Changing how we think about cybersecurity

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Almost since the birth of computer networking, engineers who build and manage computer systems have needed to figure out how to protect them from both intentional attack and unintentional damage. The deeply technical realities of securing computers and networks created a need for security specialists. Recently, the costs and other implications of attacks have created a seismic shift in how businesses must think about cybersecurity. Responsibility for cybersecurity has expanded from the IT engineer to the boardroom, and it’s not going back.

This past week, Cisco published its Annual Security Report. One of the key areas Cisco calls out is “Changing the View Toward Cybersecurity—From Users to the Corporate Boardroom.” The report highlights the increasing importance of security not only within the technical ranks, but also as part of an organization’s strategic oversight. In fact, according to Cisco, “Strategies include considering new approaches to help align people, processes, and technology, making security a topic at the corporate boardroom level, and adopting more sophisticated security controls…”

As I speak with executives and board members of major enterprises, I’m increasingly hearing the same thing: they agree that it’s time for them to understand how their assets are protected, how their security investments are used, and how their networks are being protected before, during and after attacks. Given the complexity of today’s networks, providing them with answers requires automation. Networks aren’t static because businesses are not static. Useful answers need continual assessment and at least daily reports –describing the changes in the enterprise’s risk profile, access paths, and threats.  When changes occur, the CEO must ask the question, “Is my network more protected today than yesterday?”

As Cisco’s report states, “The future of cybersecurity hinges on boardroom engagement today.” That engagement requires goals and standards, clear communication, succinct information, and continuous improvement in the face of ever-changing business requirements. Furthermore, the report makes clear the questions that the organization must be able to answer: “Boards also need to start asking tough questions about security controls: What controls do we have in place? How well have they been tested? Do we have a reporting process? How quickly can we detect and remediate the inevitable compromise? And perhaps, the most important question: What else should we know? CIOs need to be prepared to answer those questions from the board, in terms that are meaningful and understandable to board members, and also outline implications for the business of any proposed changes..

With RedSeal, you are able to answer those questions, and not merely in terms of the intended design, but in terms of the reality of your network today. Is your network RedSealed?

What the Centcom Twitter Hack Means to You

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Government Technology Magazine | Jan 23, 2015

Robert Capps, senior director of customer success at security analytics company RedSeal, said that attacks on social media accounts don’t generally indicate a significant security issue within the attacked organization.

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New framework helps companies quantify risk

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CSO Magazine | Jan 23, 2015

The World Economic Forum has released a new framework this week that helps companies calculate the risk of cyberattacks. In the framework, created with collaboration of Deloitte, the World Economic Forum admits that there are some challenges involved. For example, there’s a lack of the historical data necessary to estimate the probability of attacks from particular types of attackers for particular industry segments. The lack of good data is also holding back the evolution of a strong cyber insurance market, said Mike Lloyd, CTO at Sunnyvale, Cal.-based RedSeal, Inc.

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CEOs Talk 2014 Successes

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NBC Chicago | Jan 16, 2015

NBC Chicago talks with Ray Rothrock about RedSeal successes in 2014.

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CEOs Give Predictions for 2015

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NBC Chicago | Jan 16, 2015

NBC Chicago taps Ray Rothrock to get his 2015 predictions.

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US & UK Joint Wargames – let’s not wait for Pearl Harbor

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The idea of the US and UK working together on war-games is a good one.  It recognizes that we are in a war, and that we are losing.  We need to improve our defensive game.  Chris Inglis, the former NSA director, has commented that the state of security today massively favors the attacker – he suggests that if we kept score, it would be 462-456, just 20 minutes into the game, because our defense is so poor.

The continuous stream of announcements of new breaches, along with the UK stats indicating the vast majority of large companies are suffering serious breaches, adds up to clear evidence of weak defense.  War games are a good way to get one step ahead, shifting to a proactive rather than purely reactive stance.  Nation states can do this with teams of people, but this is too labor intensive and expensive for most organizations.  This is why the security industry puts so much emphasis on automation – not just the automated discovery of weaknesses, but automating the critical process of prioritizing these vulnerabilities.  The inconvenient truth is that most organizations know about far too many security gaps to be able to fix them all.  War-gaming is a proven approach to dealing with this reality – find the gaps that are most likely to be used in a breach, and fix those first.  Perfect security is not possible, but realistic security comes from understanding your defensive readiness, stack-ranking your risks, and acting on the most critical ones.

Cyber Infrastructure – the Fifth Domain

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Cyber Infrastructure – the Fifth Domain
The last couple of years has seen an incredible rise in reported incidents of cyber attacks.  Research by many organizations, including Check Point Software and Verizon DBIR, indicate that it’s not a reporting bias, cyber attacks are indeed on the rise.  The good news for us all, as the New York Times reported, is that President Obama is stepping up the nation’s cyber defenses to meet this threat.

Our nation’s economy and well-being are totally dependent on our networks. To keep our economy moving, information flowing, and ourselves informed, we need to protect and defend these networks. Our cyber infrastructure has become the fifth domain a sovereign nation needs to protect – after air, land, sea and space.

Network Security isn’t a Safety Guarantee
Cyber defense isn’t trivial or easy or cheap.  And there are thousands of network security products to choose from. These products usually serve specific purposes in a defense strategy.  For example, firewalls, among many things they do, protect the gate through which information flows, like the locks on your door.   Intrusion detection on a network is like motion detectors in your home. They can tell you something is happening, but can’t always discriminate between acceptable and bad activity.

When networks are larger, they’re more complex, often overwhelming teams trying to make sense of a breach.  There are scores of reporting systems that provide real-time data about break-ins.  But even those are not always as useful as management would like. Dave Dewalt’s story on 60 Minutes recently is typical.

But even with the best people, plans, and essentially an unlimited budget like JP Morgan, companies still get hacked. Why aren’t our networks more secure? Why is a breach in the news every day?  Because, as our President agrees, it’s time to harden our networks.

Network Hardening: Getting Ahead of Cyber Attackers
Network hardening requires many things.  First, it means understanding your network — every element, every device and every path possible.  It means understanding potential threats and having outside intelligence about where the threats originate.  It means focusing your limited resources on the most important things you can do to protect your business.

RedSeal’s mission is to help Global 2000 organizations harden their networks. It gives you the detailed information you need — how your network routes traffic, detailed paths from everywhere to everywhere and how ready your equipment is.  It helps you determine where you should focus your resources and what exactly you can do to harden your network – from the most risky or vulnerable places to the least.  Prioritization is key to getting ahead of the cyber attackers.

US Centcom Twitter hack: ‘More of an embarrassment than a security risk’, says analyst

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The Telegraph | Jan 13, 2015

US Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube sites was hacked by Islamic State on Monday. Robert Capps, Senior Director at RedSeal Networks, said hacking a social media site is nothing like attacking a network. “If that happened, then we’ve got a much more difficult problem that we have to deal with,” said Capps.

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White House lays out ideas for information sharing

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Federal Computer Week | Jan 13, 2015

President Barack Obama sought to spur Congress to action on cybersecurity information-sharing legislation by announcing his own proposal on Jan. 13. Information security specialists welcomed the president’s proposal but said it was only one step toward improving situational awareness in the private sector. “If organizations hope to benefit from timely intelligence information, they will need to understand their own defensive posture and readiness,” said Mike Lloyd, chief technology officer at analytics firm RedSeal, in a statement.

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Security’s Nightmare: Negative Unemployment

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Unemployment is bad, so negative unemployment must be good, right?  Um, no.  (I’ll steal a line from Douglas Adams: “It’s unpleasantly like being drunk” … “What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?” … “Well, ask a glass of water.”)  Security as an industry is short-staffed – critically so, and it’s getting worse.

This came into sharp focus with the recent suit between MasterCard and Nike.  I’ve no comment on the specifics of the case, but the general lesson is clear: security geeks are in desperately short supply.  When I think of where this industry was just a few years ago, it would have been preposterous to imagine two household name, world class companies unleashing lawyers over such a fracas.

This is why security automation is such a big deal.  Security teams everywhere are drowning in unaddressed, basic problems.  We know plenty about what we need to do, but we just can’t get it all done – there aren’t enough fingers on the keyboards.  (Anyone remember “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T”?)  We need machines to prioritize all the signal overload; there’s no other way to make headway.