(ISC)² Philippines is Now Official

The Philippines finally has an official (ISC)² Chapter. Thanks mostly to the determination of Mr. Dan Vizcayno and its first Chapter Officers.

Who can be part of the (ISC)² Philippines Chapter you may ask? Basically anyone interested in the Information Security field who has been actively involved in any aspect of Information Security work for at least one year.

Member Classification are as follows:
Active Member – (ISC)² International members interested in the purpose and aspirations of the Chapter. An Active member in good standing shall be entitled to vote and be an officer in both the affairs of (ISC)² International and (ISC)² Philippines Chapter.

Associate Member – Non-(ISC)² International members (i.e., non-(ISC)² certification holders) interested in the purpose and aspirations of the Chapter. An Associate member in good standing shall be entitled to vote on any Chapter affairs and be an officer of the Chapter, except for the positions of President, Secretary, Treasurer and Membership. Holding these particular positions require (ISC)² International member status or an (ISC)² certification (like CISSP).

Organization Member – Corporations that are interested in the purpose and aspirations of the Chapter. An Organization member in good standing shall be entitled to vote through its representative on any Chapter affairs and be an officer of the Chapter except for the positions of President, Secretary, Treasurer and Membership as they would require (ISC)² International member status.

Student Member – Full time student currently enrolled in a degree program of an accredited college or university. Proof of enrollment shall be submitted annually. Student members in good standing shall not be entitled to vote and be an officer at the Chapter level.

For more information, please contact Mr. Danielito Vizcayno, CISA, CISM, CISSP at daniel.vizcayno@gmail.com

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ROOTCON 6 is gearing up

ROOTCON, one of the country’s biggest security gatherings is gearing up and its call for papers will be closing in less than a week. Check out the tracks here.

The upcoming 6th iteration will be held at the Cebu Parklane International Hotel on September 7 and 8, 2012. Early registration ends on June 30, 2012.

In my opinion, ROOTCON is one of the best conferences in the country where you can learn more about network security. So what are you waiting for? Sign-up to learn and meet your fellow network security aficionados. 🙂

For more details you can call their local hotline at +63917.766.2849 or check out their page here.

ROOTCON 5

ROOTCON 5 Will be happening on September 9-10, 2011 at the Cebu Parklane International Hotel in Cebu City. The event will run for two days, and there will be a job fair, a hacking contest and other fun stuff to do.

Check out the ROOTCON 5 page here, and the Top 10 Reasons to Attend ROOTCON 5.

The Call For Papers has also officially opened and you can check out the CFP Guidelines Here.

Aside from the presentations, I’m sure there will be a lot of great networking going on (pun intended) since ROOTCON has already garnered a following and Cebu has a lot of software developers… and we all know one needs to know how to code to graduate from script-kiddie hood 🙂

Some Malware Analysis Tools

I just recently went through a great, albeit difficult, Malware Analysis course. It was very informative and it stretched my ability to understand and follow. The usual DISCLAIMER applies: use the tools at your own risk and your own malware.

Here are some of the free tools we used (and there are a lot of free tools available):

We first installed Virtual Box

Then used the following for Surface Analysis:
Hash Analysis – HashTab (free for personal or private use)
File Type Analysis – TrID
String Analysis – BinText and Sysinternals’ String.exe
Binary Editor – HxD
Pack Analysis – CFF Explorer

Runtime Analysis:
Sysinternals’ Process Explorer
regshot
WinPcap
Wireshark
Sysinternals’ Process Monitor
TCPView
FUndelete (Sysinternals’ old software)
Autoruns
ADSSpy

Static Analysis:
IDA Pro Free
MSDN Library
OllyDbg Version 1
Immunity Debugger
Python 2.5

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Some Malware Analysis Links:

Practical Malware Analysis PDF by Kris Kendall from BH 07
PenTestIT’s Atool (I’ve never used this but you may want to check it out)
Malware Analysis Tools – from the SANS diary of 2006
Malware Analysis for Fun and Profit PDF
Malware Analysis Presentation from HK’s Professional InfoSec Association

Seminar on Information Security within Firms

The Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan (METI) will hold a free, half-day, “Seminar on Information Security within Firms”. The seminar is being held to emphasize the importance of information security measures in increasing business, especially within Japanese firms. The intended audience is government personnel, personnel from local business, and personnel from Japanese firms operating in the Philippines.

Event Title: Seminar on Information Security within Firms
Venue: EDSA Shangri-La
Date: January 26, 2011 (Wednesday)
Time: 2PM to 6PM
Organizers: Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan, Mitsubishi Research Institute
Coordinator: Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team

For more information, kindly e-mail:litoa@phcert.org with the following info:
– Name
– Title
– Company

Attendees will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, and seats are limited.

Free Home User Security Software

Because every Windows machine ought to have some form of Anti-Malware
Version 1.0
June 27, 2010

One of the most common questions I get asked when someone finds out I work in Information Security is, “What is the best anti-virus?” And my answer has always been, “It depends on your criteria….” There really isn’t a good definitive answer for that, especially since threats come out every hour and virus writers and their anti-virus counterparts are stuck in this whole cat and mouse game… in other words, at a certain point in time, you can say one product is better than another, but then what about in the next few hours? Also remember that Anti-Malware (as Google and a lot of other companies out there) can’t protect you from all the bad stuff out there, especially if its a targeted persistent attack. It’s but a layer of protection and won’t protect you from all attacks.

Sites that rank anti-virus products or sites that test files for viruses are the following:

Virus Total
European Expert Group for IT-Security
AV-Comparatives.org
AV-Test GmbH
Virus Bulletin
Top Ten Reviews: AntiVirus Software

One other common question I get asked is, “Can I protect my computer using free software?” And my answer would be, “You can reasonably protect a home PC using free tools as long as you practice good computer use habits (i.e. don’t surf high risk sites, be suspect of file attachments, not run in Admin, etc) and you use layers of defense.”

Avira AntiVir Personal – FREE Antivirus
avast! Free Anti Virus
AVG Antivirus Free Edition 9.0
Microsoft Security Essentials
Panda Cloud Antivirus

There are other anti-malware out there, however they are online only or don’t get high marks in some reviews. I’ll eventually include them here.

Also check out the NIST.org site on Free Anti-Malware
and PC World’s great, though dated, article on 15 Great, Free Privacy Downloads

Note: This will be a work in progress and I intend to have a page dedicated to free Anti-Malware and other Free Home User Security Software.