‘Doing some research on business justification stuff for several project Rich and I are working on. Ran across the Aberdeen Group research paper reference on the Imperva Blog,, which talks about business justification for database security spending. You can download a copy for free. It’s worth a read, but certainly needs to be kept in perspective.
“Don’t you know about the new fashion honey? All you need are looks and a whole lotta money.”
Best-in-Class companies 2.4 times more likely to have DB encryption. Best-in-Class companies are more likely to employ data masking, monitoring, patch management and encryption than Laggards. Hmmm, people who do more and spend more are leaders in security and compliance. Shocker! And this is a great quote: “… current study indicates that the majority of their data is maintained in their structured, back end systems.” As opposed to what? Unstructured front end systems? Perhaps I am being a bit unfair here, but valuable data is not stored on the perimeter. If the data has value, it is typicallystored in a structured repository because that makes it easier to query by a wider group for multiple purposes. I guess people steal data that has no value as well, but really, what’s the point.
“Well, duh.”
Saying it without saying it I guess, the Imperva comments are spot on. You can do more for less. The statistics show what we have been talking about for data security, specifically database security, for a long time. I have witnessed many large enterprises realized reduced compliance and security costs by changes in education, changes in process and implementation of software and tools that automate their work. But these reductions came after a significant investment. How long it takes to pay off in terms of reduced manpower, costs and efficiencies in productivity vary widely. And yes, you can screw it up. False starts are not uncommon. Success is not a given. Wrong tool, wrong process, lack of training, whatever. Lots of expense, Best-in-Class, poor results.
“But mom, everyone’s doing it!”
The paper provides some business justification for DB security, but raises as many questions as it answers. “Top Pressures Driving Investments” is baffling; if ‘Security-related incidents’ is it’s own category, what does ‘Protect the organization mean’? Legal? Barbed wire and rent-a-Cops? And how can 41% of the ‘Best-in-Class’ respondents be in three requirement areas. Is everything a top priority? If so, something is seriously wrong. “Best-in-Class companies are two-times more likely than Laggards to collect, normalize, and correlate security and compliance information related to protecting the database”. I read that as saying SIEM is kinda good for compliance and security stuff around the database, at least most of the time. According to my informal poll, this is 76.4% likely to confuse 100% of the people 50% of the time.
“Does this make me look Phat?”
If you quotes these statistics to justify acquisition and deployment of database security, that’s great. If you choose to implement a bunch of systems so that you are judged ‘best in class’, that’s your decision. But if I do, call me on it. There is just not enough concrete information here for me to be comfortable with creating an effective strategy, nor cobble together enough data to really know what separates the effective strategies from the bad ones. Seriously, my intention here is not to trash the paper because it contains some good general information on the database security market and some business justification. You are not going to find someone on this planet who promotes database security measures more than I do. But it is the antithesis of what I want to do and how I want to provide value. Jeez, I feel like I am scolding a puppy for peeing on the rug. It’s so cute, but at the same time, it’s just not appropriate.
“I call Bu&@% on that!”
I have been in and around security for a long time, but the analyst role is new to me. Balancing the trifecta of raising general awareness, providing specific pragmatic advice, and laying out the justification as to why you do it is a really tough trio of objectives. This blog’s readership from many different backgrounds which further compounds the difficulty in addressing an audience; some posts are going to be overtly technical, while others are for general users. Sure, I want to raise awareness of available options, but providing clear, pragmatic advice on how to proceed with security and compliance programs is the focus. If Rich or I say ‘implement these 20 tools and you will be fine’ it is neither accurate nor helpful. If we recommend a tool, ask us why, ask us how, because people and process are at least as important as the technology being harnessed. If you do not feel we are giving the proper weight to various options, tell us. Post a comment on the blog. We are confident enough in our experience and abilities to offer direct advice, but not so arrogant as to think we know everything. The reason that Rich and I are hammering on the whole Open Research angle is both so you know how and where our opinions come from, but to provide readers the ability to question our research as well as add value to it.
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