Cyber Security Engineering

Unfortunately, it's not the Hacker or the Bad Actor who has ruined the Day, Week, or brought the company to its knees Permanently. The culprit is complacently. Simply ignoring the requests for better tools and more secure hardware in favor of a better balance sheet.

Cybersecurity: The Truth About Blame

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 The outdated designs that went into the initial creation, might have been the best at the time, but as software gets better and offers more features, so does the malware.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; there is no such thing as software that remains secure without persistent updates and monitoring.

• 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.

  One solution is to give the stability that you seek. Be a great Cyber Partner to your Vendors and Customers. Complete the Attestation with Knowledge and Facts that tell a story that your company is a Low Cyber Risk.

For those of you who like a bit of humor, the people at HouseSpecial films has created an awesome 70 second short video which they never intended it to be the perfect Hacker example. However, it does explain in video form what Hackers do for the world.

Those who are digging around for vulnerabilities are there to protect you from the "Bad Actors" who seek to cause harm and profit from holding your data hostage. However, there are "Big Nasties" that get away from them from time to time. They sometimes split off into other types of malware, and it's then hard to know which piece to track. Rest assured that the Hackers are going to track, and get in front of the one that could do the most harm.

The question is: "What are you going to do when they stop the malware, but there was a bit of harm done during the process?"

The answer is: "Invest in Cyber Security Professionals before a Bad Actor strikes. They will give you a Security Analysis Report with Remediation items, and then you should be prepared to follow their advice."

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