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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 12 2017, @12:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the security-suggestions-are-cheaper-than-implementations-will-they-pay? dept.

HP Inc. has hired some "white hat superstars":

A trio of security researcher superstars -- including a one-time legendary teen hacker known as "Mafiaboy" who brought down some of the most popular sites on the internet, and a medical researcher who exposed a security hole that led to the recall of a half-million pacemakers -- are joining an HP Security Advisory Board aimed at making advances in the war against hackers.

HP announced the new panel of white hat security superstars at the start of its Reinvent worldwide partner conference Monday as part of its ongoing effort to deliver what it calls the most secure PCs and printers on the market. The members of the new board are chartered with providing "strategic input to HP's leadership team and security experts.

The three security superstars, who will receive honorariums for their service, include:

Michael Calce, who received the moniker "Mafiaboy" when as a 15-year-old in 2000 he shut down eBay, Yahoo and ETrade and others with a series of attacks. Calce – the chairman of the HP Security Advisory Board -- is now a white hat hacker who does penetration testing for companies.

Justine Bone, CEO of MedSec, whose firm exposed a security hole that led to the recall just last month by the U.S Food and Drug Administration of 496,000 pacemakers from Abbott, which has issued a firmware update. Bone is a controversial figure given her decision to proactively expose medical threats.

Robert Masse, who has been helping businesses stop security breaches as a strategic consultant for 20 years. Masse – who owned his own security consulting business – has agreed to donate his honorarium to charity and is participating separately from his duties as a partner for Deloitte Canada.

[...] The board is not a symbolic gesture but rather a real-world panel to help HP create more secure products, said Calce. "There is no smoke and mirrors here," he said. "The members I assembled are to offer the best advice and input that we possibly can for HP to really develop the most secure products that will impact the world and negate what is going on in terms of hacking worldwide."

Will this HP Security Advisory Board reinvent corporate computer security?

This isn't MafiaBoy's first involvement with HP. Previous articles.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @10:19PM

    by crafoo (6639) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @10:19PM (#566987)

    I guess that's one way of admitting that HP has previously purged all of their technical know-how and now need to rebuild from the ground up.

    Real security probably comes from some seriously grueling trench work. What it probably takes is day-in, day-out attention to detail, fuzzing your own software, and checking over hot-spots with analysis tools. Of course some people with knowledge of good architecture design in terms of security would be good too. But I'm sure they were all let go when HP became a printer cartridge manufacturing company.

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