, intrusion prevention and behavioral anomaly detection to create an intelligent network.

"I can do all of these sorts of synergies and when you trace it out, what ends up happening is you're able to debug network problems that you were never able to do before, get an unprecedented level of security, and also lower the total cost of ownership," Smith says. "They have to talk to each other. If we can pull all of these solutions together, I think that's going to be the trend over the next five to 10 years. It's a natural evolution in the technology cycle."

Smith says he also plans to emphasize the benefits of the bump-in-the-wire network approach to deploying security solutions. Rather than embedding solutions into switchers and routers, Smith plans to suggest overlaying solutions to allow for a more converged, cheaper way to add intelligence to the network."

Amen to that.  But lest you think I am intimating that we should all just toss appliances willy-nilly across the network (in fact, that's the opposite of what I think,) please read on...

Apparently it was the third (boldfaced) paragraph that got Alan's goat and provoked him into a state of up-chuckedness.  Specifically, it seems that it is repugnant to Alan that someone who works for a "switch" company could suggest that overlaying security can be facilitated as a "bump-in-the wire."  I guess that depends upon your interpretation of "bump-in-the-wire." 

I'm guessing that Alan thinks that means individual appliances being inserted between network segments with one "goesinta" and one "goesouta" cable and yet I can't figure out why  "...virtualizing some of this stuff and putting it on blades and so forth" has to be within the router or switch and not on an extensible services platform?

I have a feeling I'm going to hear the typical "not everyone can afford big iron" as a response...but if you can generalize to prove a point, I can become surgical and suggest that it's not fair to treat the Global 2000, Carriers, Service Providers and Mobile Operators as an exception rather than the rule when it comes to describing security trends and markets, either.

Summarily, it appears that the "convergence" of networking and security in Alan's eyes means that security functionality MUST be integrated into routers and switches in order to be successful and that adding security functionality on top of or in conjunction with the network is a lousy idea.

Strange comments from a guy whose company takes generic PC appliances  with security software on them and deploys them as bumps in the wire by sprinkling them across the network -- usually at the cursed perimeter and not at the core.  Confused?  So am I.

Alan goes on:

Most of the guys who do the bump in the wire are trying like hell to move up the stack and the network to get away from the edge to the core.  You may be able to do IPS as a bump in the wire at the core if you have the horsepower, but you are going to be forced to the edge for other security stuff if you insist on bump in the wire.  Single point of failure, scalability and cost are just working against you. Eventually you have to turn to the switch. I just don't get where he is coming from here.

So you're saying that your business model is already dead, Alan?

The final piece of irony is this:

Has selling big-ass, honking ASIC boxes to do IPS for so long totally blinded them to virtualizing some of this stuff and putting it on blades and so forth inside the switch and network.

Um, no. Again, not like I feel any inclination to defend Tippingpoint, but it's apparent that Alan is not aware of TippingPoint's M60 which is a huge multi-gigabit LAN switching platform (10-14 slots) with integrated IPS (and other functionality) that can either replace a typical switch or connect to existing switch fabrics to form an overlay security service.  It's about a year overdue from the last announcement, but the M60 is an impressive piece of iron:

Each blade in the M60 acts as a stand-alone IPS device, similar to TippingPoint's T-series appliances, in which network connectivity and IPS packet processing are done on the hardware. (The exception is with 10G interfaces; the M60 uses 3Com's 8800 dual-port 10G blades, which connect to TippingPoint IPS blades through the switch's backplane.)

The blades run 3Com's TippingPoint IPS device operating system and use the vendor's Digital Vaccine updating service, letting  the device identify the latest threat signatures and vulnerabilities.

This was one of the results of the Huawei joint venture with 3Com.  I believe that THIS is really what Brian Smith is talking about, not device sprinkling appliances.  It's  a switch.  It's an IPS.  That's bad, how?

What has me confused is that if Alan is so against hanging security services/functions OFF a switch, why did StillSecure do the deal with Extreme Networks in which the concept is to hang an appliance (the Sentriant AG) off the switch as an appliance instead of "inside" it like he suggests is the only way to effectively demonstrate the convergence of networking and security?

