Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive, the show where we really
Speaker 1: try to pull out the essential knowledge from some pretty
Speaker 1: complex stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, making sense of it all for you exactly.
Speaker 1: And today we are diving deep into well cybersecurity. It's
Speaker 1: fascinating and honestly just absolutely critical these days. Our guide
Speaker 1: it's this incredibly thorough document Effective Cybersecurity, A guide to
Speaker 1: using best practices and standards.
Speaker 2: Quite a title it is, but it's packed with good information. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and our mission here for you listening is really to
Speaker 2: give you that inside track.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cut through the noise precisely.
Speaker 2: We're going to sift through all that material, pull out
Speaker 2: the really important bits, maybe some surprising facts, and definitely
Speaker 2: the practical insights.
Speaker 1: You get up to speak quickly, right, I want you to.
Speaker 2: Feel well informed, sharp, without getting bogged down by just
Speaker 2: the sheer volume of it all. Yeah. Think of this
Speaker 2: as your shortcut to really understanding effective cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this then, because cybersecurity it often feels
Speaker 1: like this huge tangled mess, right, technical jargon, constant threats.
Speaker 2: It can definitely seem that way, impenetrable sometimes, So what.
Speaker 1: Are we actually protecting? And maybe more importantly, why is
Speaker 1: it just so darn hard to get right.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely the place to start. So the main
Speaker 2: guide we're looking at points to a well a widely
Speaker 2: used standard recommendation X point one two zero five from
Speaker 2: the ITU for a clear definition, and at its core,
Speaker 2: cybersecurity is about well pretty much everything we do. The tools,
Speaker 2: the policies, security concepts, safeguards, guidelines, the whole shebang, the
Speaker 2: whole shabank. Yeah, risk management, approaches, actions, training, best practices,
Speaker 2: assurance technologies, all the stuff we use to protect the
Speaker 2: cyberspace environment and crucially organization and user's assets.
Speaker 1: Okay, assets, that sounds broad. What does that actually mean here?
Speaker 2: It is broad. It's much more than just computers. We're
Speaker 2: talking all connected computing devices, sure, but also personnel, the people, infrastructure, applications, services,
Speaker 2: telecommunications systems. It's a lot. Yeah, And just to be clear,
Speaker 2: cybersecurity itself, it's kind of an umbrella term. It covers
Speaker 2: information security.
Speaker 1: Which isn't just electronic stuff.
Speaker 2: No, exactly electronic information, but also non electronic forms. And
Speaker 2: it covers network security too.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's broad. Now here's where I think it
Speaker 1: gets really interesting. The guide highlights these like deep seated
Speaker 1: dilemmas almost paradoxes. Yeah, that make cybersecurity so tricky.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, these are fundamental challenges. A key paper mentioned CiCe
Speaker 2: fourteen calls them cybersecurity dilemmas, and there they're really revealing,
Speaker 2: like what, Well, First, just the sheer scale and complexity
Speaker 2: of cyberspace. It's enormous. It's constantly changing. You've got everything
Speaker 2: from your mobile phone to industrial control.
Speaker 1: Systems, extra protect all of that exactly.
Speaker 2: It's inherently challenging. Second, and this is a classic one,
Speaker 2: the conflict between making things easy to use and making
Speaker 2: them secure.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, convenience versus security.
Speaker 2: Right, Simpler systems, more isolated ones, they're easier to lock down,
Speaker 2: but we all demand more features, more connectivity, and that
Speaker 2: adds complexity.
Speaker 1: Which often means less security.
Speaker 2: Often, yeah, ironically. And the kicker is if security gets
Speaker 2: too inconvenient, people will find ways around it. It's just
Speaker 2: human nature.
Speaker 1: That's a huge factor, it really is.
Speaker 2: And finally there's the danger of just you know, making
Speaker 2: it up as you go along to grow your own approach.
Speaker 1: Winging it.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, the text is clear ad hocs cybersecurity just
Speaker 2: trying to patch things together without following establish best practices
Speaker 2: and standards. That's basically asking for trouble. Like building a
Speaker 2: bridge without blueprints, you just wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense. Okay, So the digital world's complex
Speaker 1: people are a challenge. How do organizations even start to
Speaker 1: bring order to this? The source points to something called
Speaker 1: security governance.
