Tag: Information Risk Management

Fighting the Fifth Estate

The Fourth Estate it was called, before it succumbed to sycophantry and fake news. The journalistic world, that by its moral code and behaviour cleansed the news so that the trias politica, and the populace, could do its job of monitoring and correcting each other.
Now that the fourth is no more (effective) [edited to add: some holdouts, like Bellingcat], but the Fifth is (Facebook, Google, … the Frightful Five), one might need extra resources to get the first few scratches of control back.
With this little device. An anti-bug. Not preventative yet, but detective with resilience against detection. Counter-intelligence.

Oh this was just a HT to the developers. And BTW, any half-decent TLA would support these guys [edited to add again: Bellingcat], for their adherence to lofty principles does in fact align with the ultimate, ulterior purpose of any country’s TLAs. Only the stupid will fight against noble straight-backs.

Oh and:

[Yes even HMs GCHQ would, in principle, concur. Or, they work for the Dark Side; London]

AI Blue-on-Blue

We keep on hearing these great things about how AI will help us in the battle against no-gooders qua information security. Like, in hunting for bugs in software (as asked for here, borne out in various much more recent cases or rather, news items hinting at pilot prototype vapourware) or hunting for fraudsters, possibly hiding in plain sight (superrrintelligent anomaly detection; unsure how false positives / false negatives are handled…).
Where on the Other side, great strides are also feared to be made. Deploying AI to improve (better fuzzify) attack vectors, and help with improvements in evasion and intelligence gathering in various other ways.

Pitted against each other …
When you know what Blue On Blue stands for (first of this), you will now see it coming, inevitably. What if autonomous (for speed of response!) retaliation kicks in …?

Never mind. I’ll like the fireworks show. Plus:

[Yeah, yeah, ships are safe in harbour but that’s not what they’re made for – I’ll just enjoy this view from a truly excellent restaurant; Marzamemi Sicily]

Stochastic culture (change)

This ‘personal research’ hobby of mine had taken me into the ‘From Security Awareness all the way to Behavioural Change’ alley(s).
Where it got stuck. Among others, through the realisation that ‘culture’ as such doesn’t exist, certainy not within larger organisations. Local cultures, yes. Overall cultures … maybe as the most degenerate common denominator; the more numbers you throw in a basket, asymptotically but very fast the common denominator will come crashing down to 1.

In infosecland, it’s worse. To actually adress and change the oft unconscious parts of personal culture (behaviour), one has to move away from organisation-wide awareness training ouch if you call it that, all are lost – into the realms of individual coaching, for each and every employee.

But then the stochastic cooling of particle physics rears its head, as a phrase that is. Can we somehow differentiate the to-be-learned from one-size-fits-all into separate sets of behaviours to be rote trained (in practical use; experienced) so the sets become unconscious behaviour(s), and then overlay these transparent sets [Remember, the ‘sheets’ you could stack on an overhead projector? You don’t – even know from a museum what an overhead projector is… Oh. ed.] over the organisation populace, according / in relation to the expectance to need such behaviour ..?

I’m rambling, as usual. Anyway:

[Not all grapes are evenly grown, still great wine is made without stochasctics…; Valle dell’Acate]

Nationalistic AI fuzzing

No his is not about fuzzing data. It is about accidentally giving away that you don’t understand a subject, and not the stats involved.
It is about this report. That was reacted on in various press – though not nearly enough and I don’t even have shares – by some boiler room country-by-country comparison, even without much of conclusional calls to action, for all…

Also, hardly anyone notices the gross error in it all. Which is the lack of proper definition of ‘AI’, or more expectedly, the widespread panicking brainfreezes of the interviewed.
Which, summa summarum for brevity, created such massive distortions that the figures are grey noise at best.

“Isn’t that harsh ..?” Nope. I did some asking around, for a different purpose, and when even 1% of organisations would do anything with AI yet, that 1% would be rounded up. Ppl were just too afraid to tell the interviewers / pollsters that they had (have, probably) no. single. clue., and babbled their way out of it.

So, what was this title again of the infamous Public Enemy hit ..?
And:

[A prettified prison is your ASI future; Zuid-As Ams]

Deviate for Resilience

Well there’s an imperative. Deviate for resilience. Which goes waaay beyond mere ITCM or its linkage into BCM. What I mean here, though, is a reflection from the B side into the IT side.
Once encountered when it was still supposedly somewhat ‘cool’ (as it was called in the grandpa’s days) or so to work on … can you believe it, $AAPL infra. Where the Infosec staff had carved a corner for themselves: That they’d actually need to deviate from corp policies (the devolved kind) of using M$ stuff for alibi reasons of needing in ITsec par excellence, a fall-back that would actually work when all of the M$ infra would’ve collapsed due to some class breaking glitch exploit. Yeah. That meant that you did need a substantial budget to your own discretion without much transparency towards effectiveness of spend and no gadget and toys buying, right?
Nowadays, the coolness if ever it truly was (stupid sheeple), has worn off totally and is a tell for no comprendre qua cost/benefits analysis, sufficient tech-savviness to cut it in today’s world, and forward compatibility even to the cable mess (costing you tons). Predicting which unicorns will succeed, or fail, is easy; the former are on M$, the latter on … you guessed correctly. Nevertheless, the resilience argument still holds.

Which goes beyond the mere platform choice. It goes for global/local deviations as well. IF yes that’s a big if, if done right, not for NIH purposes (both ways ..!) but for resilience purposes. It’s not efficient to the max, but if you strive for that, you’ve done so much wrong already it might be irrecoverable. E.g., mission, organisational culture, risk management (incl analysis), control choices and implementations (case in point: multiple malware scanners), etc.

But remember: When done right, you very probably do need to deviate all over the place for resilience…

Just remember that to defend yourself, OK? And:

[If telecom fails due to clock synchro errors, it’s still a sun dial (really it is); Barça]

Your security policy be like …

The theme of your security policy and how good it is (not), is of course a recurring one. The recurring one, annual cycle (Is that still frequent enough? Yes if it’s truly a policy like here) included, with an all else follows attached. But then, it’s only Bronze when only a top-10 bulleted list extracted from … ISO2700x, mostly. It’s Silver when actually compliant in all directions, which includes serious ‘local’ adaptations…
And it’s Gold, when over and above that, it looks like this.

Not even kiddin’, really. Since your information security policy, next to the other security policies …, covers all of information of any kind and medium processed anywhere in the business. Which means that the from-IT angle will very probably not suffice.
But which also means that it helps when it rocks, in ways that interests all of your audience which is all of your colleagues including all colleagues at outsourced, cloudsourced and what have you processes and lines of business. Transparency, right ..? Runs all the way down the food/supply chain.

Indeed, the maturity of a company may be gleaned from the maturity (rocks’iness) of the information security policy. Get that right, and all else need not follow since it has gone before.

And oh, did I mention that in the implementation, resilience should be built in and not only be through formal (for-) BCM practices ..? I’ll return to that tomorrow. Plus:

[Lightning (-) rocks (pavement), too; Ottawa]

Fizzle disruption

Since the whole, Original and profound, concept of Creative Destruction was latter-day transformed into something much devolved [using that in a most pejorative way; ed.] called ‘disruption’ and applied in even worse ways to outright illegal stuff that had to be allowed still for … well, for no valid reason at all, certainly not morally or ethically improving society in any way only making things worse or much, much worse for all but the 0,1%,
it deserves some attention that the major true disruptions over the past two decades… either weren’t recognised as such but were straighforward Innovations, rightly so characterised (‘Internet’, anyone ..?) or have yet to come to full fruition, in a balanced new future (profitability of ‘Amazon’, anyone ..?).

Where, also, quite some of the announced disruptions have withered into oblivion. Upstart protagonists, most certainly. But also where complete industries have either resisted the ‘attacks’ or transformed themselves just enough to withstand the onslaught, the Barbarians At The Gate.
My point being: Can the latter variants be characterised, and show predictive value, through the outset sort-of situations not only qua industry (culture) but also qua country culture that the industries were pointed-of-gravity ..? The prediction part of course being the most interesting …

Would love to receive your pointers to the stacks of scientific research done already …
And:

[Art, of old but disruption-resistant: The old stays, the new attempts but is accepted and encapsulated…; Paleis het Loo]

Shadow IT – no problem

In the upheaval of the last decade or so on the rush to the cloud (no, not that cloud though rush-related), a similar development preceded it – and still runs on. It is the spectre not only hunting Europe (and certainly the deviant [all manners? ed.] off the coast, splitting but not drifting away like an Iceberg would. should…), but everywhere else as well, the spectre depending on who you ask of Shadow IT.