So, I totally get Brian Smith's comments (despite the fact that he's a competitor AND works for a switch vendor -- who, by the way, also OEM'd Crossbeam's X-Series Security Services Switches prior to their Tippingpoint acquisition!)

The model is valid.  Overlaying security as an intelligent service layer on top of the network is a great approach.  Ask me how I know. ;)

Chris

Getting "defensive" about security strategy?

Uncle Mikey thinks I'm backward and defensive.  He's referring to my post last night about the yawns I continue to experience regarding Cisco's approach to the "self-defending network."  I'll make no bones that more and more security will make its way into the network...that wasn't the point.  Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's worth using or actually works.  That *is* my point.

Here's his post:

Every time Chris Hoff writes something, I wonder if he's back. It's been months since he's consistently been involved in the conversation, and I've missed his participation. This piece though strikes me as a bit defensive and backwards looking. I guess Chris just had the epiphany that Cisco's "Self-Defending Network" is a marketecture. Of course it is. And yes, it's in Cisco's best interest to have security everywhere, OVER TIME. I understand that your business is to sell a "virtualized best of breed security as a service layer" stuff, but to think that the trend is not towards having security capabilities embedded within the fabric of the network suffers from a bit of tunnel vision. Maybe you don't like Cisco's plan to get customers there, but they will get there. To be clear, I'm not talking about right now, this is a path that we'll follow for the next 5-7 years. But at that time, it'll be about how to most effectively MANAGE the embedded capabilities. So your "virtualized service layer" morphs into a management layer. But I suspect you already know that, but it's more fun to bang up Cisco and talk about arm bars.

So he's right.  I am backward -- more specifically contrarian. I am also "defensive" because I could give a shit if big is the new small, purple is the new black or men wearing lipstick is socially acceptable.  What *I* care about is solving security and survivability problems TODAY...that same marketecture that you call out is taking place over 5-7 years supposedly started 5-7 years ago according to John Chambers!

How many decades are you willing to wait just to say "I told you so" in regards to your prophetic exclamation that security will become more integrated into the network?    Convenience and cost aren't all they're cracked up to be.  Sometimes the stuff actually has to work!

It's not like you have to be Ms. Cleo to see what Cisco's doing, but you don't have to pretend to be blind and accept that it's the cure for world hunger, also.

This piece though strikes me as a bit defensive and backwards looking. I guess Chris just had the epiphany that Cisco's "Self-Defending Network" is a marketecture. Of course it is. And yes, it's in Cisco's best interest to have security everywhere, OVER TIME. I understand that your business is to sell a "virtualized best of breed security as a service layer" stuff, but to think that the trend is not towards having security capabilities embedded within the fabric of the network suffers from a bit of tunnel vision.

No, I didn't *just* have this epiphany, it's been the bane of my (and almost everyone else I talk to) existence for years.  I didn't say  that security isn't trending into the network, Mike.  What I said is that it's a flawed approach with an even more flawed  genesis.  Here's a turets-inspired outburst for you:

You don't need security everywhere, all the time.  The network will never have the intelligence to make decisions on content in context.  The balance of delivery versus security will ALWAYS swing to the former in Cisco's world.  CISCO IS NOT A SECURITY COMPANY.

The entire corner piece for Cisco's SDN strategy for the last few years has been on CSA -- software running on damned host!  Like Stiennon says, relying on the health of the very end-point you're trying to protect to ensure the basis of your network's viability and survivability is freaking ludicrous.  NAC is important, but up until last year, that was it in terms of the self-defending network -- leave it to the host.  Now you can send telemetry to build dynamic ACL's.   There's a giant step forward.

Oh, but network vendors are from venus and security folks will use MARS -- is that it?

Slapping together a bunch of stuff from acquisition is security in breadth not security in depth.

Maybe you don't like Cisco's plan to get customers there, but they will get there. To be clear, I'm not talking about right now, this is a path that we'll follow for the next 5-7 years. But at that time, it'll be about how to most effectively MANAGE the embedded capabilities. So your "virtualized service layer" morphs into a management layer. But I suspect you already know that, but it's more fun to bang up Cisco and talk about arm bars.