Speaker 2: Security governance, yes, think of it as the rule book
Speaker 2: and the oversight for security. The definition is the framework
Speaker 2: by which policy and direction is set, okay, providing senior
Speaker 2: management with assurance that security management activities are being performed
Speaker 2: correctly and consistently. So it's about setting the direction and
Speaker 2: making sure it's followed.
Speaker 1: Like the Compass for security.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and its core principles are key. One security needs
Speaker 2: to be everywhere in the organization, not just an IT
Speaker 2: problem right baked in baked in. Two, you adopt a
Speaker 2: risk based approach, so decisions about what to protect and
Speaker 2: how much to spend are based on actual risk. You know,
Speaker 2: the organization's appetite for.
Speaker 1: Risk, not just gut feelings.
Speaker 2: Not just gut feelings. And three, you have to continuously
Speaker 2: monitor and improve link security performance to the overall business goals.
Speaker 2: It's an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1: That sounds robust, and it's not just a vague idea, right.
Speaker 1: There are specific roles like the c isso, yes, the.
Speaker 2: C ISO Chief Information Security Officer. This role is critical,
Speaker 2: really central. They've got the overall responsibility for the whole
Speaker 2: enterprise information security program pretty much. They act as the
Speaker 2: main link between the executives and the security program. They
Speaker 2: establish and maintain the isms the information Security Management system,
Speaker 2: which is like the security playbook essentially, yes, the comprehensive
Speaker 2: approach to managing all security processes and policies. They also
Speaker 2: define the risk treatment plan, monitor everything and for bigger companies,
Speaker 2: frameworks like COVID five suggest having importing committees too, Oh right,
Speaker 2: like an information Security Steering committee making sure good practices
Speaker 2: are used everywhere, and maybe an enterprise risk management committee
Speaker 2: looking at risk across the entire business, not just it.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so there's structure at the top. But you
Speaker 1: mentioned in people earlier it's not just the executives, right,
Speaker 1: what about everyone else? The guide really stresses human resource
Speaker 1: security across the whole employee journey.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's not just the c suite. It starts before
Speaker 2: someone's even hired, during the hiring process.
Speaker 1: Really how so, well.
Speaker 2: Checking applicants properly is vital. Organizations can actually be liable
Speaker 2: for negligent and hiring if they don't do due diligence
Speaker 2: and an employee then causes harm.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, then.
Speaker 2: During ongoing management you've got two main types of employee
Speaker 2: caused security issues. There's accidental or negligent stuff. Maybe they
Speaker 2: didn't understand a policy or took a shortcut.
Speaker 1: We've all been tempted, right.
Speaker 2: Versus malicious intent someone deliberately trying to cause damage.
Speaker 1: So how do you deal with the accidental stuff?
Speaker 2: That's where security awareness and education come in. It's crucial
Speaker 2: for reducing that accidental or negligent harm. You need a
Speaker 2: baseline for everyone, maybe like a cybersecurity essentials.
Speaker 1: Program, basic training for all exactly.
Speaker 2: And then more specific role based training for jobs with
Speaker 2: particular security needs. The big goal here is fostering a
Speaker 2: real culture of security.
Speaker 1: Where it's just part of how things are done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where people understand why security matters and what their
Speaker 2: part is. It's not just ticking boxes, like being part
Speaker 2: of a team where everyone knows the play.
Speaker 1: And what about when someone leaves.
Speaker 2: Termination of employment? That's another critical point. You need procedures
Speaker 2: to immediately remove all their access, get back company data.
Speaker 2: Basically lock the doors behind.
Speaker 1: Them securely, right, prevent any parting shots. Okay, so governance
Speaker 1: and people are key, but you mentioned risk. Before you
Speaker 1: can build defenses, you need to figure out what you're
Speaker 1: defending against. Information risk assessment sounds a bit like detective work.
Speaker 2: It kind of is the formal definitions the overall process
Speaker 2: of risk identification, risk analysis, and risk evaluation. Breaking that down, okay,
Speaker 2: think of it like this. First, you identify what could
Speaker 2: go wrong. Those are your.
Speaker 1: Threats like malware hackers yep.
Speaker 2: Then you figure out where your weaknesses are that those
Speaker 2: threats could exploit those a your vulnerabilities.
