The Mirai Botnet Is Proof the Security Industry Is Broken
I wish more people would talk about the economics of why netsec is such a garbage industry. It's a few honest people screaming to be heard above the din of snake-oil salesmen, but there's an economic reason that goes beyond "dumb users, incompetent programmers and CTOs who just look and speeds and feeds". The problem is there's weak correlation, or at least very difficult-to-see correlation, between the amount of effort you put in on security and the results you get.<p>You could have no security and just get lucky and never get hacked. Or you could have great security and just get really unlucky and have a determined hacker. Or you could be spending uselessly and still getting lucky, although you (and your vendor!) attribute your good fortune to the product. This kind of information failure makes it really hard to have a functional and efficient market, even when everyone involved is honest.<p>I don't have a good solution for this, which I why I hope someone smarter than me brings it up.