You know what, Mike?  Kindly define "there" for me.  Because if you define "there" as a cobbled together bunch of appliances, routers and switches trying to effect security dispositions across an infrastructure and security monoculture without being able to make decisions on content and context, then I totally agree with you.

Screw waiting for this stuff, Mike.  They are the biggest networking company on the planet and it's already been 5 years.  They keep announcing strategies like they're a special on aisle 7 and then putting them on the discount shelf when they don't pan out.

Take AON for example.  I always used to joke it would take an EON for AON.  I'm right.  That whole thing was a crock of...and now it's, um, moved sideways to be integrated into yet another "strategy" because architects are smart enough to detect a polished turd when they see one.

Cisco is not the answer to life, the universe and everything else.  People are NOT willing to bet their business, reputation and company's health on another marketecture.  People also are fed up with a single vendor's version of the truth.  That's why there are 600+ vendors in the network security space.

Does Cisco have huge marketshare?  In networking, yes.  But over 70% of security dollars spent DO NOT GO TO CISCO.

Will Cisco "get there."  Sure.  I wonder, however, if "there" is where people really care about being.

I don't.  My customers have problems they need solved today that overlay and work synergistically with very reliable, fast, available and robust network plumbing.  In the data center, protecting the things that matter most, good enough is NOT good enough.

At the SMB perimeter, it is.

I think, quite honestly, that you're the one with the myopic lens -- all you see is a freight train heading towards you not realizing all you have to do is jump tracks. 

All aboard!

Best of Breed Says: "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated..."

[Editor's Note: You should also check out Alan Shimel's blog entry regarding this meme.  I'll respond to some of his excellent points in a seperate entry, but he beat the crap out of Mike and my Pink Floyd references!  I guess that comes with age ;)]

Uncle Mike and I today debate his notion that Best Of Breed/Best In Breed is dead -- it's actually a sing-a-long to Pink Floyd's "The Wall."  Who knew security could be so lyrical?

By the way, in case you didn't figure it out, that's Mark Twain to the right, who, in his own right was once Best In Breed, is credited for the (butchered) quote above.

I think Mike missed my point -- or more realistically, I didn't do a good enough job of making it before he turned/titled the discussion into another rambling argument about the dying "perimeter." 

This really is the first time I've had trouble following Senor Rothman's logic.  I think Stiennon planted a trojan via our IM chat the other night and is typing in his stead ;)

This is also probably my first really Crossbeam-centric post, but I've been prodded by Mike into 'splaining/defending what we do (and how we do it) via BoB/BiB, so here goes:

Here's my clarification:

Mike says:

It is my belief (and remember I get paid to have opinions) that perimeter best of breed is a dying architecture. Crossbeam even calls what you do UTM. So maybe we are just disagreeing about semantics and words. Ultimately isn't this abstracted "security services" layer that you evangelize more of what customers are interested in.

Your definition of the "perimeter" no longer interests me ;) 

If you're talking about the SMB market and their adoption of Perimeter UTM to consolidate seperate appliances, then this argument is done. 

However, these customers that suffer from box stacking recognize that they bought the best product they could (perhaps it was more than they could afford) at the time, but what they're looking for now is "good enough" and "reduced cost."  When you purhase a $500 box that does 8 things for $500, you get a "reduction of (device) complexity" as a side effect.  But it's silly to suggest that these folks were really BoB/BiB targets in the first place.  That's why BoB/BiB companies such as Check Point have small UTM boxes in this range.  Please see below. 

This abstracted "security services" layer is exactly what I evangelize, however it's comprised of BoB/BiB solutions and functionality at it's foundation.  As players commoditize, they move into core technology as a table stakes play, but then we have distinguished BoB/BiB technology that is truly differentiated for some period of time.  Sometimes this technology becomes a market, sometimes it becomes a feature, but either way, it's an organic process that is still based upon BoB/BiB.

You bet that Crossbeam is a UTM player.  In fact, despite what Fortinet lies (yes, lies) about in their press releases, Crossbeam continues to be the leader in the high-end ($50K+) UTM market.  However, as I've said eleventy-billion times, there is an enormous difference between the small SMB $500 Perimeter UTM solutions and our Enterprise and Provider-Class UTM solutions.