Speaker 1: Like unpatched software exactly.
Speaker 2: Then you put in place controls measures to reduce those vulnerabilities.
Speaker 2: But the really key part is assessing two things for
Speaker 2: each threat, the potential impact how bad would it be
Speaker 2: if this happened? And a likelihood how likely.
Speaker 1: Is it to happen impact it's in likelihood.
Speaker 2: Without understanding both, you're just guessing where to focus your
Speaker 2: efforts and your budget. You need that info to make smart.
Speaker 1: Decisions, so you prioritize the big likely risks.
Speaker 2: That's the idea. And it's not something you do once
Speaker 2: one source X point one zero five to five really
Speaker 2: highlights that risk management is iterative. It's a continuous cycle.
Speaker 1: Always reassessing.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: Now, you mentioned protecting assets. We established it's broad. But
Speaker 1: what kind of things that we're talking about specifically? Is
Speaker 1: it just computers and data?
Speaker 2: Oh? Much broader? Assets are defined as anything of value
Speaker 2: to the business that requires protection. So yes, hardware, software, information,
Speaker 2: but also less tangible things right like the company's reputation, goodwill,
Speaker 2: even employee morale can be an asset impacted by a
Speaker 2: cyber incident.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So how do you track all that?
Speaker 2: You identify them and document them? Note doubt who owns it,
Speaker 2: where it is, what business function it supports, and really
Speaker 2: importantly the data type or classification.
Speaker 1: How sensitive is the data on it?
Speaker 2: Exactly? That classification helps determine the assets value, which might
Speaker 2: be monetary or based on how critical that information is.
Speaker 2: It drives the whole risk process.
Speaker 1: Okay, And the threats, where do they come from? Is
Speaker 1: it just like random attacks or are their patterns?
Speaker 2: There are definitely patterns, though it can feel chaotic. Sometimes
Speaker 2: organizations use threat intelligence sources think reports from security companies
Speaker 2: like trust Wave or Cisco to understand the landscape so
Speaker 2: they know what's out there, right, And you can categorize
Speaker 2: threats in different ways, sometimes by the actor, is it
Speaker 2: cyber criminals after money, state sponsored groups, maybe an unhappy insider,
Speaker 2: or you can categorize them by the action hacking, malware,
Speaker 2: social engineering, phishing attacks. And remember those dilemmas we talked about, you.
Speaker 1: Are the complexity, ease of use.
Speaker 2: Well, some specific threat types tie back to those, like
Speaker 2: distortion I think automated misinformation, fake news, stuff that compromises
Speaker 2: systems by feeding them bad data. Or deterioration where your
Speaker 2: existing controls just get weaker over time because tech change
Speaker 2: is so fast, or new regulations pop.
Speaker 1: Up so you constantly have to watch for things just degrading.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, continuous assessment is key.
Speaker 1: So how do you actually measure all this risk? Is
Speaker 1: it just assigning high, medium, low or is there something
Speaker 1: more scientific?
Speaker 2: Both really qualitative methods like your low medium high, or
Speaker 2: maybe estimating frequency like less than once a year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those are.
Speaker 1: Common gut feeling plus some structure.
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, But for a more rigorous approach, you
Speaker 2: use quantitative methods. There's a methodology called fair factor analysis
Speaker 2: of information risk.
Speaker 1: Fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basic ideas that all risk can be measured
Speaker 2: and quantified. It often involves probabilistic estimates, maybe running complex
Speaker 2: simulations like thousands of what if attack scenarios to predict
Speaker 2: the dollar cost and likelihood.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that sounds complex.
Speaker 2: It can be, but tools exist to help, like a
Speaker 2: business Impact Reference table or burnt Burnt. It's a table
Speaker 2: that helps you consistently define different types of impact financial loss,
Speaker 2: reputation damage, operational disruption, and their severity levels maybe from
Speaker 2: insignificant up to catastrophic. So everyone's speaking the same language about.
Speaker 1: Impact, standardizing it exactly.
Speaker 2: And another standard tool is CVSS, the Common Vulnerability Scoring System.
Speaker 2: It gives vulnerabilities a score based on things like how
Speaker 2: easy they are to exploit and what the impact would be.
Speaker 2: Helps you prioritize which flaws to fix first.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you understand the assets, the threats, the risks.
