NOTE: The Network View is offering a series of reviews on network visibility-related resources and blogs available online. If you have a URL which we should consider reviewing, please send to tlandry (at) anuesystems (dot) com.
This week, let’s move back from lists of monitoring tools to Security-focused blogs. Today we’ll cover another very useful and insightful security resource named (coincidentally enough):
Network Security Blog Screenshot
The Network Security Blog dubs itself “The views of one man on security, privacy and anything else that catches his attention.”
The “one man” in here is Martin McKeay, who is a Senior Consultant focusing on PCI assesssments for TrustWave. Again, in his own words, “I took up blogging as a means to extend my knowledge and test my ideas about security by putting them up for peer review.” That objective is true to the very idea of blogging, and this particular resource has been available since 2003, so we thought we’d dig into it in detail to see what value you might derive from it for your own use.
With a professional focus on PCI, you’d initially guess that Mr. McKeay blogs primarily on security of payments, but that would be short-sighted. One nice feature that this blog incorporates is a lefthand navigation listing of topic categories, full with counts of the number of blog entries you can find in each category. And surprisingly, PCI is the tenth most popular category listed, following General (349 entries), Podcast (263), Hacking (223), Security Advisories (147), Blogging (132), Government (124), Simple Security (123), Privacy (92), and Site Configuration (88). [all numbers current as of February 24, 2009.] Obviously, those categories are not mutually exclusive, but still, his materials are fairly well-rounded with security topics.
Although he covers the following less frequently, his list of categories is also peppered with things such as Encryption, Firewall, Risk, Social Networking, Microsoft, Linux, IDS, and Phishing/Scams/etc.
However, key topics aside, what jumped out at me during my review of the blog is the fact that Martin is firmly entrenched in the world of Security. He works with several other bloggers and thought leaders on a weekly podcast, links to a nice list of blogs that I intend to dig into in the coming days, and actively participates in Security Blogging events (e.g. Security Bloggers meetup at the upcoming RSA Conference 2009).
What all of this tells me is that he is truly in tune with the needs, frustrations, and successes that are currently of importance in this space. And that’s the sort of guy you want to exchange ideas with, so we recommend you take a look around the site, post some comments, and generally enjoy his work. While you are there, tell him we sent you!
You can also find Martin on Twitter: @mckeay. While you are at it, why don’t you go ahead and follow @AnueSystems too?
Nice article as for me. It would be great to read a bit more concerning that topic, if you can help me find it.