I'm not going to re-hash this here again.  You'll need to reference this post to get the big picture.  Suffice it to say, we've been in business for 6 years with revenue doubling YoY doing the thing that is now called UTM -- and we do it in a way that nobody else can because it's damned hard to do right.

I admit/concede/agree that Single-function BoB/BiB solutions that are intended by their creators to be deployed in a singular fashion on their own appliance stacked next to or on top of another BoB/BiB solution is a dying proposition.   This is why you see vendors -- even Cisco -- combining functionality into a consolidated solution to reduce security sprawl.   That won't stop them from building BoB/BiB compartmentalized solutions, however.  This is what vendors do.

Typically integrators get to make money from cobbling it all together.  Savvy resellers and integrators don't have to cobble if they use an architecture that aligns all of these solutions into and onto a platform architecture that is as much a competent networking component as it is a BoB/BiB security layer.  That would be Crossbeam.

That does NOT, however, mean that BoB/BiB itself is dead (at the perimeter or otherwise) because just like IBM buying ISS (the market leader in BoB/BiB IPS,)  this will result in the inevitable integration via service of ISS' components into a  more robust suite of security services complemented by infrastructure.   

However, when a single vendor does this, you only get that single vendor's version of the truth and so I assume this is what Mike means when he says a customer has to "settle" for BoB/BiB.

The dirty little secret is that customers are forcing BoB/BiB vendors to work together -- or more specifically work together on a platform using an architecture that provides for this integration in an amazingly scaleable, highly-available, and high performance way.

Here are some pertinent examples:

• Next Generation Networks de-couple the transport from the service layers.  You have plumbing and intelligence.  The plumbing is dumb, fast and reliable whilst the service layer providers the value in things such as content delivery, security, etc.
  
  In this model, the plumbing is made up of the BoB/BiB networking components and the intelligence layer is comprised of BoB/BiB service delivery components.
  
  NGN's are driving the re-architecture of some of the biggest networks on the planet -- in fact THE largest IT project in the world, BT's 21CN, calls for this architecture where BoB/BiB components have been selected to be consolidated in a single platform in order to deliver BoB/BiB security as a service layer across the entire network -- end to end.  They don't expect switches or routers to be able to deliver this security -- they trust in the fact that BoB/BiB players will -- in one platform. 
  
  By the way, that includes that little thing called "the perimeter."  I've said it once and I'll say it again:
  

  The perimeter is not going away.  In fact, it's multiplying.  However, the diameter is collapsing.

Applying dynamic, on-demand and highly-differentiated combinations of BoB/BiB security services at different areas of the network from a single set of carrier/enterprise -class security switches allows you to secure these micro-perimeters as you best see fit.

You don't "settle" for anything.  The customer has a choice of which BoB/BiB security software he/she wishes to run and like a "Security Service Oriented Architecture" and dynamically and at will apply these choices where, when and how needed.  If vendor A changes strategy or goes out of business, you can add/switch vendor B.

• Virtualization in both the data center and the "network" is dependent upon BoB/BiB to deliver the functionality required for distributed computing.  Just as servers, storage, networking and processing is virtualized, security is too.
  
  Since many companies are utilizing VLANs to being their virtualization efforts and beginning to abstract the network in VRF terms @ Layer 2/Layer 3, they have two choices: use the still immature security technology present in clumps in their routers/switches (and hold your breath for SNF -- which is really just a product like ours connected to a switch -- don't believe me?  I'll post one of Richard Stiennon's slides describing SNF) or choose an architecture that delivers EXACTLY the level of security you need at its most potent level as a combined virtualized service layer across the network using BoB/BiB.


• Consolidation and Acquisitions will come and go, but you'll notice that we are able to do things that nobody else can in the BoB/BiB market.  Take this VARBusiness story for example -- just published today -- in which an established BoB/BiB Firewall player (Check Point) is combined with a BoB/BiB IPS player (SourceFire) on our platform doing something the two companies could not do otherwise.  By the way, and most importantly, the customer can choose from 15+ other BoB/BiB security applications to combine, also, such as ISS, WebSense, Trend Micro, Forum Systems, Imperva, Dragon, etc.