Speaker 1: Now you build the defenses. That's where security controls come in, right.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Security controls are basically the measures implemented
Speaker 2: to reduce vulnerability. They're your locks, your alarms, your firewalls,
Speaker 2: all the defenses.
Speaker 1: And there are guides for these.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, authoritative sources like NISSED SB eight hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty three, the CIS Critical Security Controls ISO twenty seven
Speaker 2: thousand or two. These provide massive lists and guidances like
Speaker 2: the blueprints for building a secure environment.
Speaker 1: And controls work in different ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can mitigate risk differently. For instance, a firewall
Speaker 2: filter might avoid risk by blocking bad traffic entirely, stop
Speaker 2: it at the door. Right. An incident response plan mitigates risk.
Speaker 2: It lessens the damage if an attack does get through.
Speaker 2: And something like cyber insurance, that's risk transfer. You're shifting
Speaker 2: some of the financial risk to an insurer.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Okay, let's get specific. What about something we all
Speaker 1: deal with daily system access logging into things?
Speaker 2: Right? System access has three core functions. First, authentication, proving
Speaker 2: you are who you say.
Speaker 1: You are, showing your ID basically, yeah.
Speaker 2: Verifying identity. Second authorization, once you've verified, what are you
Speaker 2: actually allowed to do or access?
Speaker 1: Your permissions?
Speaker 2: Your permissions? And third accountability making sure actions can be
Speaker 2: traced back uniquely to who did them, so there's a
Speaker 2: record and responsibility. Now, for authentication proving who you are,
Speaker 2: there are generally three types of factors. First, the knowledge
Speaker 2: factor something you.
Speaker 1: Know, passwords, pns exactly.
Speaker 2: The big thread here is password cracking, even if they're stored, hashed,
Speaker 2: you know, scrambled. That's why strong password policies blocking common
Speaker 2: weak ones using things like one time password devices OTPs
Speaker 2: are vital.
Speaker 1: Where you get a new code each time.
Speaker 2: Right. Second factor possession something you have, like.
Speaker 1: A security keyfob or a smart card.
Speaker 2: Precisely hardware tokens, smart cards, electronic ideas. The threats there
Speaker 2: could be eavedropping on the communication or replay attacks where
Speaker 2: someone records your log in and tries to reuse it later.
Speaker 1: Sneaky can be.
Speaker 2: And the third factor is inherence something you are.
Speaker 1: Biometrics, fingerprints, face.
Speaker 2: Scans, YEP, fingerprint, face iris scans, uneral first, then verify
Speaker 2: each time. The challenge there is something called presentation attacks.
Speaker 1: Or PA faking the biometric.
Speaker 2: Trying to fool the scanner with a fake figure print
Speaker 2: or a photo. Yeah. Now, the really powerful thing here
Speaker 2: is using two or more of these factors together. That's
Speaker 2: multi factor authentication or MFA, like.
Speaker 1: A password plus a code from your phone exactly.
Speaker 2: It dramatically increases security because an attacker needs to compro
Speaker 2: buys multiple different types of factors, not just steal a
Speaker 2: password makes sense.
Speaker 1: So once you're in, how do organizations control what you
Speaker 1: can do? That's access control right right.
Speaker 2: That's where access control models come in. There are a
Speaker 2: few main types. Discretionary access control or DAC is probably
Speaker 2: the most common one you encounter.
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 2: It's where the owner of a resource decides who gets access.
Speaker 2: Like on your own computer, you decide who could read
Speaker 2: or write your files.
Speaker 1: Okay, I control my stuff.
Speaker 2: Then there's mandatory access control or MAC. This is much stricter,
Speaker 2: system enforced. You see it more in military or high
Speaker 2: security environments. Access is based on security labels or classifications,
Speaker 2: not just the owner's choice.
Speaker 1: More rigid.
Speaker 2: Very Then you have role based access control RBAC. Access
Speaker 2: is granted based on your job role in the.
Speaker 1: Organization, So all engineers get engineer access, all sales folks
Speaker 1: get sales access.
Speaker 2: Pretty much simplifies administration. And finally there's attribute based access
Speaker 2: control or ABA. This is where granular are more flexible.
