Surrealism

By cliangNo Comments
It is easy to for artists to draw something or writers compose fictions beyond imagination. Such creation even stimulates innovation that when putting into practice disrupting the industry and our life. However when writing cybersecurity policies, the directives must be pragmatically achievable and effectively enforceable. After all, policies are the internal company rules for every level to comply with. If the rules cannot be achieved, nor enforced, these rules are just a document in the bookshelf. Follow what the industry or the peers do rather than inventing something high-sounding but cannot be landed on the ground. Non-compliance will be the outcome. ...
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Dead End

By cliangNo Comments
Can't turn left nor right and no pass thru ahead Good cybersecurity policies (management directives) should avoid incorrect interpretation nor perception. Further down the road, if policies is not precise generic nor precise specific for just-right coverage - many "policy exceptions" will be resulted. The most incorrect approach is to ask the senior management to approve such exception. The whole game should be the cybersecurity Subject Matter Expert (SME) assesses the area where policies cannot be complied with. The SME shall recommend pragmatic compensating controls and grant temporary approval while senior management is in the role of being informed. We, cybersecurity practitioners, must help senior management to understand cyber risks (mostly perception), how the risks could be exploited n own specific business environment. Like the recent Log4Shell zero-day vulnerability, understand what it is rather than blindly to push applying patches, assess the likelihood of exploitability and stand firm to explain why this is not severe if there are cyber threats intelligence...
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Different perspectives

By cliangNo Comments
It is the same scene but different people will interpret it differently. Business managers or plant floor engineers have their mission to achieve in delivering the business outcome while cybersecurity practitioners have their opinions to "ensure" a secure business or operational environment to fulfil their job role. Most often, this creates conflict. As cybersecurity practitioner, we shall never blindly apply academic knowledge because each organization has its own specific ways of doing business. What the book or even the organization security polices themselves are just generic guiding principles. We are all hired to exercise professional judgment, to help business understand the cyber risks and after all it is the business decision to accept. If business has hesitation, then we provide them the big picture, how cyber threats are likely exploited and the practical counter-measures to reduce the likelihood. Essentially, cyber threat is just one of the many operation risks to address. Don't invent extra and unnecessary cyber protections...
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Excessive and Unnecessary Control

By cliangNo Comments
So many locks Adding control won't give you more security. I came across advices from other cybersecurity practitioner that overkills. Indeed, the insecure WiFi is part of this. The whole story is that critical system (simply the Target) is isolated from the Internet. To update the Target with security patches, new anti-malware definition, removable media (simply USB thereafter) is used to transfer the required files obtained from OEM into the Target environment. No doubt there is risk to use USB. A dedicated kiosk scanning station (simply Kiosk thereafter) is established to check for malware clearance before plugging the USB into the Target. So far, everything looks good and sensible. Because the Target using the USB is far away from the Kiosk, the cybersecurity practitioner has an innovation thought to ENSURE the USB must just been scanned by the Kiosk but not inserting a different one by human mistake. In other word, USB must be validated before loading to...
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Insider #2

By cliangNo Comments
Physical access requires substantial resources while visual accessibility is anywhere Industrial Control Systems (ICS) in a plant are now modernized using commodity hardware and software with networking capability to enhance overall efficiency, business analytics and to standardize skillset in plant operation plus support. With network, remote diagnostic and support are also possible to cut down the turn around time without waiting for engineer on site. Some cybersecurity practitioners put focus only on the cyber portion of the plant. This is not wrong provided that the physical aspects are equally considered at the compatible level. This is because the ICS is just a portion of the entire plant. The physical and mechanical plant conditions must also be secured. If background check is deemed necessary for O&M teams to reduce insider threat, this should also extend to the service crews (e.g. delivery, janitor), physical security guard service, contractors, vendors or even management. Most often, management level is by default granted with...
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Rule or Ruler

By cliangNo Comments
As a security practitioner, providing advice in securing the organization cyber assets is the expected responsibilities and everyone in the organization has such expectation. In commercial world, resources are limited and there are always risks in business operations. Therefore, risk management is needed in an organization to prioritize resources in consistently dealing with the risks. A risk-based approach to deploy appropriate controls must be in place, i.e. objectively per organization risk matrix rather than subjectively per individual perception. After all, there won't be zero-risk business in this world. I come across a situation that a security practitioner demands uplifting the criticality of a target system just by personal feeling while the consequence does not exceed the threshold guideline per the official organization risk matrix. The escalated criticality of consequence could be legitimate because business environment or threat landscape have changed. Then the correct attitude is to revise the organization risk matrix which serves the foundation for consistent assessment. We must...
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Policy #9

By cliangNo Comments
When writing policies, positive logic shall be adopted. It eases readers understand what is allowed rather than spending time to evaluate the allowed exception. In the illustration, the first impression: no entry is applied to the named vehicle types and need a second thought to locate the word "except". A wrongly communicated message might then cause different outcome. This should be avoided in written directives. ...
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Declassification

By cliangNo Comments
Confidential information is costly to maintain. Imagine all the 3 data states (data-in-motion, data-at-rest, data-in-use) will require technology and the underlying process to manage the authorized access and usage while denying otherwise. Most often except a few, sensitive information will diminish its value or impact overtime. An example of the "few" is the formula of a soft drink that remains as trade secret to standout the products from its competitors. Other than technical controls like encryption or multi-factors authentication access for digital information, there are simply regulations to protect artist work copyrights, alogrithm patent etc. that are published in public domain. Secret government documents also have expiry date to release for public interests. The declassification together with destruction process are therefore an important stage in the information lifecycle management process. Without these, the burden to maintain secrecy will increase over time and become unmanageable. ...
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Enforcement #3

By cliangNo Comments
At certain situations, enforcement of policy relies on administrative control when technical controls are not feasible. But how do we ensure no offender? No, we can't. The only thing we can do is to establish consequence-based deterrent enforced by laws & regulations. The most severe deterrent is death sentence. A traffic sign prohibits vehicle longer than 10m or over 10 tones on left turn as illustrated. There is no stopping you to do so but if your truck exceeds this limit and still turning left, your truck might be trapped in the road curve blocking other road users, crashing vehicle in the opposite lane, or damaging any other third party properties. Then you are fully accountable for civil offence if negligence or criminal offence if deliberately doing so. Similarly, management always talks about how to stop insider threats in dealing with cybersecurity. The same philosophy applies - discrepancy action for employees or contractual obligation for business partners with...
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Governance, Risk & Compliance

By cliangNo Comments
GRC is the typical jargon when we talk about the cybersecurity posture in an organization. Risks, no matter in terms of cyber, technology, operational, financial or political domains always exist and they are all co-related. There is no zero risk business operation except how to reduce the likelihood effectively and optimally. Then, the compliance part plays. This refers following the organization written policy to run the business reasonably in the risk reduction manner. Finally, the governance is the capability in the organization to adminster and enforce that all the business activities will follow the written policy, or else the policy is just a document in the bookshelf. The entire GRC framework is dynamce. Written policies will need refresh To adopt new way of doing business (e.g. use of social media for point of presence or customer relation in the cyber space)Facilitate changing business environment (say, work from home due to pandemic situation, provide guest Wi-Fi for visitors)And most importantly, address the emerging cyber threat landscape. ...
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