10 Immutable Laws of Security

I was browsing the MSDN Blogs and come across this interesting post in the IEBlog about SSL and TLS security. Digging through, I ended up with this quite informative Microsoft TechNet article.

The 10 Immutable Laws of Security:

• Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore


• Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore


• Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore


• Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it's not your website any more


• Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security


• Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy


• Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key


• Law #8: An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all


• Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web


• Law #10: Technology is not a panacea

I highly recommend you read this 10 Immutable Laws of Security at Microsoft TechNet.