Speaker 2: How So, access decisions are based on multiple attributes of
Speaker 2: the user, the resource they're trying to access, even the environment,
Speaker 2: like maybe you can only access certain data if you're
Speaker 2: on the corporate network during business hours.
Speaker 1: Ah, context matters exactly.
Speaker 2: SP one eight one hundred and three gives examples like that, location,
Speaker 2: time of day, device type.
Speaker 1: Okay, that covers getting in and moving around. Let's zoom
Speaker 1: out a bit. What about the big infrastructure pieces server
Speaker 1: software development?
Speaker 2: Good question. Let's start with server configuration and virtualization. Servers
Speaker 2: are prime targets, right. Compromise one and you might get
Speaker 2: access to the whole network.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big risk.
Speaker 2: So organizations increasingly use virtualization, creating virtual versions of servers
Speaker 2: or networks. It helps with efficiency and management. You have
Speaker 2: different types like type one hypervisors.
Speaker 1: Which run directly on the hardware baar metal.
Speaker 2: Right, generally seen is more secure versus type two hypervisors,
Speaker 2: which run on top of an existing operating system may
Speaker 2: be a bit less secure. And containers are another sort
Speaker 2: of lighter weight virtualization approach that's popular.
Speaker 1: But virtualization has risks too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. A major concern is VM escape. That's where
Speaker 2: malicious code inside one virtual machine manages to break out
Speaker 2: and access the underlong hypervisor or maybe other vms on
Speaker 2: the same host.
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's bad, very bad.
Speaker 2: Needs careful configuration. Now, moving to system development and application security.
Speaker 2: The big concept here is security by design.
Speaker 1: Building security in from the start exactly, not tacking it
Speaker 1: on at the end.
Speaker 2: It needs to be part of every phase of the
Speaker 2: system development life cycle the SDLC, from the initial idea
Speaker 2: right through to retiring the system.
Speaker 1: How do you achieve that?
Speaker 2: Well, things like DevOps culture help. It encourages collaboration between
Speaker 2: development operations and security teams, automating security checks into the development.
Speaker 1: Pipeline, making it part of the flow right.
Speaker 2: And for applications themselves, you have tools like Web application
Speaker 2: firewalls or wfs. They sit in front of web apps
Speaker 2: and filter out common.
Speaker 1: Attacks, protecting websites yep.
Speaker 2: And one often overla is end user developed applications EDAs.
Speaker 1: What are those like? Complex spreadsheets people.
Speaker 2: Build exactly those monster spreadsheets? Maybe simple databases people create themselves.
Speaker 2: They seem harmless, but they can have huge risks, errors,
Speaker 2: no audit trails, compliance problems, hidden.
Speaker 1: Costs, stuff it doesn't even know about sometimes.
Speaker 2: Often so you need a framework to manage them too. Governance, people,
Speaker 2: process technology. You can't just ignore them.
Speaker 1: Good point. Okay, what about sneakier threats malware hiding on
Speaker 1: systems or sensitive data leaking out right.
Speaker 2: So malware protection malware is just you know, hostile or
Speaker 2: intrusive software. The guide lists loads of types of adware, spyware, ransomware.
Speaker 1: The nasty stuff that locks your files that's the.
Speaker 2: One, rootkits that hide deep in the system, even fileless
Speaker 2: malware that runs only in memory, making it really hard
Speaker 2: to spot.
Speaker 1: So anti virus is key.
Speaker 2: Antivirus software is a core defense. Yes. Best practices are
Speaker 2: things like real time scanning, making sure it monitors common
Speaker 2: appleations like email and browsers, and keeping it constantly updated
Speaker 2: with the latest threat signatures. Got to keep it sharp absolutely.
Speaker 2: Then there's data loss prevention or DLP, stopping leaks exactly.
Speaker 2: Its whole purpose is to identify sensitive information and prevent
Speaker 2: it from leaving the organization without authorization.
Speaker 1: How does it know what's sensitive?
Speaker 2: It looks at data in three states where it's vulnerable,
Speaker 2: data in motion traveling across the network like in an email,
Speaker 2: data atrests stored on servers or laptops, and data in
Speaker 2: use actively being processed in memory or by the CPU. Okay,
Speaker 2: And it uses various techniques to spot the sensitive stuff,
Speaker 2: keyword matching, looking for specific patterns like credit card numbers,
Speaker 2: exact data matching against a database of sensitive info, or
Speaker 2: even fingerprinting entire documents.
