In Sports, "The Best Defense Is A Good Offense" -- Same Story In Cybersecurity?

History is littered world-wide with defensive embankments that look great and have endured as tourist attractions but had questionable defensive value: Hadrian's Wall (pictured), Maginot Line, Berlin Wall. The Chinese had better defensive wall success but their city gates were easier to destroy. 

Walls do well at keeping people inside, yet at the same time these walls usually fall prey to the same problem: an attacker thinks "outside the box" and looks for a more vulnerable point in the defense. 

What are the vulnerabilities in your cybersecurity process?

A recent post by our friend Dr Brett Steenbarger focused on "Why traders fail":

Successful traders fail more because of stagnation than because they blow up. They focus so much on "plan your trade and trade your plan" that they never create new, more promising plans to trade. What creates a lasting business is thinking outside the box, observing different market relationships, and finding fresh sources of edge. The excitement of discovery and the reward of doing new things keeps us actively engaged.  

As a cybersecurity leader, you're always looking for the next threat -- much as a stock trader would look for the next trend. But because you're always on alert, you can get stale -- much easier when "nothing happens" for long stretches of time. You can get paranoid (that's easy). You can default to what your AI vendors are selling you and off-load the vigilence to them.

Don't do that.

Every week, ask yourself and your team instead the questions Brett raises here:

Are we thinking outside the box?

What have we observed that's new or different from what we expected?

Have we continually looked for fresh vulnerabilities/attack surfaces?

One idea we can offer based on our discussions with clients: think like a 'red team' attacker instead of a 'blue team' corporate leader. That is, how would you attack your own systems?

We'll have specific details about 'red-teaming' strategies in a later post. For now, our advice is: go on offense and see if you can beat your own team.

Ask us how you can build your cybersecurity offensive process for the right defense.