Incite 4/2/2014: Disruption
The times they are a-changin’. Whether you like it or not. Rich has hit the road, and has been having a ton of conversations about his Future of Security content, and I have adapted it a bit to focus on the impact of the cloud and mobility on network security. We tend to get one of three reactions: Excitement: Some people rush up at the end of the pitch to learn more. They see the potential and need to know how they can prepare and prosper as these trends take root. Confusion: These folks have a blank stare through most of the presentation. You cannot be sure if they even know where they are. You can be sure they have no idea what we are talking about. Fear: These folks don’t want to know. They like where they are, and don’t want to know about potential disruptions to the status quo. Some are belligerent in telling us we’re wrong. Others are more passive-aggressive, going back to their office to tell everyone who will listen that we are idiots. Those categories more-or-less reflect how folks deal with change in general. There are those who run headlong into the storm, those who have no idea what’s happening to them, and those who cling to the old way of doing things – actively resisting any change to their comfort zone. I don’t judging any of these reactions. How you deal with disruption is your business. But you need to be clear which bucket you fit into. You are fooling yourself and everyone else if you try to be something you aren’t. If you don’t like to be out of your comfort zone, then don’t be. The disruptions we are talking about will be unevenly distributed for years to come. There are still jobs for mainframe programmers, and there will be jobs for firewall jockeys and IPS tuners for a long time. Just make sure the organization where you hang your hat is a technology laggard. Similarly, if you crave change and want to accelerate disruption, you need to be in an environment which embraces that. The organizations that take risks and understand not everything works out. We have been around long enough to know we are at the forefront of a major shift in the technology landscape. The last one of this magnitude I expect to see during my working career. I am excited. Rich is excited, and so is Adrian. Of course that’s easy for us – due to the nature of our business model we don’t have as much at stake. We are proverbial chickens, contributing eggs (our research) to the breakfast table. You are the pig, contributing the bacon. It’s your job on the line, not ours. –Mike Photo credit: “Expect Disruption” originally uploaded by Brett Davis Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and.. hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. March 24 – The End of Full Disclosure March 19 – An Irish Wake March 11 – RSA Postmortem Feb 21 – Happy Hour – RSA 2014 Feb 17 – Payment Madness Feb 10 – Mass Media Abuse Feb 03 – Inevitable Doom Jan 27 – Government Influence Jan 20 – Target and Antivirus Jan 13 – Crisis Communications 2014 RSA Conference Guide In case any of you missed it, we published our fifth RSA Conference Guide. Yes, we do mention the conference a bit, but it’s really our ideas about how security will shake out in 2014. You can get the full guide with all the memes you can eat. Heavy Research We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Defending Against Network Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Magnification The Attacks Introduction Advanced Endpoint and Server Protection Quick Wins Detection/Investigation Prevention Assessment Introduction Newly Published Papers Reducing Attack Surface with Application Control Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Security Monitoring The Future of Security Security Management 2.5: Replacing Your SIEM Yet? Defending Data on iOS 7 Eliminating Surprises with Security Assurance and Testing What CISOs Need to Know about Cloud Computing Incite 4 U The good old days of the security autocrat: At some point I will be old and retired, drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, and reminiscing about the good old days when security leaders could dictate policy and shove it down folks’ throats. Yeah, that lasted a few days, before those leaders were thrown out the windows. The fact is that autocrats can be successful, but usually only right after a breach when a quick cleanup and attitude adjustment is needed – at any other time that act wears thin quickly. But as Dave Elfering points out, the rest of the time you need someone competent, mindful, diligent, well-spoken and business savvy. Dare I say it, a Pragmatic CSO. Best of all, Dave points out that folks who will succeed leading security teams need to serve the business, not have fixed best practices in mind, which they adhere to rigidly. Flexibility to business needs is the name of the game. – MR Throwing stones: I couldn’t agree more with Craig Carpenter, who writes in Dark Reading that folks need to Be Careful Beating Up Target. It has become trendy for every vendor providing alerts via a management console to talk about how they address the Target issue: missing alerts. But as Craig explains, the fact is that Target had as much data as they needed. It looks like a process failure at a busy time of year, relying on mostly manual procedures to investigate alerts. This can (and does) happen to almost every company. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re good. If you haven’t had a breach, chalk it up to being lucky. And that’s okay! Thinking that it can’t happen to you is a sure sign of imminent