Speaker 1: Like a digital signature for a secret file.
Speaker 2: Kind of Yeah, so the system recognizes it if someone
Speaker 2: tries to, say, upload it to a personal cloud drive.
Speaker 2: And related to this is digital Rights management.
Speaker 1: DRM, like on movies or music.
Speaker 2: Similar idea but for corporate data too. Policies in tech
Speaker 2: to control how digital content can be used after it's
Speaker 2: been distributed, maybe preventing printing or forwarding, and underpinning a
Speaker 2: lot of this. Secure communication and data protection is cryptography
Speaker 2: and public key INFRASTRUCTUREKI encryption and keys right, using things
Speaker 2: like secure hash functions, they create a unique fingerprint of
Speaker 2: data to ensure it hasn't been tampered with. Ensuring integrity.
Speaker 2: Key management is critical too, especially understanding crypto periods.
Speaker 1: Meaning how long a key should be used exactly.
Speaker 2: Key shouldn't be used forever because they become more vulnerable
Speaker 2: over time. And PKI is the whole system for managing
Speaker 2: public keys and digital certificates.
Speaker 1: The things that let your browser trust a website.
Speaker 2: That's a big part of it. Yeah, secure communication, identity verification,
Speaker 2: it's the trust infrastructure of the Internet.
Speaker 1: Really Okay, So we've built defenses, but stuff still happens, right,
Speaker 1: breaches occur? What then? This is where incident management kicks in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely critical, because no defense is perfect. First, though, a
Speaker 2: quick distinction, there's a security event that's just something happening
Speaker 2: that might have security implications, maybe a failed log in,
Speaker 2: a blip on the radar, right, versus a security incident.
Speaker 2: That's when something occurs that actually potentially compromises your confidentiality, integrity,
Speaker 2: or availability, like a successful hack. That's the real deal.
Speaker 1: Got it? So what's the process for handling an incident?
Speaker 2: The incident response live cycle, often based on this SP
Speaker 2: eight hundred and sixty one, has four main phases. First,
Speaker 2: and maybe most important, is.
Speaker 1: Preparation getting ready before it happens.
Speaker 2: Exactly having policies, plans, training tools all set up before
Speaker 2: an incident. You don't want to be figuring this out
Speaker 2: during a crisis. It's like having your fire department ready.
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: The detection analysis. This is where you actually identify that
Speaker 2: an incident is happening, figure out what's going on, often
Speaker 2: using event correlation, linking seemingly random alerts together to see
Speaker 2: the bigger picture. How bad is it, what's.
Speaker 1: Effect, finding the fire and assessing it good analogy.
Speaker 2: Third phase containment, eradication and recovery. This is the hands
Speaker 2: on part. Stop the bleeding, contained the attack, get rid
Speaker 2: of the threat, eradicate the malware, and get things back
Speaker 2: to normal securely. Recovery often involves restoring from clean backups,
Speaker 2: patching systems, changing passwords, the cleanup crew pretty much, and
Speaker 2: finally post incident activity. This is absolutely crucial, but sometimes skipped.
Speaker 2: The lessons learned.
Speaker 1: Phase figuring out what went wrong and how to stop.
Speaker 2: It next time exactly, evaluating the response, improving procedures. It
Speaker 2: also includes forensic analysis, digging into the details, preserving evidence
Speaker 2: carefully in case legal action is needed, like a post mortem.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the digital response, but cybersecurity isn't purely digital,
Speaker 1: is it. What about protecting the actual buildings, the hardware.
Speaker 1: Physical security just as vital.
Speaker 2: You can have the best firewalls in the world, but
Speaker 2: if someone can walk in and unplug your server or
Speaker 2: steal it, game over right.
Speaker 1: So what are the threats there?
Speaker 2: They fall into three buckets. Environmental think natural disasters, fire, flood,
Speaker 2: extreme weather, even chemical spills, technical power failures HVAC issues
Speaker 2: causing overheating, dust, electromagnetic interference, and human caused unauthorized access, theft, vandalism,
Speaker 2: even insider threats. Doing physical damage lots to worry about, yep.
