Importance of Security – The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same Criminals stealing our identities. Countries stealing our industry and military secrets. Hacked automated teller machines stealing our money. Celebrities’ medical conditions for all to see on the Internet. Corrupt waiters copying our credit card numbers. Our neighbors leeching our wireless signals. It seems like every day we hear of some new threat to society. But are these threats really new? Sure, as the state of the art advances someone will find a new way to exploit the system for some sort of gain. From my experience the old adage still applies: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Twenty-six years ago I embarked on a career that would take me from the person who “stole it” to the person who protects it. Back then the targets were foreign countries and our mission was to discover, analyze and exploit whatever information we could to gain military and political advantage for the United States. Our methodology was simple. Find the weakest link, follow the trail and take what we needed. Everything was on the table: people, technology, processes. Sound familiar? They should be. They make up the core areas of the foundation of a risk management strategy. All too often I see companies rely on the technology leg of the triad at the expense of the other two. In the risk and security assessments I’ve performed over the years I’ve found that, just like in the days of the Cold War, it is entirely too easy to take advantage of this mistake. There is no correlation between the amount of money you spend on security products to the level of security posture in protecting your assets. No matter the brand or expense of firewall, identity management, antimalware, virtual private network (VPN) or even encryption, someone – administrator, developer, end-user, whoever – will make the kind of mistake that can bring serious harm to the business. And it’s a lot easier than you think. Keep your eye on this blog. In future posts I will provide plenty of examples, along with recommendations on what to do about the problems you’re doubtlessly facing today. I’ll even equate business security issues to everyday life situations we all face. You’d be surprised at just how closely the two are connected Kim Brown Nick Hill Trista TinkerBella Adesh Maraj Dylan Ramsumair
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 22:51:19 +0000
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