• Customers (in our world that's large enterprise and service providers/carriers/mobile operators) are no longer settling for "good enough" and they're also not settling for having BoB/BiB providers suggest that they need to tear into their networks to integrate their individual wares.  Here's an interesting one for you:
  
  While many of them utilize things like FWSM modules in their 6500 series Cisco switches for firewall or even combine Juniper's ISG2000 IPS devices with the 6500's to provide FW and IPS together (and both of those are still considered BoB/BiB solutions by the way,) they tell the BoB/BiB purveyors of Web Services/SOA/XML security, gateway A/V, Content Filtering, Web Application and Database security solutions that while they will most definitely want their products, they won't deploy them unless they run on the big, white, box.  That would be these.

To wrap up, Mike ends with:

To get back to my another brick analogy, you could say that every new best of breed application you add to your box is another brick that makes your box more interesting to customers. No?

Yes, but how does that mean BoB/BiB is dead again?

In the spirit of the Who, here's an appropriate selection from the Quadrophenia song "I've had enough":

You were under the impression
That when you were walking forward
You'd end up further onward
But things ain't quite that simple.

You got altered information
You were told to not take chances
You missed out on new dances
Now you're losing all your dimples.

Yours wordily, Mr. Dimples...

Chris

On Martin McKeay's Podcast re: NAC/SNF

Our online MobCast featuring Martin McKeay, Mike Rothman, Richard Stiennon, Alan Shimel and I regarding our on-going debate regarding NAC and SNF was almost a DNF when we discovered that SkypeCast sucked beyond compare (we jumped to "regular skype") and then Martin's recording software decided to dedicate its compute cycles to the SETI project rather than record us.

Many thanks to the esteemed Mr. Stiennon who was luckily committing a felony by recording us all without disclosure. ;)  See, there's a good side to all that government training. ;)

At any rate, we had a lively debate that needed to go on for about an hour more because (surprise!) we didn't actually resolve anything -- other than the two analysts were late to the call (surprise #2) and the two vendors were loud and obnoxious (not really a surprise.)

It was a great session that got passionately elevated across multiple elements of the discussion.  What we really recognized was that the definition of and expectations from NAC are wildly differing across the board; from the analyst to the vendor to the customer.

Take a listen when Martin posts it and let us know if we should have a second session.  I believe it will show up here:

http://www.securityroundtable.com/

Chris

NAC Attack: Why NAC doesn't work and SN(i)F doesn't, either...alone

I have to admit that when I read Alan Shimel's blog entry whereby he calls out Richard Stiennon on his blog entries titled "Don't Bother with NAC" and "Network Admission Control is a Blind Alley," I started licking my chops as I couldn't wait to jump in and take some time to throw fuel on the fire.  Of course, Mike Rothman already did that, but my goal in life is to be more inflammatory than he is, so let the dousing begin!

I've actually been meaning to ask for clarification on some points from both of these fellas, so no better time than the present. 

Now, given the fact that I know all of the usual suspects in this debate, it's odd that I'm actually not siding with any of them.  In fact, I sit squarely in the middle because I think that in the same breath both Richard and Alan are as wrong as they are right.  Mike is always right (in his own mind) but rather than suggest there was a KO here, let's review the tape and analyze the count before we go to the scorecards for a decision.

This bout is under the jurisdiction of and sanctioned by the Nevada Gaming Commission and brought to you by FUD -- the offical supplier of facts on the Internet. ;)

Tale of the tape:

Richard Stiennon:

