Cyber Compliance

We, as in, all of society, really should stop blaming the "machine", and start taking responsiblity for failing to maintain and update the thing. The outdated designs that went into the initial creation, might have been the best at the time, but as software gets better and offers more features, so does the malware. It gets better and bigger, but more importantly it gets sneakier. Why do we ignore necessary changes? Here are a few reasons:

• "It is not broken, so don't fix it!" Although this applies to many manufactured things we use everyday. It does not apply when other factors influence the integrity of the functionality. Since changes in cyber technology happen everyday, maintenance of software and systems is critical to maintain product quality and Integrity. The cost/benefit of re-tooling software is a committment to quality that each company has to review for themselves. However, when it comes to Cyber Security, updates simply must be made.

There is no static environment in technology. We can't make a tool that lasts forever and doesn't become obsolite; or more importantly a piece of software that continues to be secure.

• No money in the Budget - This is a top down decision. In the near future it will be the Board of Directors that are held accountable for cyber failures, but for now it is all about blaming the machine, as stated above.

An individual or piece of code that intends to cause harm or control data elements in your network; storage devices; email servers; or even in RAM does not care if you protect your customers or not. In fact, they prefer that you fail to update your software and/or infrastructure.

• High Talent Equals Higher Salary - The truth is that the existing infrastructure is being held together with band-aid code and APIs to make the environment stable. That engineer has no time to document what has been done due to the need for another rag in the dam. Give that team the talent it needs so that maybe one day when the key player(s)retire your company won't go down 6 weeks later. We humans always give attention to the flash and glam, however, a good Cloud Engineer could actually save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars protecting against a breach by just using Kubernetes correctly.

Call to discuss your need, or email Belinda Mobley: belinda@belindamobley.com
(Certified Information Security Manager (CISM))