Tenable Network Security Podcast Episode 182 - "Securing Your Cloud, The World of WordPress"

Announcements

• We're hiring! - Visit the Tenable website for more information about open positions.
• Check out our video channel on YouTube which contains new Nessus and SecurityCenter tutorials.
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• You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!

Discussion & Highlighted Plugins

• Securing Your Cloud - New plugins were released this week for Amzon Linux AMI, allowing Nessus and SecurityCenter users to perform local patch checking against this platform. This got me thinking, with all the "hoopla" surrounding cloud security, did anyone listen? It would seem to me that cloud-based applications are here to stay. And that we've all made the risk decision that we're going to press forward. Is this the right call? Are there hidden cloud security risks, or are they mitigated enough to continue to put resources into "cloud"?
• The World of WordPress - WordPress is another case of an extremely useful technology, but one that comes with a lot of security baggage. On the one hand, WordPress amazes me (in a good way). The ease of set-up and the plethora of plugins makes implementing a feature-rich website easy. On the other hand, it contains a lot of really crappy code. Code that is in no way even in the same universe as "secure code." What do you do? Code review all your plugins? Use something more secure, but costs more money to set up, build, and maintain? While I don't recommend rolling the dice and taking your chances when it comes to security, you must play the risk game.
• "Reducing Your Patch Cycle to Less Than 5 Days" - Jack Daniel and I delivered this webcast last week, and it was received positively by the community. Reducing your patch cycle is not easy, and we covered the people skills, organizational skills, technical challenges, and ways to use Tenable products to reduce the patch cycle. The questions were fantastic, and a sampling of questions were posted, along with the answers.

New & Notable Plugins

Nessus

Passive Vulnerability Scanner

Tenable Compliance Checks

• Tenable Network Security: CIS Microsoft Windows 8 - Level 1 - v1.0.0 Audit

Security News Stories

1. Source: New York Times Website Hit by Cyber Attack
2. 10 Years Later: Could an Epic Blackout Happen Again?
3. NSA: NOBODY could stop Snowden - he was A SYSADMIN
4. The Body-Worn "IMSI Catcher" For All Your Covert Phone Snooping Needs
5. Getting To The Root Of Application Security Problems
6. 22 Years Later, The Linux And Open Source "Cancer" Is Wonderfully Benign
7. Stop treating your datacentre as if it were a laptop: Symantec