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Banks Must Focus More on Cyber-Risk
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rayray2016
rayray2016,
 User Rank: Apprentice
4/7/2017 | 12:57:31 AM
Twenty Motion
awesome post very engaging
JulietteRizkallah
JulietteRizkallah,
 User Rank: Ninja
4/6/2017 | 9:29:59 PM
Re: Network-centric view of cyber risk, but what about identity-driven threats?
Sorry i did not mean to suggest you did not do a good job in your article, i actually think you did from a network perspective and of course no one can cover cyber risk mitigation in a short article.  That being said, your analogy of "identity management = badge reader" is simplistic.  Access management can be compared to a badge reader: "get in or stay out".  But full identity management includes governance that establishes the policies that define who can access which floor and within each floor what area, i.e. data center room, vs cube or offices, in addition to what application/system and what segmentation of that system/app (i.e. SFDC americas only or global) and that is a far more deeper "segmentation" than anything you can establish through a network. That being said, if your article was all about identity mgmt and did not talk about network and network segmentation, i would also have said that an important perspective is missing :-).  Today, it is about implementing various layers of security in the hopes that hackers will be detected before they get to the crown jewels. 

Lookign forward to reading more articles from you. Juliette
drmikelloyd
drmikelloyd,
 User Rank: Author
4/6/2017 | 9:20:05 PM
Re: Network-centric view of cyber risk, but what about identity-driven threats?
I'm happy to agree that I didn't cover all possible aspects, Juliette, but in my defense, the article wouldn't get published if it were infinitely long :-)

You are quite right that many attacks START via social engineering, or with a stolen credential.  But that often means the attacker's first hand-hold is not already on the crown jewels - they have to move laterally, across the network, to achieve their ends.

So I certainly do not claim that identity management is irrelevant.  But as you say, the users are a perenially weak link, and so what most organizations do is put some distance (in the network) between the user space and the really important stuff.  This creates opportunity for controls appropriate to what is being protected.

By way of analogy, think of securing a building.  Someone might say "a focus on internal building segmentation is pointless if most bad guys get in through exterior doors - we need more badge readers to make sure the bad people don't get in!".  But badge readers are routinely defeated, so it's worth planning ahead for a breach at the level we all agree is weak, and making sure the most important parts of the building are segmented.  You can escalate the control methods as you get to more critical parts of the building.  And that, ultimately, requires understanding the building.  Likewise, a focus on identity management is sensible, but it's a Sisyphean problem - you still need to understand the blast radius and lateral movement across the network, because the identity tracking will invariably be breached by hacking the human.
JulietteRizkallah
JulietteRizkallah,
 User Rank: Ninja
4/6/2017 | 6:20:47 PM
Network-centric view of cyber risk, but what about identity-driven threats?
Though i agree with the content of this article, i think it misses a big aspect of the resilience and mitigation a bank needs to build to counter cyber risk. Threats that are not network-based but rather identity-driven are totally ignored.  Many breaches today involved compromised credentials, social engineering leading to orphan accounts takeover and other identity-driven attacks. Users are the weakest link and are being targetted everyday by hackers aiming to get to coporate sensitive data they can monetize.  No firewall nor security gateway can help with that, rather a strong identity management platform and governance processes can help mitigate that part of the banks cyber risk.
Joe Stanganelli
Joe Stanganelli,
 User Rank: Ninja
4/6/2017 | 4:22:46 PM
Re: Collaborative Defense in the financial sector
> or put another way "what is the blast radius if I am hit with the same attack?".  

Great way to put it.  A rising tide lifts all ships -- and, conversely, if a smaller competitor is compromised, attackers will be emboldened by their proof of concept as the bigger enterprises are put at risk.
drmikelloyd
drmikelloyd,
 User Rank: Author
4/5/2017 | 9:09:55 PM
Re: Collaborative Defense in the financial sector
Quite right, Joe.  At one time, it seemed the tragedy of the commons might be a big issue here - everybody wanted threat data from others, but was reluctant to give up info on their own battles.  Fortunately, the "enlightened" part of enlightened self interest seems to have kicked in, so that sharing can proceed.  One challenge that remains is to bring that data home and ask "where am I vulnerable to the same issue?", or put another way "what is the blast radius if I am hit with the same attack?".  These are still hard questions for many organizations to answer.
Joe Stanganelli
Joe Stanganelli,
 User Rank: Ninja
4/5/2017 | 3:36:55 PM
Collaborative Defense in the financial sector
The ACSC -- of which the Fed is a member -- has been especially important in helping to unite banks and the rest of the financial sector in their cybersecurity efforts.  Threat sharing used to be often avoided among the big banks -- leading to the same criminals cyber-robbing multiple banks more millions of dollars!  Today, threat sharing has evolved to collaborative defense -- and the industry is more welcoming of others to the table while contributing in turn (although I still see some signs, from my own perspective, that smaller organizations/enterprises aren't quite as welcome where they don't have as much to add as, say, a SWIFT or a PwC).


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