As discussed in the first post in the Infrastructure Hygiene series, the most basic advice we can give on security is to do the fundamentals well. That doesn’t insulate you from determined and well-funded adversaries or space alien cyber attacks, but it will eliminate the path of least resistance that most attackers take. The blurring of infrastructure as more tech stack components become a mix of on-prem, cloud-based, and managed services further complicate matters. How do you block and tackle…
After many decades as security professionals, it is depressing to have the same issues repeatedly. It’s kind of like we’re stuck in this hacker groundhog day. Get up, clean up after stupid users, handle a new attack, fill out compliance report, and then do it all over again. Of course, we all live in an asymmetrical world when it comes to security. The attackers only have to be right once, and they are in your environment. The defenders only have to be wrong once, and the attackers also gain a…
As we wrap up our series on Data Security in the SaaS age, let’s work through a scenario to show how these concepts apply in a specific scenario. We’ll revisit the “small, but rapidly growing” pharmaceutical company we used as an example in our Data Guardrails and Behavioral Analytics paper. The CISO has seen the adoption of SaaS accelerate over the past two years. Given the increasing demand to work from anywhere at all organizations, the CTO and CEO have decided to minimize on-premise…
Our last post in Data Security in a SaaS World discussed how the use and sharing phases of the (frankly partially defunct) Data Security Lifecycle remain relevant. That approach hinges on a detailed understanding of each application to define appropriate policies for what is allowed and by whom. To be clear, these are not – and cannot be – generic policies. Each SaaS application is different and as such your policies must be different, so you (or a vendor or service provider) need to dig into…
As we launched our series on Data Security in the SaaS Age, we described the challenge of protecting data as it continues to spread across dozens (if not hundreds) of different cloud providers. We also focused attention on the Data Security Triangle, as the best tool we can think of to keep focused on addressing at least one of the underlying prerequisites for a data breach (data, exploit, and exfiltration). If you break any leg of the triangle you stop the breach. The objective of this…
Between Mira and I, we have 5 teenagers. For better or worse, the teenage experience of the kids this year looks quite a bit different; thanks COVID! They haven’t really been able to go anywhere, and although things are loosening up a bit here in Atlanta, we’ve been trying to keep them pretty isolated. To the degree we can. In having the kids around a lot more, you can’t help but notice both the subtle and major differences. Not just in personality, but in interests and motivation. Last summer…
Securosis has a long history of following and publishing on data security. Rich was the lead analyst on DLP about a zillion years ago during his time with Gartner. And when Securosis first got going (even before Mike joined), it was on the back of data security advisory and research. Then we got distracted by this cloud thing, and we haven’t gone back to refresh our research, given some minor shifts in how data is used and stored with SaaS driving the front office and IaaS/PaaS upending the…
Do you ever play those wacky question games with your friends? You know, where the questions try to embarrass you and make you say silly things? I was never much of a game player, but sometimes it’s fun. At some point in every game, a question about your favorite physical feature comes up. A lot of people say their eyes. Or their legs. Or maybe some other (less obvious) feature. It would also be interesting to ask your significant other or friends what they thought. I shudder to think about…
The pandemic is hard on everyone. (says the Master of the Obvious) It’s a combination of things. There are layers of fear — both from the standpoint of the health impact, as well as the financial challenges facing so many. We cannot underestimate the human toll, and unfortunately, the US has never prioritized mental health. As I mentioned last week in my inaugural new Insight, I’m not scared for myself, although too many people I care about are in vulnerable demographics. I’m lucky that (at…
It’s a sunny late spring day. Mike steps into the dank building and can smell the must. It feels old but familiar. Strangely familiar. The building looks the same, but he knows it’s different. Too much time has passed. He steps into the confessional and starts to talk. Mike: Forgive me. It’s been almost 3 and a half years since I’ve been here. I’d say it was because I have been busy, which I have. But it’s not that. I spent close to 13 years here, and I had gone through a pretty significant…