What are the Gaps in your Security Systems?
As a VISO, one of the key things here is, identify those gaps and weaknesses. There’s always some cool new technology; but at the end of the day, if you have a precursor requirement or if you have a gap that invalidates that technology, why are you implementing it? It’s because you’re not ready yet. Not because you don’t want it; not because it isn’t a good idea; but because you might have some fundamental flaws in your security that no one’s paying attention to because there are no help desk calls for it.
Everyone is busy doing projects and fighting fires. No one’s checking behind the doors. We want to make sure that you have a very simple, concise, method to provide a realistic view of security.
Why do I say realistic view?
Earlier this week we looked at a customer’s content filtering system.
- Did they have content filtering? Yes.
– Is it on, 100%? - Are there any exceptions to it? No.
- Does it block anything? No.
Then they ask, “Do I have a content filter?” Well, technically speaking and according to their SOC audit they did; and according to their NIST audit they did; but according to someone actually doing work, no, they didn’t. They just have a beautiful thing that sits there and says, “allow everything”. So, technically I’m filtering it, but I’m just not letting it do anything.
It’s a really good example of a gap. Does it mean that they need to buy a new content filter?That’s actually a question that came up. They said, “I think we need a new content filter. We’re going to all these weird sites and getting a lot of spam.” It’s like, well you have one, you just don’t let it do anything.
And that’s one of those situations where if you’re not really measuring it and viewing it and looking at your weaknesses honestly and holistically, you don’t know if it’s doing anything.
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