Anonymity

By cliangNo Comments
Privacy is a major concern nowadays. Sensitive info need to be tokenized or masked while leaving functional info unchanged during business analytic or conducting system tests. Nevertheless, a function might be uniquely provided by a particular individual within the information sample. In this case, even if the identity is masked, the functional aspect can also traced back to that particular individual. This is something like weak hashing function subject to reversible attack. This is the situation to watch out and need to voice out the limitation to data subject and data owner. ...
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Certificate

By cliangNo Comments
Cyber Security practitioners need to acquire relevant certification or credential in demonstrating domain expertise or competency. Learning is life time process. Getting certified is not to fulfil employment but a personal acievement. Even if certified, upkeeping the field knowledge and practices is essential or else falling behind. No matter attending academic course or professional training, these are just opportunities to let you learn how to learn. The context involved is just a catalyst in doing so. Alternatively, helping peers or mentoring will also enable knowledge advancement. Therefore, never be complacent. ...
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Life Cycle Management #2

By cliangNo Comments
Like in physical world, automation components do have life time. Example is mechanical attributes of traditional hard disk drive, they are also subject to wear-and-tear during operating life. Storage technology now uses solid state without mechanical portion, we must not forget the underlying platform and applications. Apparently they won't have wear-and-tear operating condition, but the advancement of technology adoption will introduce obsolescence of the platform and applications. From vendors perspective, they will retire products not longer fit for purposes in the market and therefore drop resources to support. Hence, even if your automation components are still operating with minimal wear and tear condition, these components will still need to be refreshed for new version, bugs / vulnerabilities fixed, continuous vendor support in order to maintain the business outcome. Proper life cycle management of the ICT/ICS components cannot be overlooked. ...
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Sense of Security

By cliangNo Comments
This is largely based on preception and trust. How do I trust if the infrastructure or system is secure? We need to look at these core elements: Any regulatory mandate in this industry sector? Pick public transportation as example, mandatory insurance coverage, regular inspection for license renewal, periodic operator training, compliance with safety regulations etc.How well is the service provider doing among peers? Let's say, the type and severity or incidents of this provider in past years among others, rating from customer reviews and comments.How does the service provider demonstrate what has been done to secure? Common examples are personal data handling transparency via the published privacy policy, alert end user on login from other rare locations, security tips in their official portal, committed service level pledge. All the above are applied in both the physical and cyber worlds. ...
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Distance

By cliangNo Comments
Keeping social distance is recommended to avoid virus infection of COVID-19 attack. Similarly, cyber distance takes the same concept to minimize or slow down cyber attack. The cyber distance is done by incorporating perimeters at multiple layers in network and applications. Don't forget the human awareness and usage behavior are the added layers too. ...
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Broken Process

By cliangNo Comments
Secure process by design should be secure if operated according to prescribed scenarios. Passenger screening for human and hand-carried items before entering the departure zone deploys multiple means: Administrative: limited quantity of fluid and no sharp objects, Technical enforcement: human and bags scanning to detect violation If everything goes into departure zone thru this process, then exception can be picked up and assure the policy mandate. But what about supplies to the shops inside the zone? Do these go thru similar process? If not, it's backdoor and a broken process....
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Deception

By cliangNo Comments
Everything on earth has good or evil perspectives, same for deception in cyber world. We heard a lot about phishing or scam that is the evil side of deception. However, there is the need for good deception in the cyber space.  To understand how threat actors penetrate or launch attacks, honeypots are established to let them take the bait.  Honeypots can be vulnerable web sites, decoy email address or decoy social network identity that are under monitoring. For vulnerable systems, researchers are able to understand the behaviors and TTP of threat actors from reconnaissance, access, ex-filtrate data, cover the track. Effective counter-measures can be developed in the cyber kill chain. For phishing, researchers are able to spot if new exploits are deployed in content rich email or attachment to masquerade the malicious attempts then alert the community. Scams from social network could also be traced to inform law enforcement agency to take down the malicious identities....
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Remove, Lock, Take

By cliangNo Comments
We have lots of digital assets on the road, cell phone, notebook, removable storage media etc. There are stringent controls to secure the information inside these containers such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, location awareness, MDM, forced full tunnel VPN. Careless end users might just defeat all these controls if they are unaware they are the biggest threat in protecting information. These simple steps could help to secure: Remove your login session, i.e. logout without waiting the inactivity time out Lock your screen even if you are just turn around your head Take with you the digital asset and don't leave it unattended ...
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If Not Us, Who?

By cliangNo Comments
This blog is part 2 of 2. Most of the time, people expect cybersecurity practitioners are experts to deal with cybersecurity matters.  Yes, they are and take the lead but this is only a small part of the game. For a holistic cybersecurity posture, every one plays an important role in the entire jigsaw.  This is because we are all living in the world flooding with information.  This is highly integrated into our daily life.  Every one has the responsibility to secure information in the cyber space not just as an individual but also helps the counterparts that interacted with. So if not us, it's every one....
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If Not Now, When?

By cliangNo Comments
It has been used in S4x13 theme. This blog is part 1 of 2. Most often, security technology sales send security alerts to top management to demonstrate their value preposition. Top management is likely forward this "intel" to cybersecurity management team simply with "Please handle" to relieve their obligations from getting intel but do nothing. Cybersecurity management team obtains this directive, then drives the ICT/ICS workforce to apply the recommended work around (change system configuration, apply security patch) and compiles a dashboard for reporting completion status. The ICT/ICS workforce dare not to say no but to accommodate such executive order at extra work load from routine work. This isn't an effective cybersecuruty management. The proper means is to assess the threat, current protection and business consequence. The "Now, Next, Never" in S4x19 best describes the correct attitude. So, if not now, could be next or even never....
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