Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
The State of IT Security: It’s Broken
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
Page 1 / 2   >   >>
Susan Fogarty
50%
50%
Susan Fogarty,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 12:55:21 PM
Re: Tailored approach
John, Thanks for your response. I believe the distrust of automation is something IT folks are going to need to reach beyond in order to progress. In order to keep up with the pace of modern day threats and even simple business processing speed, we can't rely on manual human reaction time anymore.
Marilyn Cohodas
50%
50%
Marilyn Cohodas,
 User Rank: Strategist
12/20/2013 | 7:29:11 AM
Re: Tailored approach -- change is hard!
I'm glad to hear that what you're advocating doesn't require a ginoromous jump in skills for security practitioners, John. But I agree that change is hard and it will be challenging for many people and organizations to move off the status quo to a variable risk model  that is radically different.

For readers, I'm curious:  What do you think would be the hardest aspect of shifting from a static to a dynamic security risk assessmsent strategy?
JohnPirc
50%
50%
JohnPirc,
 User Rank: Author
12/19/2013 | 10:52:41 PM
Re: What about the data?
Thank you Stratustician.  I couldn't agree with you more on data identification and classification.  Having an understanding of where data resides and the value of that data is more than half the battle.  This goes hand and hand with knowing your attack surface. I didn't want to boil the ocean in this paper but you bring up very good points that should not be overlooked!
JohnPirc
50%
50%
JohnPirc,
 User Rank: Author
12/19/2013 | 10:47:06 PM
Re: Tailored approach
Thank you Thomas. I would have to disagree with you.  I'm not advocating "perfect security" but a reasonable pragmatic approach to the problem.  If we rely on "hope" and remain vigilant with current security practices than we will never keep pace with the threat.
JohnPirc
50%
50%
JohnPirc,
 User Rank: Author
12/19/2013 | 10:34:15 PM
Re: Tailored approach
Thank you Susan. The analysis needs to be performed in real or near-real time.  I agree with your point that most security pros tend to distrust automated systems. I use to think the same way about automated systems and that was something that I learned from the industry as a best practice.  The question I would ask is: "how is that working for you today?".  I don't mean that to sound harsh but we have to do something different and approach the problem from a different angle. 
JohnPirc
50%
50%
JohnPirc,
 User Rank: Author
12/19/2013 | 10:06:02 PM
Re: Tailored approach
Thank you Daniel and I couldn't agree with you more.
JohnPirc
50%
50%
JohnPirc,
 User Rank: Author
12/19/2013 | 10:04:06 PM
Re: Tailored approach
Thank you Marilyn. Sorry for the delayed response...I've been traveling. I think you will always have knowledge gaps within any industry.  I think practitioners have the skills to adopt my approach.  The biggest hurdle is doing something that seems radically different from current defensive approaches. I will admit that what I wrote just scratches the surface and I plan on adding even more context after the Holiday break with a white paper.   
Marilyn Cohodas
50%
50%
Marilyn Cohodas,
 User Rank: Strategist
12/17/2013 | 3:34:04 PM
Re: What about the data?
That's a great point Stratustician, about classifying data in order to know how to protect it. In fact, I have a columnist who will be writing about that topic very soon. (So stay tuned!)

In the meantime, maybe you can share some of your experiences dealing with data classification & security -- good and bad!

 
anon5605928117
50%
50%
anon5605928117,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/17/2013 | 9:34:33 AM
Re: Tailored approach
While it may not be fixable, certainly the conceit that individuals can memorize a hundred different long random passwords (provided they remember their incompatible userIDs) is as irrational as Mr. Spock's surprise when people act like people.    We need to understand people first.
Stratustician
50%
50%
Stratustician,
 User Rank: Moderator
12/16/2013 | 8:01:20 PM
What about the data?
I'm surprised that no one brought up one of the key fundamentals of security that would help (hopefully) reduce a lot of the complexity of securing data: asset identification.  I personally find that a lot of the confusion and security points of failure relate to not understanding what data exists, where it is, and how it is used.  It seems like a basic idea that if we have a good idea about what we have, we can build better security policies around it instead of trying to protect everything by throwing everything and anything at the problem and hoping nothing gets through.
Page 1 / 2   >   >>


COVID-19: Latest Security News & Commentary
Dark Reading Staff 9/21/2020
Hacking Yourself: Marie Moe and Pacemaker Security
Gary McGraw Ph.D., Co-founder Berryville Institute of Machine Learning,  9/21/2020
Startup Aims to Map and Track All the IT and Security Things
Kelly Jackson Higgins, Executive Editor at Dark Reading,  9/22/2020
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
Special Report: Computing's New Normal
This special report examines how IT security organizations have adapted to the "new normal" of computing and what the long-term effects will be. Read it and get a unique set of perspectives on issues ranging from new threats & vulnerabilities as a result of remote working to how enterprise security strategy will be affected long term.
Flash Poll
How IT Security Organizations are Attacking the Cybersecurity Problem
How IT Security Organizations are Attacking the Cybersecurity Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic turned the world -- and enterprise computing -- on end. Here's a look at how cybersecurity teams are retrenching their defense strategies, rebuilding their teams, and selecting new technologies to stop the oncoming rise of online attacks.
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2020-15394
PUBLISHED: 2020-09-25
The REST API in Zoho ManageEngine Applications Manager before build 14740 allows an unauthenticated SQL Injection via a crafted request, leading to Remote Code Execution.
CVE-2020-15521
PUBLISHED: 2020-09-25
Zoho ManageEngine Applications Manager before 14 build 14730 has no protection against jsp/header.jsp Cross-site Scripting (XSS) .
CVE-2020-26103
PUBLISHED: 2020-09-25
In cPanel before 88.0.3, an insecure site password is used for Mailman on a templated VM (SEC-551).
CVE-2020-26104
PUBLISHED: 2020-09-25
In cPanel before 88.0.3, an insecure SRS secret is used on a templated VM (SEC-552).
CVE-2020-26105
PUBLISHED: 2020-09-25
In cPanel before 88.0.3, insecure chkservd test credentials are used on a templated VM (SEC-554).