Posts tagged Twitter

Twitter Social Networking Among Information Security People

Having used Twitter for a couple of years, I can say that its role as social networking medium for members of the information security community has been steadily growing. The value Twitter offers infosec people in three-fold: it helps keep up with interesting security-related content; it offers a forum for interacting with fellow infosec professionals; and it assists in researching current security events and trends.

Finding Relevant and Interesting Content

Twitter users often act as curators of content, helping to identify which news stories, research papers, podcasts, etc. you should be paying attention to on a given day. To benefit from this aspect of the service, it’s best to sign up for Twitter and follow people whose taste in security content matches yours.

Deciding whom to follow on Twitter without being overwhelmed by the number of updates in your stream is a personal matter. A good starting point is to find which of your friends and colleagues are already on Twitter and follow them. Another is the list of “top” security Twitter accounts maintained by the service Listorious. Yet another possibility is the listing of “most powerful voices in security” compiled by Jim Kaskade.

One of the advantages of following on Twitter the people who interest you is that you don’t need to keep up with their updates in real time to benefit from their content-curating activities. Several free services can filter, rank and aggregate the content shared by the Twitter accounts you follow. These include:

You can follow the updates of Twitter users by subscribing to the RSS feed that Twitter generates for them. This works even without you needing to join Twitter; however, this method is only practical when you want to keep up with a small number of Twitter users.

Interacting With Other Information Security Professionals

Technology is making the world smaller, someone said once. Twitter certainly contributes to this dynamic: It’s incredible how many members of the information security community are just a click away on this service.

You might shy away from approaching a particular individual at a conference or worry about emailing the person you don’t know. On Twitter, such social stigmas are almost non-existent. People generally feel contacting each other—making comments, asking questions and providing answers, without much hesitation. This aspect of Twitter makes the site a fantastic source of inspiration and knowledge.

Interestingly, Twitter is even becoming the platform for discussing contents of blogs, with comments being shared as Twitter messages instead of being added to the blog post’s web page directly.

Researching Security Topics

The volume of information posted on Twitter can easily be overwhelming. This aspect of the site makes it a good source of various types of real-time and historical data related to information security.

For instance, you might use Twitter search to check what people are reporting regarding an unfolding security breach or ongoing attack; you might find information about defensive and offensive actors; you might the mention of hashes of malicious executables or suspicious IP addresses, etc. For additional thoughts along these lines, see my earlier posts How to Use Twitter for Information Mining and Monitoring Social Media for Security References to Your Organization.

For more tips on getting the most out of Twitter, see my earlier post Joining The Information Security Community on Twitter. Oh, and you should probably follow me on Twitter: @lennyzeltser.

— Lenny Zeltser

Joining The Information Security Community on Twitter

We grow as professionals by learning from each other, providing feedback and sharing ideas. In the field of information security, such discussions can take place on-line through mailing lists and web forums. Social networking sites are providing another fruitful venue for such discussions.

My favorite platform for interacting with infosec people on-line is Twitter. I’m sometimes surprised how many security-focused individuals are active on Twitter, not only reading the discussions, but also contributing insights and sharing pointers to tools, articles and other useful information.

Here are a few tips for information security professionals looking to get the most out of the infosec community on Twitter.

Keeping Up With Security Discussions on Twitter Without Joining Twitter

If you don’t feel like getting a Twitter account, no problem. You can receive updates from any public Twitter account using your favorite RSS reader. Just go to that person’s Twitter page and locate the “RSS feed” link on the right side of the page. It’ll look like this:

In addition to following specific people on Twitter, you may decide to keep an eye on the links that the infosec community is sharing there. You can accomplish this by using news aggregators that mine social networks for frequently-shared links or by simply using Twitter search. For instance:

Of course, you can tweak the search query to generate the results that match your interests.

Another excellent site for exploring what’s popular on Twitter without actually signing up for Twitter is paper.li. It allows Twitter users to generate a newspaper-like page that shows which links are popular among the people followed on Twitter by the person. To see what pages have been generated, search paper.li for “security” or for a more specific topic of interest. The directory of pages that you’ll see will look like this:

Finding People to Follow on Twitter

If you decide to open a Twitter account, you’ll have the opportunity to follow the individuals whose Twitter streams interest you. One of the advantages is that this allows you to generate a custom version of paper.li newspaper, which you can review periodically to see what the people who are following on Twitter have been sharing. Another advantage, of course, is that by joining Twitter you can actually converse with other members of the community and contribute your own voice.

One way to find people to follow on Twitter is to start with a few individuals whom you respect in the field and see whether they are already on Twitter. You can also see whom they are following, and decide whether you want to follow those individuals or companies as well.

Another way to find interesting security Twitter accounts to follow involves looking through various directories that attempt to rank people by influence or sort Twitter users according to the popularity of their updates. For instance:

When deciding whether to follow a person on Twitter, look at what they’ve posted in the past and how often they’ve sent the updates: you want sure that their style and the frequency of communications is in line with your expectations. If you find a person you’re considering following, take a look at their influence ranking on Klout.

Following Twitter Lists

Twitter allows its users to create lists of other users. If you want to track updates by members of the list, you can follow the list, instead of following individual Twitter users. For an overview of using Twitter lists, see a guide by Mashable.

You can stumble upon a list worth following by looking at the profiles of Twitter users whom you trust to be good curators of content. For instance, I maintain a list of Twitter users who post about malware. You can also look at the directory of security lists maintained by Listorious.

To Wrap it Up…

You can chose to be a consumer of information on Twitter by merely reading what people are saying. You can chose to be a curator or publisher of information by sharing insights or references to useful pages and, as the result, building up a list of followers. You can interact with other people on Twitter to comment or answer questions. And you can do all of the above.

Hope to see you on Twitter! You can find me at there twitter.com/lennyzeltser.

Update: An example of how Twitter could be used to brainstorm with other security professionals is described in the Thought Incubator posting by Rocky DeStefano.

— Lenny Zeltser