1. Richard Stiennon highlighted some of Ofir Arkin's NAC "weaknesses" presented at Black Hat and suggests that NAC is a waste of time based upon not only these technical deficiencies but also that the problems that NAC seeks to solve are already ameliorated by proper patching as machines "...that are patched do not get infected."
2. Somewhat confusingly he follows on with the statement based upon the previous statement that "The fear of the zero-day worm or virus has proved ungrounded. And besides, if it is zero-day, then having the latest DAT file from Symantec does you no good."
3. Richard suggests that integrating host-based and network-based security is a bad idea and that the right thing to do is based upon  "de-coupling network and host-based security. Rather than require them to work together let them work alone."
4. Ultimately he expects that the rest of the problems will be fixed with a paradigm which he has called Secure Network Fabric. 
5. Richard says the right solution is the concept he calls "Secure Network Fabric (SNF)" wherein "...network security solutions will not require switches, routers, laptops, servers, and vendors to work in concert with each other" but rather "...relies most heavily on a switched network architecture [which] usually involve[s] core switches as well as access switches."
6. SNF relies on the VLANs that "...would be used to provide granularity down to the device-level where needed. The switch enforces policy based on layer 2 and 3 information. It is directed by the NetFlow based behavior monitoring system.
7. Richard has talked about the need for integrating intelligent IDP (Intrusion Detection and Prevention) systems coupled with NBA/NBAD (Network Behavioral Analysis/Network Behavioral Anomaly Detection) and switching fabric for quite some time and this integration is key in SNF functionality.
   
   
8. Furthermore, Richard maintains that relying on the endpoint to report its health back to the network and the mechanisms designed to allow admission is a bad idea and unnecessary.
9. Richard maintains that there is a difference between "Admission Control" and "Access Control" and sums it up thusly: "To keep it simple just remember: Access Control, good. Admission Control, bad."

Alan Shimel:

1. Alan freely admits that there are some technical "issues" with NAC such as implementation concerns with DHCP, static IP addresses, spoofed MAC addresses, NAT, etc.
2. Alan points out that Richard did not mention that Ofir Arkin also suggests that utilizing a NAC solution based upon 802.1x is actually a robust solution.
3. Alan alludes to the fact that people deploy NAC for various reasons and (quoting from a prior article) "...an important point is that NAC is not really geared towards stopping the determined hacker, but rather the inadvertant polluter."  Hence I believe he's saying that 802.1x is the right NAC solution to use if you can as it solves both problems, but that if latter is not your reason for deploying NAC, then the other issues are not as important.
4. Alan points to the fact that many of Richard's references are quite dated (such as the comments describing the 2003 acquisition of TippingPoint by 3Com as "recent" and that ultimately SNF is a soapbox upon which Richard can preach his dislike of NAC based upon "...trusting the endpoint to report its health."
5. De-coupling network and host-based endpoint security is a bad idea, according to Alan, because you miss context and introduce/reinforce the information silos that exist today rather than allow for coordinated, consolidated and correlated security decisions to be made.
6. Alan wishes to purchase Pot (unless it's something better) from Richard and go for a long walk on the shore because Mr. Stiennon has "the good stuff" in his opinion since Richard intimates that patching and configuration management have worked well and that zero-day attacks are a non-entity.
7. Alan suggests that the technology "...we used to call behvior based IPS's" which will pass "...to the switch to enfore policy" is ultimately "another failed technology" and that the vendors Richard cites in his BAIPS example (Arbor, Mazu, etc.) are all "...struggling in search of a solution for the technology they have developed."
8. Alan maintains that the SNF "dream" lacks the ability to deliver any time soon because by de-coupling host and network security, you are hamstrung by the lack of "...context, analytics and network performance."
9. Finally, Alan is unclear on the difference between Network Access Control (good) and Network Admission Control (bad.)

So again, I maintain that they are both right and both wrong.  I am the Switzerland of NAC/SNF! 

I'll tell you why -- not in any particular order or with a particular slant...

(the bout has now turned from a boxing context to a three man Mixed-Martial-Arts Octagon cage-match!  I predict a first round submission via tap-out):

