Sometimes a question gets asked so much that it gets a blog post, even if that question isn't at the center of what we do here at Pythia Cyber. Lately, one such question is "how does AI find cybersecurity vulnerabilities?" (We are also going to answer the underlying concern, which is usually "what can I do about this?") Generative AI has significant pattern-recognition capability. This means that AI can find not merely simple matches, such as matching "golden apple" with "This is the tale of the Golden Apple" but also subtler, deeper matches, such as "golden apple" with "Greek myths." Generative AI can only find patterns for which it has been trained. Once trained, that AI can only find patterns in data that has been fed into it. But after these two conditions have been met a decent AI is superhuman in its ability to find the patterns you taught it in the input that you give it. Let us say that you spun up a copy of your f...

After a career in which cybersecurity was almost exclusively considered from a technological or procedural standpoint, I yearned to address the elephant in the room: human behavior. The best technology or procedures are not enough to counterbalance bad behavior. So I reached out to the best behavioral scientist I know and Pythia Cyber was born. As part of our mission to highlight the role of behavior in cybersecurity I present a series of three posts about how your organization's culture can shape your cybersecurity. Specifically, how your organization's culture's attitudes toward cybersecurity hamper or help your cybersecurity program. The first post describes the cybersecurity janitor model. The second post  describes the cybersecurity tyrant model. The third post (this one) describes the cybersecurity partner model. This is the Goldilocks narrative: one is too loose, one is too tight and one is just right. In the janitor model the cybersecurity function is subordinate t...

After a career in which cybersecurity was almost exclusively considered from a technological or procedural standpoint, I yearned to address the elephant in the room: human behavior. The best technology or procedures are not enough to counterbalance bad behavior. So I reached out to the best behavioral scientist I know and Pythia Cyber was born. As part of our mission to highlight the role of behavior in cybersecurity I present a series of three posts about how your organization's culture can shape your cybersecurity. Specifically, how your organization's culture's attitudes toward cybersecurity hamper or help your cybersecurity program. The first post describes the cybersecurity janitor model. The second post (this one) describes the cybersecurity tyrant model. The third post describes the cybersecurity partner model. This is the Goldilocks narrative: one is too loose, one is too tight and one is just right. In my long career I have seen the tail wag the dog: I have seen o...

After a career in which cybersecurity was almost exclusively considered from a technological or procedural standpoint, I yearned to address the elephant in the room: human behavior. The best technology or procedures are not enough to counterbalance bad behavior. So I reached out to the best behavioral scientist I know and Pythia Cyber was born. As part of our mission to highlight the role of behavior in cybersecurity I present a series of three posts about how your organization's culture can shape your cybersecurity. Specifically, how your organization's culture's attitudes toward cybersecurity hamper or help your cybersecurity program. The first post (this one) describes the cybersecurity janitor model. The second post describes the cybersecurity tyrant model. The third post describes the cybersecurity partner model. This is the Goldilocks narrative: one is too loose, one is too tight and one is just right. I have been a janitor. I have also been a cybersecurity contribut...

I have a problem with conventional resume screening; I have mentioned it before . Especially automated resume screening. In my experience too many of the people  behind the screens are relying on two dimensions in setting up the bots: small chunks of text and keywords given to them by hiring managers. My problem is that I strain to see the link between how a resume is formatted (which chunks of text in which order) or worded (which words are in the chunks of text) or coded (which keywords are floating around) and hardcore technical talent. In fact, in my experience, the correlation is negative  by which I mean that I have seen topnotch technologists standing behind very ugly and badly worded resumes. I can see how one might hire a writer or a graphic designer based on how aesthetically pleasing a resume is. But I need convincing, with data, that this same methodology can spot  the kind of talent needed to succeed in cybersecurity. I have a particular distrust of keyword-b...

We've recently posted about the role of HR in the cybersecurity hiring process. As Brendan puts it , HR's role is to mitigate risk from the hiring manager's unconscious (or not) bias and potentially inefficient hiring practices. Hooray! The other side of that bargain is that you must assess awkward issues in the hiring process. If you don't ask, you -- managers, HR, whoever -- are assuming that those issues are unimportant. You are making an ASS out of U and ME . There are two sets of asks: What productivity talent does this person have? and What propensity does this person have to engage in counterproductive work behavior or deviance? Let's tackle each in turn. Talent . We write extensively about cybersecurity talent. It specifically involves high performance in any of three main cybersecurity roles -- individual contributor, manager, leader/executive. We have developed with Conchie Associates a proprietary talent assessment for each of these roles.  Many asses...