The simple fact is that most folks senior security folks came from the technical side of the house. They started as competent (if not studly) sysadmins or security administrators, drew the short straw, and ended up with management responsibility. But very few of these folks ever studied management, gone through management training, or done anything but learned on the job. This creates a situation where senior security folks spend a lot of time doing stuff, but not enough time talking about it.
“Hi. I’m Mike. And I’m an addict.” I start every chapter of the Pragmatic CSO with those very words. There there are many things you can be addicted to. Thrills. Sex. Sugar. Booze. Drugs. Twitter. Pr0n. Caffeine. Food. Some are worse than others, though none of them really good for you. But now I have to face up to another addiction. The need for gadgets. I’m jonesing for a new MacBook Air. Big time. Like waking up in the middle of the night wanting some SSD goodness in a petite 2lb package.…
So your key security metrics are collected and shared safely. What comes next? Now we need to start deriving value from the data. Remember, metrics and numbers aren’t worth the storage to keep them, unless you use them as management tools. You need to start comparing the data, drawing conclusions, and adjusting your security program based on the data. OMG, actually making changes based on data rather than shiny objects, breaches, airline magazine articles, and compliance mandate changes. How…
This is a non-security post, in case that matters to you. A few days ago I was reading about a failed Telcomm firm ‘refocusing’ its business and technology to become a cloud database provider. I’m thinking that’s the last frackin’ thing we need. Some opportunistic serial start-up-tard can’t wait to fail the first time, and wants skip over onto not one but two , hot trends. Smells like 1999. Of course they landed an additional $4M; couple Cloud with a modular database and it’s a no-lose…
Some projects take us a few days. Others? More like 18 months.
Back before Mike even joined us, Adrian and I started a ‘quick’ project to develop a basic set of metrics for database security programs. As with most of our Project Quant efforts, we quickly realized there wasn’t even a starting framework out there, never mind any metrics. We needed to create a process for every database security task before we could define where people spent their time and money. Over the next year and a half we…
One thing I don’t miss from my vendor days in the Database Activity Monitoring market is the competitive infighting. Sure, I loved to do the competitive analyses to see how each vendor viewed itself, and how they were all trying to differentiate their products. I did not enjoy going into a customer shop after a competitor “poisoned the well” with misleading statements, evangelical pitches touting the right way to tackle a problem, or flat-out lies. Being second into a customer account meant…
You really should read Lee Kushner and Mike Murray’s Information Security Leaders blog. Besides being good guys, they usually post good perspectives on career management each week. Like this post on Rats and Ships, where they basically address how to know your company is in trouble and when to start looking for what’s next. Obviously if the company is in turmoil and you don’t have your head in the sand, the writing will be on the wall.
I was almost Phished this week. Not by some Nigerian scammer, or Russian botnet, but by my own bank.
Bundled with both my checking and mortgage statements – with the bank’s name, logos, and phone number was the warning: “Notice: Credit Report Review Re: Suspicious activity detection”. The letter made it appear that there were ongoing suspicious activity reported by the credit agency, and I needed to take immediate action. I thought “Crud, now I have to deal with this.” Enclosed was a signature…
We spent last weekend up north visiting friends and family while the kids are on Spring Break. We decided to surprise them on Sunday by going to a baseball game. It was opening weekend and our home team was in town. We got cheap seats in the upper deck, but throughout the game we kept moving downwards, and by the 9th inning we were literally in the front row on the dugout. The Boss turned to me and asked if the kids had any idea how lucky they are. Yeah, right.
The best definition of a security benchmarking effort I am aware of is in Chapter 11 of my book, The Pragmatic CSO, which provides a good perspective on why benchmarking is important.