HB Gary CEO Aaron Barr Resigns
He’ll probably just get picked up by TASC, which was about to buy out HB Gary Federal anyway. But I do take some pleasure at his recognition that his reputation is for shit.
Embattled CEO Aaron Barr says he is stepping down from his post at HBGary Federal to allow the company to move on after an embarassing data breach.
[snip]
In an interview with Threatpost, Barr said that he is stepping down to allow himself and the company he ran to move on in the wake of the high profile hack.
“I need to focus on taking care of my family and rebuilding my reputation,” Barr said in a phone interview. “It’s been a challenge to do that and run a company. And, given that I’ve been the focus of much of bad press, I hope that, by leaving, HBGary and HBGary Federal can get away from some of that. I’m confident they’ll be able to weather this storm.”
Good riddance, I say!
I don’t think it is ever right to pick a fight, but picking a fight with anonymous is just stupid. In the world of computer security, the advantage is always with the attacker. Barr seriously underestimated his opponent and overestimated his own skill.
I wonder what that says for his industry and the gazillions of DoD and other dollars being spent on it.
It’s not completely wasted, but it is wildly misspent. I’d be surprised if 1% of it is being put to good use. I’d bet that roughly 15% is spent on complete charlatans who would make Aaron Barr look like Dwight Eisenhower.
I think you are selling HB Gary short. They can likely compete toe-to-toe with the biggest charlatans in the industry.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Judge. You’re a tremendous slouch.”
-Ty Webb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/quotes?qt0484900
Actually, I think he’d agree w/that take. He writes a lot about how he doesn’t want to tell the govt that there is really not stopping hackers–what you need to do is become resiliant–but that’s not a very profitable viewpoint.
Speaking of which, I think WO and Bruce Schneier are the same person:
Or maybe that is just common sense if you know about tech?
Yep, I’m afraid his resignation may be risk-free in that he will have arranged a soft landing elsewhere. Resignation used to be out of principle, or as a face-saving device for those who’ve been fired. Now it’s just PR so that actors and their employers can move on without consequence.
Man, I’ll bet his buddies at HBGary and sooooo happy that he said that leaving might help them. They spent a lot of energy trying to convince everyone that HBGary and HBGary Federal had little in common besides the hubby and wife team running HBGary own 15% of HBGary Federal. And now Barr, in one last act of total incompetence mentions them in a presser. Pinhead. I want to be the 16 year old girl who cracked his system when I grow up.
Yeah, it was a lie. His wife personally owns about 50% in addition to the 15% owned by HB Gary corporate.
Via Public Intelligence – HBGary pushes French-owned Narus-like surveillance system to Feds:
He made Spy v. Spy seem like Socialist Realism.
I was joking w/Barry Eisler that the whole Anon hack seemed like something we’d see in his novels.
But then we both agreed that his characters have to be more competent than Barr, to be interesting and/or believable.
OT – Via the Express-Tribune, partnered with The International Herald Tribune:
Well, that’s a step in the right direction.
Rats … sinking ship …
Delicious. Wonder if his passwords are leaving with him.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
Did he jump or was he pushed. And what took so long.
A small amount of justice like a crumb from the table.
Coming to think of it, what ever happened to the CEO rule that the larger the fail, the larger the bonus.
Priceless.
Considering the speed with which this whole thing unfolded, the plot, the cast, and the crew…
Well, goddam, this was cooler and had more instant gratification than a screening of “The Social Network.”
Maybe it’s time for HB Gary Federal to change it’s name, maybe to Xe or Blackwater, or something?
Frankly, I find it inconceivable that any parents with a last name one vowel away from Burr could name their child Aaron, but maybe that’s just me.
First time’s a tragedy, second time’s a farce?
This from their web site last week:
They call it “Razor.” Excuse me while I snorgel in my shaving cream.
Anonymous skills are known worldwide to be absolute. Mr. Barr’s skills are now known worldwide to absolutely bullshit. Running your mouth does not get the code to work, and worse, he was talking like a man with a paper ass hole.
spanishinquisition@22
funny, but i do not remember ceo penny mentioning her 50% ownership in the chat logs of her plea to anonymous.
i think she did tell the anonymous cooperative that hbgary owned (implied, only) 15% of hbgary federal.
if ceo penny owned 50%, and she and hubby greg owned another 15%,
then ceo penny may have had motive to be more involved in the hbgaryfed caper than has been apparent on the surface-
all the more so if she wanted to unload hbgary federal, as ew writes may be about to happen.
scenario: ceo penny says to colleague aaron, e.g.,” can we juice hbgaryfed”.
ceo aaron thinks he can, and proceeds.
wonder what hbgaryfed would have been worth before the aaron’s “anonymous” caper provoked the wrath of the nieberlungen?
She definitely did not mention her own 50% stake and went to some lengths to imply that the 15% was the entire connection.
She’s lucky that Anonymous doesn’t take slights such as being lied to as sufficient for a response. It’s the intertubes, for Petunia’s sake. You expect lies and respond only when told the truth.
Man, wish I could be alive when this history is written. HBGary is by no means the only software company defrauding the US, here’s another: Dennis Montgomery
“Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, U.S. Invokes National Security”
@spanishinquisition / JTMinIA / anyone:
Can you please provide a source re: Penny Leavy owning 50% of HBGary Federal? Not finding this in my searches. Thanks.
found it: http://cryptome.org/0003/hbg/HBG-Fed-OA.pdf
Jan. 22, 2010: