I’m hoping my generic model of a security automat (Levers, Data, Malice, Controls, Signals) will help me think about how tools can contribute to network security and operations. It produces the ideas I’d expect when applied to areas that I already know about, but the acid test is what happens when I use it to […]
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Thoughts on regulatory and ethical issues relating to the use of technology in education and research
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Risk trade-offs? Or spirals?
A couple of recent discussions have mentioned “trade-offs” between risks. But I wonder whether that might sometimes be a misleading phrase: concealing dangers and perhaps even hiding opportunities? “Trade-off” makes me think of a see-saw – one end down, other up – which has a couple of implications. First, the two ends are in opposition; […]
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Automation: Two ways
Earlier in the year, Networkshop included a presentation on Juniper’s Mist AI system for managing wifi networks. I was going to look at it – as an application I don’t know – as a test for my model for thinking about network/security automation. That may still happen, but first it has taken me down an […]
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Thinking about blocking
Throughout the time I’ve been working for Janet, the possibility of using technology to block undesirable activity on networks and computers keeps coming up. Here are four questions I use to think about whether and how technology is likely to be effective in reducing a particular kind of activity: Where is the list? Any technology […]
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Images of Cyber-security
Victoria Baines closed the FIRST conference with a challenge to improve our image (video). Try searching for “cyber security” and you’ll see why: lots of ones, zeroes, padlocks, and faceless figures in hoodies. Some of the latter look a lot like the grim reaper, which makes the task seem hopeless: in fact, cyber badguys can […]
Knowledge Management (KM) isn’t a topic I remember being presented at a FIRST conference before, but Rebecca Taylor (video) made a good case for its relevance. Security and incident response use and produce a lot of information – a Knowledge Management approach could help us use it better. Most teams quickly recognise the benefits of […]
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Making CSIRTs (even) better
Incident Response Teams are, as the name indicates, responsive. Often they will try to provide whatever services their constituency asks for, or seems to need. However over time that can result in a mismatch between what the team offers and what its resources, capabilities and authority can actually deliver. That leads frustration, both among disappointed […]
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Ransomware: an emotional experience
Tony Kirtley’s FIRST conference talk (video) explored how the Kubler-Ross model of grieving can help understand the emotional effects of a ransomware attack, both to avoid negative consequences and, where possible, to use natural emotions to support positive responses: Denial: in a ransomware attack, denial should be short-lived, as the nature of the problem will […]
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Trust or Mutual Benefit?
The theme of this year’s FIRST conference is “Strength Together”. Since I first attended the conference in 1999, we’ve always said the basis for working together was “trust”. However that’s a notoriously slippery word – lawyers, computer scientists and psychologists mean very different things from common language – and I wonder whether security and incident […]
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Security Poverty: a problem for everyone
Wendy Nather’s keynote at the FIRST conference (video) considered the security poverty line, and why it should concern those above it at least as much as those below. To secure our systems and data requires resources (tools and people); expertise to apply those effectively; and capability, including sufficient influence to overcome blocking situations or logistics. […]