Which is facilitated through XaaS (SaaS/PaaS/IaaS/…) availability. But which hardly ever is allowed… — allowed through being compliant with organisational standards. From anyone’s perspective but the IT club’s, it is not about breaking the in-house IT vendor lock-in barriers. That were breached becaused the bounds were straight-jackets. Don’t try to break those, just sneak out the back door. But it’s about the latter, seeking what wasn’t provided in-house on one’s own account, previously not having been ‘allowed’ but it was IF the solutions sourced, complied with the security (mostly) requirements set at the organisation-wide level, and set from the business side of the organisation.
Controls in or out of IT, required by IT to be implemented elsewhere, are about the particular IT solutions chosen. Solutions to the problems identified in control objectives and controls, always having alternatives in the latter. So, when through these IT-dictated controls, your preferred solution cannot be made to fit (or only near-unusably awkwardly so), they do allow you, even in a sense require you, to go for shadow IT.

Which, hence, is permitted If ad only if being (security) controlled at at least the same level of control objectives achieved. So, some department might have to re-build all of the IT department’s load of overhead qua systems management, all of ITIL or even CObIT, all of … wait, not ISO 2700x – that is an organisation-wide thing already or it is of fact a crappily implemented thing. So covers the shadow IT as well, fitting in the latter under the umbrella of the former. That’s where the battle would need to be fought, if at all since the shadow runners may very well have done a good job at running an outsourced-portfolio coordination team, neatly sheltering under the umbrella already. Showing the IT department how that’s done.
Possibly [hey I’m over-using the em-tag or what; ed.] doing it both proper and cheaper. Usually doing not the former, hardly the latter and certainly not the latter if the former is corrected. But sometimes, showing how; when IT told them that was impossible, they just did it. As good / better, and cheaper. Yes you can, to paraphrase some sorely missed leader.

In the interest of the organisation, sometimes shadow IT should be the preferred solution direction…
I’ll stop now before angering too many. And:

[The (black) details, are they essential? In a way, but could they be different or would you have chosen these in the first place …!? Prague]

Where art thou, APT ..?

In line with some previous posts, about e.g., the Maker Movement, I’d like to ask if anyone knows the whereabouts of all those pesky APTs that were around a couple of years ago. Oh, yes I do know they’re in your infra everywhere all the time, but qua publicity, qua countermeasures ..?
I would like to hope that in this case, more contrary to its nature you can’t get, it would indeed bebecause (sic) of having been dealt with sufficiently in the past. Or the whole APT thing turned out to be a [any country’s] TLA move – of a side with ample publicity-suppressive powers everywhere.
But that would be day-dreaming. So, I’d like to ask your insights…

And:

[[Fuzzyfied] Oh, just some storage room in my house. Or, somewhat more, at the Royal palace, Dam, Amsterdam]

Too late for GDPR compliance ..? Click here to pay up

It seems like everyone’s finally waking up to the fact that ‘GDPR D-day’ is less than 283 days ahead.
Yes I checked. And I didn’t discount for weekends – minus 80 days, more of less –, holidays – either the normal kind, at some three weeks in this period, or the sanctified ‘bank holidays’ for those that say they don’t believe in holidays, or say they do but still are too awkward sheep to actually go on normal holidays, maybe a week in total – and the year-end curfew on all IT changes because business is doing things they have done for years, decades, and still haven’t mastered apparently.
So, we’re more in the area of 100-150 business days left.

Before what …!?

GDPR has power of law per … 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal, on 4 May 2016 … !!!

It’s just that officially, it’s not enforceable.
And would one be able to challenge organisations already today, e.g., with the letters from hell just not from the duds?
[To the latter: The Dutch DPA was sanctioned in court four times recently for not having acted sufficiently in spirit and to the letter of their tasks. Suggest to estimate what percentage this constitutes to the actual number of cases they didn’t act sufficiently where legally, they were and are forced to; refusal to obey instructions…]

No really: ‘Civil’ law is other than administrative law, right? Enforcement is postponed, but is the requirement to comply as well ..?

Will ask legal advice. And:
[The Classics, may stay even when at an angle; NY-NY]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord