All posts by Owen Holland

Be Empathetic and Hug Your CISO More!

Post Syndicated from Owen Holland original https://blog.rapid7.com/2023/11/10/be-empathetic-and-hug-your-ciso-more/

Be Empathetic and Hug Your CISO More!

In the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud computing, the adoption of multi-cloud environments has become a prevailing trend. Organizations increasingly turn to multiple cloud providers to harness diverse features, prevent vendor lock-in, and optimize costs. The multi-cloud approach offers unparalleled agility, scalability, and flexibility, but it has its complexities and CISOs need your support.

In the final episode of the Cloud Security Webinar Series, Rapid7’s Chief Security Officer Jaya Baloo and other experts share their thoughts on the cloud strategies to support security leaders as they move into 2024 and beyond.

These webinars can now be viewed on-demand, giving security professionals greater insight into how to safeguard their cloud environments and set themselves up for success. A summary of the key discussion points are listed below.

Nurturing Comprehension and Collaboration

Multi-cloud environments present a complex tapestry woven with equal parts opportunity and complexity. Governance, security, and cost optimization are paramount concerns often exacerbated by the absence of centralized visibility and with the threat of misconfigurations and potential compliance issues looming in the background.

So, in the face of these challenges, collaborative unity among security teams becomes not just a nicety but a necessity. It is through the sharing of knowledge and experiences that the security community effectively grapples with these evolving challenges.

Striving for Collective Success

There are several simple strategies security teams can adopt to support a more robust defense:

  1. Centralized visibility: Embrace cloud management tools to unveil a comprehensive view of the multi-cloud landscapes. In doing so, we foster collaboration and unity. This provides a single pane of glass for security teams to gain comprehensive insights into their digital assets, compliance status, and ongoing security threats.
  2. Automation: Leveraging automation is key to efficiently managing multi-cloud landscapes. Automate asset discovery, security policy enforcement, and threat response. Automation not only streamlines these processes but also reduces the risk of human error.
  3. Security governance framework: Develop a comprehensive security governance framework that encompasses all aspects of multi-cloud security, including identity and access management, data protection, and threat detection. This framework should be flexible enough to accommodate the nuances of each cloud platform.
  4. Resource optimization: Regularly evaluate resource utilization across different cloud providers. Ensure that resources are allocated efficiently to minimize costs. Implement scaling and resource allocation strategies to adapt to changing workload requirements.
  5. Enhanced staff training: Invest in the skills and knowledge of security and IT teams, along with opportunities for cross-training and knowledge sharing.

As organizations continue to embrace multi-cloud environments, mastering the complexities of diverse cloud platforms is crucial for enhanced security, governance, and cost optimization. By gaining a deep understanding of the multi-cloud landscape, addressing key challenges head-on, and implementing efficient management strategies, security professionals can navigate the intricate web of multi-cloud and ensure seamless operations in the cloud-native era.

Cultivating Unity for a More Resilient Future

The evolving nature of cybersecurity demands organizations stand together to share experiences, strategies, and best practices. By cultivating unity and empathy across the security community and the wider business, organizations can collectively navigate the shifting threat landscape more easily.

Ultimately, uniting the cybersecurity community is not merely a virtue but an imperative. To find out more, watch the on-demand cloud security series now.

Cloud Webinar Series Part 1: Commanding Cloud Strategies

Post Syndicated from Owen Holland original https://blog.rapid7.com/2023/10/17/cloud-webinar-series-part-1-commanding-cloud-strategies/

Cloud Webinar Series Part 1: Commanding Cloud Strategies

Over the past decade, cloud computing has evolved into a cornerstone of modern business operations. Its flexibility, scalability, and efficiency have reshaped industries and brought unprecedented opportunities.

However, this transformation has come with challenges—most notably those associated with cloud security. Our new cloud security webinar series will explore the dynamic landscape of cloud security, unveiling key trends, pinpointing critical challenges, and providing actionable insights tailored to security professionals.

In Commanding Cloud Strategies, the first webinar of the series, Rapid7’s Chief Security Officer Jaya Baloo and other experts will share their thoughts on the cloud challenges that security leaders face and offer insights on how to overcome them.

Please register for the first episode of our Cloud Security Series here to find out what our security experts think are the top strategies to overcome these challenges and considerations.

Armed with the knowledge and insights provided in part-one, security professionals will be better equipped to safeguard their cloud environments and data assets in the modern digital landscape.

To learn more, check out the webinar abstract below.

Commanding Cloud Strategies Webinar Abstract

In the ever-evolving world of cloud security, staying ahead of the curve is paramount. Over the past ten years, several trends have emerged, shaping how organizations safeguard their digital assets.

The shift towards a shared responsibility model, greater emphasis on automation and orchestration, and a growing focus on identity and access management (IAM) are among the defining trends.

Cloud Security Challenges

  • Data Privacy and Compliance: Ensuring data protection and regulatory compliance within cloud environments is a persistent challenge. As data becomes more mobile and diverse, maintaining compliance becomes increasingly complex.
  • Evolving Threat Landscape: The threat landscape is in constant flux, with cyberattacks targeting cloud infrastructure and applications growing in sophistication. Security professionals must adapt to this ever-changing landscape to keep their organizations safe.

Considerations in Cloud Security

  • Scalable Security Architecture: Large enterprises must design security architectures that are both scalable and flexible to adapt to evolving cloud infrastructure and workload needs. The ability to scale security measures efficiently is crucial.
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM): Given the intricate web of user roles and permissions in large organizations, effective IAM is essential. Organizations should prioritize IAM solutions that streamline access while maintaining security.

Understanding Risk

Understanding cybersecurity risk is at the heart of cloud security. Effective risk assessment and mitigation involve evaluating internal and external tactics that could compromise an organization’s digital assets and information security. Our security experts will delve into this critical domain’s core challenges and considerations in the session.

Challenges in Understanding Risk

  • Complexity of Cloud Ecosystems: Successful organizations often operate intricate cloud ecosystems with numerous interconnected services and platforms. Navigating this complexity while assessing risk can be daunting.
  • Lack of Skilled Cybersecurity Personnel: The need for more skilled cybersecurity professionals capable of analyzing and managing cloud security risks is a widespread challenge. Organizations must find and retain the right talent to stay secure.

Considerations for Understanding Risk

  • Risk Assessment and Prioritization: Organizations should prioritize the identification and assessment of cloud security risks based on their potential impact and likelihood. Effective risk assessment tools and threat modelling can help in this regard.
  • Continuous Monitoring and Response: Establishing a robust, real-time monitoring system is essential. It allows organizations to continuously assess cloud environments for security incidents and respond promptly to emerging threats. Integrating Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and DevSecOps practices can enhance this capability.

Threat Intelligence

In cloud security, threat intelligence is pivotal in staying one step ahead of potential threats and vulnerabilities. Effective threat intelligence involves collecting, analyzing, and disseminating timely information to protect cloud environments and data assets proactively.

Challenges in Threat Intelligence

  • Data Overload and False Positives: Organizations generate vast amounts of security data, including threat intelligence feeds. Managing this data can lead to data overload and false positives, causing alert fatigue.
  • Integration and Compatibility: Integrating threat intelligence feeds into existing security infrastructure can be complex, as different sources may use varying formats and standards.

Considerations in Threat Intelligence

  • Customization and Contextualization: To make threat intelligence actionable, organizations should customize it to their specific cloud environments, industry, and business context. Tailored alerting rules and threat-hunting workflows can enhance effectiveness.
  • Sharing and Collaboration: Collaborating with industry peers, Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), and government agencies for threat intelligence sharing can provide valuable insights into emerging threats specific to the industry.

Security Capabilities

Cloud security capabilities encompass the ability to comprehend evolving risks, establish benchmark standards, and take immediate, informed actions to safeguard cloud environments and data assets effectively. The final topic in the webinar will explore the core challenges and considerations in building robust security capabilities.

Challenges in Security Capabilities

  • Resource Allocation and Prioritization: Allocating resources effectively across vast cloud environments can be challenging, leading to difficulties prioritizing security efforts and ensuring critical areas receive the necessary attention and investment.
  • Complexity of Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments: Managing security capabilities becomes particularly challenging when organizations operate in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Ensuring consistent security practices and policies across different platforms and providers requires specialized expertise.

Considerations in Security Capabilities

  • Integrated Security Ecosystem: Organizations should strive to create an integrated security ecosystem that combines various security tools, technologies, and processes to provide a comprehensive view of their cloud environment.
  • Scalability and Elasticity: Cloud security capabilities should be designed to scale and adapt to the organization’s evolving cloud infrastructure and workloads. This includes automated resource scaling and continuous security testing.

This is Ceti Alpha Five!

Post Syndicated from Owen Holland original https://blog.rapid7.com/2023/06/06/this-is-ceti-alpha-five/

This is Ceti Alpha Five!

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan demonstrating the very best and worst of cybersecurity in the 23rd Century

For those new to the Sci-Fi game, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 science fiction film based on the 1966-69 television series Star Trek. In the film, Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise face off against a genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh for control of the Genesis Device (a technology designed to reorganize dead matter into a habitable environment).

It is widely considered the best Star Trek film due to Khan’s capabilities exceeding the Enterprise’s crew and its narrative of no-win scenarios. To celebrate the 41st anniversary of its release, this blog looks at The Wrath of Khan through a cybersecurity lens.

Khan’s Wrath

In the opening scene, Kirk oversees a simulator session of Captain Spock’s trainees. The simulation, called the Kobayashi Maru, is a no-win scenario designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Like in cybersecurity, a no-win scenario is a situation every commander may face. This is as true today as it was in the ’80s; however, you can certainly even the odds today.

Having a clear cybersecurity mission and vision provides more precise outcomes; however, like Spock was so keen to highlight, we learn by doing, as the journey is a test of character, and maybe that was the lesson of the simulation.

We then learn how Khan seeks to escape from a 15-year exile on an uninhabitable planet and exact revenge on Kirk. Khan is genetically engineered, and his physical strength and intelligence are abnormal. As a result, he is prone to having grand visions and likely has a superiority complex. Unsurprisingly, his own failures and those of his crew reverberate around him, consuming him and giving him a single unstoppable focus.

