Operation Risk

By cliangNo Comments
Unlike IT application, ICS (Industrial Control System) involves direct physical process that will affect human safety and impose environment impacts. When we conduct ICS risk assessment, we must not just limited thoughts to cyber risks.  Cyber risk is just one of the causes that affect the stability, manageability and operability of the ICS. For impacts caused by cyber issues, are these due to general equipment fault rather than cyber attack?  What about other physical damages like communication lines fails due to natural disaster, or machinery break down from wear and tear?  The counter-measures shall then also address non-cyber issues for a comprehensive business continuity arrangement....
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Policies #2

By cliangNo Comments
Setting up policies seems easy, it's just putting down the management objective in written form. However, the objective must be practically achievable and enforceable for all stakeholders involved.  Otherwise, it's just a slogan in the air as well as a low-hanging fruit of non-compliance in any assessment exercise....
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Grade of Protection

By cliangNo Comments
When we deploy protection, normally it might be of civilian grade even it appears harder to break in.  If attack is originated from state-level as a targeted attack, such civilian grade countermeasure won't be effective. That is why a 360 degree assessment is needed to decide threat actors, likelihood, consequence and then the corresponding countermeasures....
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360

By cliangNo Comments
In physical world, 360 degree can further be 2D or 3D.  Anyway, it has the sense for a holistic view of the surrounding. In cyber world, there isn't any concept of dimension.  The cyber world is connected via different network, gateway and nodes.  The 360 approach is required to assess risks and attack paths to the cyber applications such that the optimal and effective controls can be deployed....
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Bandwidth

By cliangNo Comments
Cloud computing is popular and every organization is migrating into this platform because of almost zero lead time to provision the infrastructure without waiting for delivery, installation, configuration and commissioning. Further, manpower resource to manage the infrastructure is shifted into service provider.  Of course, this refers to using Cloud outside the organization rather than an on-premise private Cloud. While Cloud computing (no matter Iaas, PaaS, SaaS) has many merits, the overlooked layer is the bandwidth from your organization to the hosting site.  This is the most critical infrastructure to maintain survivability in terms of resilience and business continuity plan....
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Masquerade #2 – Mouse Over

By cliang1 Comment
Mouse over on the hyperlink will show you the intended web address to reach. Traditionally, this is used to understand what web site will be visited. However, this “defense” mindset has to be changed. The displayed link should not be trusted because it can be masqueraded. All the demo URL should be non-reachable as there are no such Domain Names registered.  To limit malicious people registering my demo URL to launch real attack, the .gov gTLD is chosen. It is no harm to click below but not in other unknown sources. Click me. Are you reaching the expected "www.trusted-site.gov" as seen via mouse over?...
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Sunrise, Sunset

By cliangNo Comments
You cannot tell because it lacks of reference - time of day taken or more precisely which planet but generally assumed on Earth. Similarly, is the infrastructure/system cyber secure? It needs reference points. The corporate cybersecurity policies, the corporate risk matrix are the reference points to prioritize protection measures for reducing likelihood. Furthermore, a scoping statement is required especially if we are talking about cybersecurity assessment or accreditation.  An ISO standard compliance is meaningless without statement of applicability.  Whether it's just (a) the in/out tray of document handling or (b) the information processing system/infrastructure handling electronic document will make a great difference in terms of operational controls as well as ongoing effort to sustain the accreditation....
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Control #3

By cliangNo Comments
Controls are necessary to reduce likelihood of risks.  But excessive controls shall have adverse effects: Degrade productivity Push back from user Circumvent control Risk assessment is required to design optimal and effective controls.  Change (behavior) management and user awareness need to be well established too.  Essentially, Why is the control required What is this meant in daily works (WIIFM for the user) What is the consequence of violation (both organization and the offender) ...
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Privacy

By cliangNo Comments
We all know the importance of privacy and the need to protect it. While protecting privacy, we need to look at regulation requirements in 360 degrees, i.e. we cannot hide something that is supposed mandatory for display. A question for reader: in postal mail, is the window envelop displaying both name and address violating privacy?...
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