The Security Culture Playbook. Perry Carpenter

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Название The Security Culture Playbook
Автор произведения Perry Carpenter
Жанр Зарубежная компьютерная литература
Серия
Издательство Зарубежная компьютерная литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781119875246



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on cybersecurity, yet breaches continue to increase.

      And here's where the buzz about security culture comes in. Leaders are realizing two things:

       Technology-based defenses have gotten so good that attackers are being pushed to hack humans rather than spending weeks, months, or years researching and developing effective attacks to defeat technology-based defenses.

       Humans are now the primary attack vector. As such, it's imperative to strengthen the human layer of security.

Schematic illustration of hacking the human yields the highest ROI for attackers.

      The Technology-Based Defense vs. Human-Based Defense Debate: A False Dilemma

      You've undoubtedly been presented with this dilemma before. Someone says that it's worthless to focus on the human side of security because, no matter what, there will always be someone who will fall for a phishing email or make some other error. In short, their argument is that the human defense isn't 100 percent effective, so it can't be relied on and doesn't deserve an investment of time, energy, or funding.

      You'll even hear some make claims to the effect of, “only technology will help an organization prevent security issues.” This type of thinking has been prevalent in security circles for decades and has led to the situation that we're in right now, where the human layer has been neglected.

      A quote from the preface of Bruce Schneier's book Secrets and Lies is fitting here. Bruce ends the preface with these words, “[a] few years ago I heard a quotation, and I am going to modify it here: If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology” (Schneier, 2000).

      The following is an excerpt from Perry's book, Transformational Security Awareness: What Neuroscientists, Storytellers, and Marketers Can Teach Us About Driving Secure Behaviors (Carpenter, 2019). The excerpt does a good job summarizing why this is a false dichotomy. This shouldn't be presented as an either/or dilemma.

      As an industry, we will always have to solve (and evolve) for both sides of the equation (technology and humanity). Not implementing standard and reasonable technology-based tools proven to improve an organization's security posture would be negligent. Similarly, not acknowledging that technology will never be 100 percent effective at preventing cybercriminals from creating well-crafted attacks targeting humans, such as emails or other messages that reach your end users, is also negligent. Neither approach is mutually exclusive of the other. And whenever we create stronger security protocols intended to help our organizations, there will be a group of employees who will intentionally or unintentionally find ways to bypass those controls. The human element must be a factor in the deployment of technology, and it should be understood as a security layer in and of itself. Your defense-in-depth security strategy should always account for the following:

       Determined human attackers who are continually probing for flaws within your security technologies (and that flaws will always exist)

       Unwitting employees who find themselves on the receiving end of a cybercriminal seeking to accomplish their goals by going around the technical layers of an organization's defenses, targeting humans instead

       Employees who negligently or intentionally circumvent technical controls

       Employees who negligently or intentionally divert from the organization's policies, controls, and processes

       The interdependency between policies, controls, and processes that exist in the physical world and those of the organization's technology-based systems

       The ever-evolving ecosystem of mobile, IoT, and other new technology-based systems that your people will engage with

       The reality that digital data can easily spill into the physical world (e.g., printouts, whiteboards, conversations, and so on)

      Thinking about this, we can safely conclude that the human element of security will always be something that deserves intentional focus.

       It's time to remove our rose-colored techno-centric glasses. Technology cannot and will never block all threats that involve humans. And that's why a focus on security culture is critical.

      It's time to remove our rose-colored techno-centric glasses. Technology cannot and will never block all threats that involve humans. And that's why a focus on security culture is critical. This is a rallying call to build up our human layer of defense.

      Let's face it. We already know what we have to lose by not focusing on the human layer. Breaches are on the rise. Phishing is on the rise. Ransomware is more rampant and destructive than ever (Register, 2021), growing at a rate of over 150 percent in just the first half of 2021 (Seals, 2021). Cybercriminals are constantly searching for the least fortified aspects of your defenses. It's clear that technology alone will never adequately defend your organization. It's time to move beyond paying lip service to the human side of security. It's time to intentionally focus on building a healthy security culture.

      Let's start off with what should be a simple question: What does the phrase security culture mean to you? In other words, if you were asked to define security culture, how would you answer?

      Let's face it, Ninety-four percent is big, and getting 94 percent of people to agree on anything can feel like a miracle in today's world. So, these leaders obviously place value on having a strong security culture. But here's the thing: There was no agreement as to what a security culture actually is.

       A Problem of Definition

      In that study with 1,161 respondents, there were 758 unique definitions given for security culture. Forrester analyzed these 758 unique definitions and broke them into five different categories based on the general sentiment reflected in each of the proposed definitions. Here's the breakdown:

       29 percent of respondents believed that security culture is compliance with security policies.

       24 percent said that it was having an awareness and an understanding