Sign in / up

back to article Netflix treats security ills with Stethoscope: Open-source self-probing tool

Netflix has released the source code of a web application called Stethoscope for evaluating the security of mobile and desktop computing devices. The software, covered by the Apache 2.0 license, intended for employees of organizations that use a device management service. Netflix hopes that employees using the toolkit will …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    Sounds a bit involved but...

    It's good that at least one company is recognizing the compromising of their business starts with the compromising of one of their customers devices.

    Netflix is a subscriber service so (potentially) offers a rich haul of personal and financial details for anyone who breaches their security.

    It's a start.

    2 0 Reply
    1. John Robson Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Sounds a bit involved but...

      I read it as employee devices...

      1 0 Reply
      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Employee devices, yes - for now.

        Now that the code has been released, it will hopefully be adapted to a host of things and overall security will improve.

        Because it's not a question of if a user will fall for some malware thingy, it's just a question of when.

        1 0 Reply
  2. Christian Berger

    Of course for Netflix..

    ... that probably mostly means to check if the DRM is still intact.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Adam 1
      Reply Icon

      Re: Of course for Netflix..

      Or whether a VPN client is running.

      0 0 Reply
  3. Mac D

    Hope is not a strategy...

    Hoping that your employees care enough about security to take action is not a strategy. One would think people would care enough about having clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, but it unfortunately took regulation to enforce those practices.

    Stethoscope is certainly very interesting technology and on the right path, just interested to see what type of army will be needed to run/maintain it and if it can truly scale. Both GRR and osquery have strong limitations as to how large they can effectively scale, so it'll be interesting to see if this is any different...

    0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like