recent discussion points about security aligning to business

Someone knew what they were doing when they put Nickerson, Ranum, and Hutton on a panel together; strong statements without punches pulled are common from those three (things that need to be said). And I’m not surprised subsequent coverage is getting some mileage.

Rafal Los posted about the talk, and pretty much makes statements one can’t easily argue with (at least *I* can’t since I agree). Also, Alan Shimmel jumped in with, Until You Walk A Mile In Those Shoes. (Note, all of the above links are excellent reads, and I can’t wait to see some video from that panel as I’m sure it’s chock full of points I can agree with.)

First, there is a bit of care that should be taken to give blanket statements that person X sucks and should be fired, based on one brief interaction or point example. You can even take a person who is doing well but has some self-image issues, and suddenly he’ll give up because he was just told he sucks, when in fact he wasn’t. I agree with this sentiment if one takes at *least* a cursory look at their body of work and business security posture and value to the business. But then we also need to look and see if maybe the *business* is just wanting a puppet security guy/team/initiative in the first place… I think Phil makes that point in the commants to Rafal’s post. For all I know, we might collectively be doing a bang-up job of security, all things considered. Sure that 1 server didn’t get patched, but maybe 6 months ago none of them were being patched…

The hot example of Nickerson asking an attendee’s company mission statement is a pretty slick bit of trickery. How many people in any given audience will be able to, out of the blue, recite or otherwise explain their company mission statement? Not many. And how many of those mission statements are going to be shit? Enough of them. My company’s mission statement is posted next to me. I could probably fit a daily hour of Doom/Quake-playing into the goals of the mission statement. Anyway, as Phil somewhat mentioned in respond to Rafal, I think a CxO should keep mission statements in mind, but other lower peons probably don’t need it quite so close at hand; they should trust that their management is giving good enough direction in their own requests and projects handed down. But if that was a CSO who is normally unperturbed about being put on the spot, one could certainly slap his hand for not knowing the mission statement.

The question came out of railing against security by compliance or security by securing “everything” and such topics. The problem there is probably twofold:

1) Corporate networks are slowly built, and only “recently” has compliance been a driver. Sadly, most networks are probably way too flat. This means if compliance mandate A wants server 23 and all its peers secured to a certain level, then everything in that network has to be as well. Segregation for security purposes is well behind the curve, which compliance exposes by way of the economics of sastifying its needs. Scope, scope, scope…and big scope costs big money by way of resources and time.

2) Business-to-business (B2B) relationships are most easily answered by simple questions such as, “Are you in compliance with A?” That’s far better than a vague and silly 23-page security questionnaire filled in by someone the security and IT teams don’t even know. The businesses are pressured for these easy answers from the top down and sideways. Or each organization trying to explain their security approach. Think of it this way. If someone asks you if you have use perimeter firewalls, and you don’t, you’re going to have to spend a good amount of time talking about border router ACLs and various other technologies (and maybe even defend their value over and over) rather than spending 2 seconds to answer, “Yes.”

I like what Alan Shimmel had to say in, Until You Walk A Mile In Those Shoes. We have a lot of security breakers who rail against security defenders, but don’t really *get* the experience of being a long-term defender. (disclaimer: I’m not directly referring to anyone mentioned above, at all.) Security is already a losing proposition where it *will* fail someday and it *will* fail to be comprehensive. That’s just how it is. And that’s even before economics and business questions and human questions are brought up which prevent certain things from being accomplished or introduce new issues. At least I am enthused that many breakers these days are admitting their job is easy compared to the defenders.