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Possibility is not Probability

Rich December 7, 2009 21 Comments

On Friday I asked a simple question over Twitter and then let myself get dragged into a rat-hole of a debate that had people pulling out popcorn and checking the latest odds in Vegas. (Not the odds on who would win – that was clear – but rather on the potential for real bloodshed). And while the debate strayed from my original question, it highlighted a major problem we often have in the security industry (and probably the rest of life, but I’m not qualified to talk about that). A common logical fallacy is to assume that a possibility is a probability. That because something can happen, it will happen. It’s as if we tend to forget that the likelihood something will happen (under the circumstances in question) is essential to the risk equation – be it quantitative, qualitative, or whatever. Throughout the security industry we continually burn our intellectual capital by emphasizing low-probability events. “Mac malware might happen so all Mac users should buy antivirus or they’re smug and complacent”. Forgetting the fact that the odds of an average Mac user being infected by any type of malware are so low as to be unmeasurable, and lower than their system breaking due to problems with AV software. Sure, it might change. It will probably change; but we can’t predict that with any certainty and until then our response should match the actual (current) risk. Bluetooth attacks are another example. Possible? Sure. Probable? Not unless you’re at a security or hacker conference. There are times, especially during scenario planning, to assume that anything that can happen will happen. But when designing your actual security we can’t equate all threats. Possible isn’t probable. The mere possibility of something is rarely a good reason to make a security investment. Share:

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In Violent Agreement

David Mortman December 7, 2009 8 Comments

My Friday post generated some great discussion in the comments. I encourage you to go back and read through them. Rocky in particular wrote an extended comment that should be a blog post in itself which reveals that he and I are, in fact, in violent agreement on the issues. Case in point, his first paragraph: I think we’re on the same page. As an industry we need to communicate more clearly. It wasn’t my intent to fault any information professionals as much as I’m hoping that we all will push a bit harder for the right conversations in the future. We can’t just let the business make poor decisions anymore, we need to learn their language and engage them in more meaningful dialogue. We’re yelling in the wrong language. We just need to put that effort into learning their language and communicating more effectively. How is it that we can read HEX in real time but can’t converse with a MBA at any time? Read the last sentence again. It is that important. This is something I’ve been fighting for for a long time. It’s not about bits and bytes and until we get that through our heads, the rest just doesn’t matter because no one in command will listen to us. Rocky closed out his comment with this though: What would IT security look like if we spent as much time on those thoughts as we do on compliance tools, dashboards and monitoring? I think it’d be much more business centric and hopefully significantly more respected in the C-suite. What do you think? Share:

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