The Rietta Blog

05/03/2017

Americans' Access to Strong Encryption is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

by Frank Rietta

When sophisticated adversaries want to hack a network, they ultimately win. A government mandated encryption backdoor would make Americans less safe.

02/28/2017

Breach Prevention for Developers Talk at Kennesaw State University

by Frank Rietta

As an information security professional, it's critical to know how custom web applications are developed and how that affects application security.

02/22/2017

Intro to App Sec Podcast Interview

by Frank Rietta

Frank was the guest on the August 29, 2016, Intro to App Sec Episode of the Advanced Persistent Security podcast. Listen here.

01/12/2017

The MongoDB hack and the importance of secure defaults

by Frank Rietta

If you have a MongoDB installation, now would be the time to verify that it is secure. Tim Kadlec has written a must read post.

12/01/2016

CPU Benchmark - Raspberry Pi vs AMD Athlon vs Mac Mini

by Frank Rietta

In a battle of the CPUs, the Raspberry Pi loses, the nine-year-old AMD Athlon 3200 holds its own, and a modern Intel Core i5 beats both. All still have a use.

11/02/2016

28th Anniversary of the Morris Internet Worm

by Frank Rietta

10/22/2016

Rails: Set Max Length on Fields

by Frank Rietta

05/10/2016

Bad Password Practices are Responsible For Most Data Breaches. You Can do Better.

by Frank Rietta

Verizon's DBIR says 61% of data breaches result from bad password practices. Your app can avoid some pitfalls with precautions, especially slow hashes and 2FA.

04/22/2016

Calls to Ban Effective Encryption Continue Despite Data Breach Crisis

by Frank Rietta

Calls for the U.S. Congress to ban effective encryption are repeated despite the current information security crisis in which data breaches are regular news.

04/08/2016

U.S. Senate Bill Seeks to Ban Effective Encryption, Making Security Illegal

by Frank Rietta

Senators Feinstein and Burr published a bill that would ban effective encryption: no conversation or data exchange the government can't access if it wants to.

The Rietta Blog is a publication of Rietta, covering application security, software development, and legal and policy topics in technology since 2005. It is edited by Frank Rietta, computer scientist, OWASP Life Member, and expert witness in cases involving computer science and encryption, who founded the firm in 1999. Every article carries the byline of its actual author, and most are written by Frank himself.