Supporting System

By cliangNo Comments
Mostly, people put focus cybersecurity on critical infrastructure. We must not forget the cybersecurity for supporting systems are equally important as they are also network connected for information exchange or control from the control center. These systems automate protection for the core system. Examples are those commonly known like facility management (or FM such as fire fighting, CRAC, access control, UPS), SIS (Safety Instrumented Systems). If these systems fail, it will impact to the core systems. There is recent incident for cyber attack on SIS. Imagine, if the FM fails, the information processing facility will fail too. More severe impact is the SIS failure, it will affect environment or human safety....
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Penetration

By cliangNo Comments
Cybersecurity is becoming commodity skill and therefore same terminology will have different interpretation by different parties. Pick penetration test (pTest) as an example. For beginners they simply pick up automated scanner then scan the network and hosts. Whatever reported in the scanner and recommendations are their findings and that's all. A more skillful pTester will review the reported finding, validate its applicability with owner for a practical and achievable follow up before reporting. A professional pTester will go beyond further. Before engagement Understand what is the target of evaluation Advise owner the risk of doing automated scan rather than blindly perform the scan because others say so Agree on approach of execution to set expectation Agree on picking representable samples to manage resources (for both sides) Determine where to place the scanner - before or behind any network perimeter Before execution Load scanner with updated signature and agree on types of test (brute force password attack? DoS test?) Validate target node is accessible ...
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Threat Hunting

By cliangNo Comments
Suddenly, new market jargon "threat hunting" is spreading around under cybersecurity domain. It is a kind of proactive measure to uncover if your environment has already been penetrated and critical info are being exfiltrated. This kind of exercise is best executed by 3rd party periodically, because: If this is due to insider threat, it won't be surfaced In-house workforce might have assumption for certain things that won't go wrong Periodic check is for assurance because the threat hunting only spots situation at a particular point in time and its past, it cannot predict the future A more holistic approach is to augment this threat hunting exercise with workforce and business process strengthening to identify vulnerabilities for effective risk reduction....
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Spam

By cliangNo Comments
Everything in the world is relative. For some, spam mails are annoying and try to filter them off the mailbox as spams usually associate with unsolicited sales or phishing attack. But for others, spam are considered as valuable resources. Honeypots are setup to collect spams, analyze and understand the trend, the TTP (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) of phishers in order to bring up awareness and counter-measures....
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Stepping Stone

By cliangNo Comments
Systems and components are connected in the cyber space. Some have misconception that my setup are for development, or its failure does impose significant impacts, why do I bother to secure it? Because if these systems or components are insecure, they could be deployed as gateway for hacker to penetrate into other internal infrastructure. This lateral network movement contributes to many high profile data breach incidents. Other infrastructure/facilitiy elements are often mostly neglected, e.g. UPS, CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioner), BMS, IP-camera, IP-KVM etc. As long as they are connected in your network, you should care....
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ROI

By cliangNo Comments
Return On Investment (ROI) is the typical approach to justify the spending to acquire asset. For the sample solar renewable energy illustrated, this is simple: One-off cost like equipment purchase & installation Recurring cost like maintenance, insurance, administrative (if trading to grid is involved) In a 5 or 10 years total cost model, how much energy charges could be saved, or how much revenue is generated if energy is sold back to the grid vs how much expense to paid. However, there are risks that might affect the net gain: Sufficiency of sun light intensity Weather condition at the location Physical security of equipment against theft or sabotage In cyber protection technology, stake holders normally expect cyber-security is the baseline and integrated with the asset. Adding extra cost won't be seen as ROI.  A slightly adjusted model is to calculate the avoidance cost of a single cyber-security incident vs investment.  Therefore, the justification is to be: If we invest $X, then we could avoid spending...
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Network

By cliangNo Comments
Network exists in both physical and cyber worlds. Both have physical portion and content portion. Even in cyber perspective, both the physical media and the info exchange are required to protect but most focus is on the content part. If the adversary is able to access network equipment physically, then all those secured configuration will become insecure. Therefore, in any security assessment, physical aspect must not be forgotten....
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Born or Made

By cliangNo Comments
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities are broadly categorized into 2 types: [a] Inherent weakness in the component, protocol (e.g. PLC, ftp) that is insecure by design [b] Improper deployment causes a secure component (e.g. FIPS-140-2 Level-4 certified crypto module) into insecure due to lack the required surrounding elements (likely broken business process or human negligence) Type [a] can be overcome at time of procurement to specify requirement. Type [b] can be identified via vulnerability assessment of the deployed solution in people, process and technology perspectives...
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Direction

By cliangNo Comments
Establishing cyber directives (policies) is challenging. On one hand, the language must be chosen not too specific for flexibility but on contrary too loose will be difficult to enforce practically. The bottom line is to establish organization specific directive per its line of business based on commonly recognized best practices and industry regulations (e.g. CIP, PCIDSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR). Over time, regular review among stake holders is required to fine tune the language based on experience of adoption to address any limitations. And this regular review process shall also be specified in the directive itself as part of the compliance....
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End of Road

By cliangNo Comments
In physical journey, there is always an end such as End of vacation, back to workRoad blocked by obstacle, detour or get back In cyber journey especially digital transformation, it is never-ending. The target is rolling, compliance to new regulations are demanding, expectations from stake holders are uplifting over time. You need to upkeep security protection against emerging threats even if your business or technologies deployed remain unchanged. New solutions or even new protections will bring new risks. Essentially, regular assessment is required the business environment, technologies deployed and threat landscape, and review how much risks are acceptable to run the business. After all there is never 100% secure system. ...
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