1. Firstly, endpoint and network security MUST be deployed together and ultimately communicate with one another to ultimately effect the most visible, transparent, collaborative and robust defense-in-depth security strategy available.  Nobody said it's a 50/50 percentage, but having one without the other is silly.  There are things on endpoints that you can't discover over a network.  Not having some intelligence about the endpoint means the network cannot possibly determine as accurately the "intent" of the packets spewing from it.
2. Network Admission Control solutions don't necessarily blindly trust the endpoint -- whether agent or agentless, the NAC controller takes not only what the host "reports" but also how it "responds" to active probes of its state.  While virtualization and covert rootkits have the capability to potentially hide from these probes, suggesting that an endpoint passes these tests does not mean that the endpoint is no longer subject to any other control on the network...
3. Once Network Admission Control is accomplished, Network Access Control can be applied (continuously) based upon policy and behavioral analysis/behavioral anomaly detection.
4. Patching doesn't work -- not because the verb is dysfunctional -- but because the people who are responsible for implementing it are.  So long as these systems are not completely automated, we're at risk.
5. Zero day exploits are not overblown -- they're getting more surgically targeted and the remediation cycles are too long.  Network-based solutions alone cannot protect against anomalies that are not protocol or exploit/vulnerability signature driven...if the traffic patterns are not abnormal, the flags are OK and the content seemingly benign going to something "normal," it *will* hit the target.
6. You'll be suprised just how immature many of the largest networks on this planet are in terms of segmentation via VLANs and internal security...FLAT, FLAT, FLAT.  Scary stuff.  If you think the network "understands" the data that is transported over it or can magically determine what is more important by asset/risk relevance, I too would like some of that stuff you're smoking.
7. Relying on the SNF concept wherein the "switch enforces policy based on layer 2 and 3 information," and "is directed by the NetFlow based behavior monitoring system" is wholly shortsighted.  Firstly layer 2/3 information is incredibly limited since most of the attacks today are application-level attacks and NOT L2/L3 and Netflow data (even v9) is grossly coarse and doesn't provide the context needed to effectively determine these sorts of incursions.  That's why NetFlow today is mostly used in DDoS activities -- because you see egregiously spiked usage and/or traffic patterns.  It's a colander not a sieve.
8. Most vendors today are indeed combining IDP functionality with NBA/D to give a much deeper and contextual awareness across the network.  More importantly, big players such as ISS and Cisco include endpoint security and NAC (both "versions") to more granularly define, isolate and ameliorate attacks.  It's not perfect, but it's getting better.
9. Advances in BA/NBA/NBAD are coming (they're here, actually) and it will produce profound new ways of managing context and actionable intelligence when combined with optimized compute and forwarding engines which are emerging at the same time.   They will begin, when paired with network-wide correlation tools, to solve the holy trinity of issues: context, analytics and performance.
10. Furthermore, companies such as ISS and StillSecure (Alan's company) have partnered with switch vendors to actually do just what Richard suggests in concept.  Interestingly enough, despite the new moniker, the SNF concept is not new -- Cisco's SDN (albeit without NAC) heavily leverages the concepts described above from an embedded security perspective and overlay security vendors such as ISS and Crossbeam also have solutions (in POC or available) in this area.
11. Let's be honest, just like the BA vendors Alan described, NAC is in just the same position -- "struggling in search of a solution for the technology they have developed."  There are many reasons for deploying NAC: Pre and Post-inspection/Quarantine/Remediation and there are numerous ways of doing it: agent-based/agentless/in-line/out-of-band... The scary thing is with so many vendors jumping in here and the 800 pound Gorilla (Cisco) even having trouble figuring it out, how long before NAC becomes a feature and not a market?  Spending a bunch of money on a solution (even without potential forklifts) to not "... stop the determined hacker, but rather the inadvertant polluter" seems a little odd to me.  Sure it's part of a well defined network strategy, but it ain't all that yet, either.
12. With Cisco's CSO saying things like "The concept of having devices join a network in which they are posture-assessed and given access to the network in a granular way is still in its infancy" and even StillSecure's CTO (Mitchell Ashley) saying "...but I think those interested in NAC today are really trying to avoid infection spread by an unsuspecting network user rather than a knowledgeable intruder" it's difficult to see how NAC can be considered a core element of a network security strategy WITHOUT something like SNF.

So, they're both right and both wrong.  Oh, and by the way, Enterprise and Provider-class UTM solutions are combining ALL of this in a unified security service layer... FW, IDP, Anti-X, NBA(D) and SNF-like foundations.

[Tap before it breaks, boys!]

We need NAC and we need SNF and I've got the answer:

1. Take some of Richard's "good stuff"
2. Puff, puff, pass
3. Combine some of Alan's NAC with Richard's SNF
4. Stir
5. Bake for 30 minutes and you have one F'N (good) SNAC
   (it's an anagram, get it!)

There you have it.

Chris