In a cybersecurity context, Khan represents threat actors slowly descending on you and your organisation. They are driven to succeed, to inflict pain, gain an advantage, and steal technology. Most, like Khan, have a crew, a band of like-minded individuals with a common objective. If Khan, in this example, is the threat actor, the Starfleet represents an organization operating in today’s threat landscape.

Ceti Alpha FAIL!

There’s no other way to describe it; there are simply some forehead-slapping moments regarding basic cybersecurity practices in The Wrath of Khan. For example, the starship Reliant, a science vessel, is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet called Ceti Alpha Five to test the Genesis Device. Two Reliant officers beam down to the planet, which they believe to be uninhabited. Once there, they are captured by Khan as part of his plan to seek revenge against Kirk.

Khan implants the two crew members with indigenous eel larvae that render them susceptible to mind control (Think Insider Threat.) and uses them to capture the starship Reliant. With seemingly no quarantine procedures in place, they return to the Reliant, and quickly beam Khan and his crew aboard.

However, just like a cyber threat actor, Khan doesn’t stop there. He wants more… and since everything has gone unnoticed so far, he can press home his advantage. He learns about the Genesis project the science team supported and quickly realizes that he can use the device as a weapon.

The Hubris of the Defeated

Next, the Enterprise receives a distress call from the space station to which the Reliant is assigned. There are several examples of poor cybersecurity best practices in this scene; so the audience knows an attack is about to happen, but the Enterprise crew are completely unaware. This scenario is similar to the cybersecurity vulnerabilities many modern organisations face without completely understanding their risks.

The Enterprise, still operated by Spock’s trainees, encounters the Reliant en route to the space station. Ignorant of the forthcoming danger, Kirk approaches the Reliant with its shields down; and Khan draws them closer with false communications until they are in striking range.

The junior bridge officer, Commander Saavik, quotes General Order 12: ‘When approaching a vessel with which communications has not been established, all Starfleet vessels are to maintain maximum safety precautions... but she is cut off. Kirk carries on despite having processes for just such a risky encounter AND having just received a distress call from the space station. Failing to follow security guidelines makes Khan’s surprise attack even more powerful.

Going into an unknown encounter with their shields down and with the opposition having sufficient time to plan the attack, the Enterprise’s critical systems are targeted. The battle begins, and chaos erupts among the inexperienced crew; people panic and leave their posts due to the shock and awe of the attack. The attack is over in just 30 seconds. Enterprise is disabled, dead in the water, and utterly vulnerable. This is reminiscent of just how fast cyber attacks can happen and the feeling of helplessness and panic that can overcome an inexperienced team in the aftermath.

Reeling from the initial battle, Kirk and Spock survey the damage on monitors. ‘They knew exactly where to hit us’, Spock observes. With insider knowledge, time to plan and poor security procedures, the attack was devastating. Finally, Khan appears on the display monitor, revealing he was behind the attack on the crew of the Enterprise. The mistakes of Kirk’s past flash across his face.

Ol’ Comeback Kirk

If you’ve ever watched Star Trek, you know that you can never count Kirk out. The man can see himself out of a jam. Yes, he messed up; but he wasn’t about to back down. What is demonstrated over the next 2 minutes of the film is much like the very best of cybersecurity collaboration.

Khan originally intended to gain revenge for the past by destroying the Enterprise, but seeing this as an opportunity, Khan offers to spare the crew if they relinquish all material related to Genesis (think Ransomware).

Kirk stalls for time so his senior bridge officers can search their database for the Reliant’s command codes. They use the five-digit code (16309, in case you’re interested) to order Reliant’s shields down remotely and gain access to their critical infrastructure and launch a counter attack (effectively hacking the hackers).

What’s most impressive about this scene is that despite the damage and destruction that Khan inflicted, the crew kept their heads, thought logically and responded rapidly. Relying on each other’s knowledge and experience to prevent further misery – they even take the time to teach and communicate what they are doing to the junior officers (learn by doing, as the journey is a test of character).

It’s a satisfying moment for the audience as you see the aggressors being attacked themselves. You watch panic flood Khan’s face as he struggles with the counterattack and is ultimately forced to retreat and effect repairs. Kirk’s scrappiness and the team’s quick thinking in the face of disaster makes for an exciting movie. In the real world, however, it is critical to implement measures that enable you to avoid or quickly recover from threats.

When developing (or improving upon) your cybersecurity strategy, look for tools that:

Provide visibility into external threats

  • Stay ahead of threats to your organisation, employees, and customers with proactive clear, deep, and dark web monitoring.

Mitigate threats before they have an impact

  • Prevent damage to your organisation with contextualised alerts that enable rapid response.

Help you make informed security decisions

  • Easily prioritise mitigation efforts to shorten investigation time and speed alert triage.

To learn more about how a Rapid7 detection and response solution might fit into your cybersecurity strategy, watch our on-demand demo.

Finally, from one Enterprise to another: Live long and prosper.