Security Mavens' Reviews of Firewall

We invited some of our friends in the security field to review the new movie about a heroic CISO of a midmarket Seattle bank. Stars Harrison Ford. What could be wrong?

The annals of popular culture are rife with depictions of security professionals as villainous lackeys in the service of unscrupulous corporate leaders. Think "Silkwood," "The Firm," "The China Syndrome," and last years season of the Fox Network hit show, "24," in which the CSO of an L.A. high-tech business seeks to protect the corporate reputation by deploying his own private SWAT team to kill counterterrorist agent Jack Bauer. Thats a pretty harsh job description!

So when we heard that the new movie "Firewall" would star Harrison Ford as Jack Stanfield, the heroic CISO of a midmarket Seattle bank, we were eager to see this presumptively positive portrayal of a security executive. We also invited some of our friends in the business to see the movie on its opening weekend and send us their reviews.

Firewall Reviews

IRA WINKLER

I went to "Firewall" with really low expectations. The reviews kind of sucked, and most movies that focus on security and computers are filled with complicated technological terms that make no sense to the average person, the idea being to make the hero sound like a technological genius. At the same time, real technological geniuses are confused, because its actually a bunch of random acronyms the writers have stuck together. Of course, it usually ends up being some obscure technological genius who saves the world from an evil corporation.

Since I couldnt be disappointed, I actually liked this movie. I know that CSO wanted me to focus on how "real" the movie is with regard to security, computer crime, and the job of a security manager. I also assume that many readers might know that I perform penetration tests against banks, investigate crimes against banks, and help to develop security programs for banks. That said, "Firewall" is about as real for banking security as XXX was for the NSA and the Star Wars movies were for space travel.

In "Firewall", the criminals basically develop a software program that will clean out bank accounts automatically, and they need the hero to identify large accounts and execute the program to actually clean out the accounts. As you can anticipate, the hero, bank security manager Harrison Ford, does this to save his family (held hostage by the bad guys) but then steals it back tio turn the tables. While the movie gives you the impression that the bad guys are super villains, in the real world of banking criminals, they would rank slightly above Wile E. Coyote.