Speaker 2: So the approach is defense in depth. For physical security too,
Speaker 2: think layers like an onion layer. Yeah, concentric boundaries start
Speaker 2: with a site perimeter, fences, gates, then the billing perimeter, doors, windows, reception,
Speaker 2: then maybe the computer room itself with stronger locks, and
Speaker 2: finally locking equipment racks. Each layer has tighter access control.
Speaker 2: You might have unrestricted areas, restricted areas and really secure
Speaker 2: exclusion areas.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, multiple barriers and ultimately all the security physical
Speaker 1: and digital. It's about keeping the business running, isn't it,
Speaker 1: which leads to business continuity exactly.
Speaker 2: Business continuity is defined as the ability of an organization
Speaker 2: to maintain a se medental functions during and after a
Speaker 2: disaster has occurred. It's about keeping the lights on or
Speaker 2: getting them back on quickly.
Speaker 1: What does that involve?
Speaker 2: Key elements include continuity of management. Who's in charge of
Speaker 2: the boss isn't available? Train staff may be cross trains
Speaker 2: so people can cover critical roles, Resilient IT systems, backups,
Speaker 2: diverse communication paths and backup facilities, alternate buildings.
Speaker 1: Equipment, planning for the worst.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, and it involves balancing cost against two key metrics.
Speaker 2: RTO recovery time objective how fast you need to be
Speaker 2: back up and running, and RPO recovery point objective how
Speaker 2: much data can you afford to lose measured in time
Speaker 2: like the last hour's worth.
Speaker 1: Ah so, how quickly and how much data loss is?
Speaker 2: Okay? Right, it's a trade off. Faster recovery un less
Speaker 2: data loss usually cost more, and readiness is key here too.
Speaker 2: Awareness programs, specific training like evacuation drills and critically exercising
Speaker 2: and test in the plans regularly. You don't want the
Speaker 2: first test to be the real thing.
Speaker 1: Definitely not.
Speaker 2: And there's an evolving idea here called business resilience. It
Speaker 2: goes beyond just bouncing back. It's about adapting, being flexible,
Speaker 2: maybe even building systems that can self configure or self
Speaker 2: heal after disruption. More proactive, more adaptive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, one last pace. You've got governance, people, risk assessment, controls,
Speaker 1: incident response, physical security, continuity plans. How do organizations know
Speaker 1: if any of this is actually working? And how do
Speaker 1: they keep getting better.
Speaker 2: That's where security monitoring and improvement comes in. It's about
Speaker 2: checking your work and learning. First, security audits like an
Speaker 2: inspection sort of independent reviews to check if controls are adequate,
Speaker 2: if policies are being followed, and to detect any breaches
Speaker 2: or weaknesses. They look at things like audit trails, logs
Speaker 2: of who did what when on systems, applications, user actions,
Speaker 2: even physical access.
Speaker 1: Logs, checking the records exactly.
Speaker 2: Second, security performance measurement. This means defining clear, measurable metrics
Speaker 2: things you can actually track, like what like the percentage
Speaker 2: of systems that have critical patches applied within x days
Speaker 2: or the number of security incidents detected per month. Things
Speaker 2: that are objective, reproducible and show progress. What are your
Speaker 2: security goals. It's like your security.
Speaker 1: Report card, quantifying it right.
Speaker 2: And Third, it all feeds into continuous improvement using the
Speaker 2: results from audits, performance metrics, incident reviews, self assessments. All
Speaker 2: that feedback loops back into refining policies, updating controls, maybe
Speaker 2: changing training.
Speaker 1: So it's a constant cycle.
Speaker 2: It has to be because the threats are always changing.
Speaker 2: Technology evolves. You never just set it and forget it.
Speaker 2: Cybersecurity requires constant vigilance and adaptation.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so wrapping this up, what does it all mean?
Speaker 1: We've really journeyed through a massive landscape here, haven't we?
Speaker 1: From the basic definitions those tricky dilemmas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why it's so hard to.
Speaker 1: Managing people, assessing risk, building all those layers of defense,
Speaker 1: technical and physical, responding when things go wrong, keeping the
Speaker 1: business running, and constantly checking and improving.
Speaker 2: It's a lot, But hopefully breaking it down like this helps.
Speaker 1: I think. So it feels like we've navigated a really
Speaker 1: comprehensive guide.
Speaker 2: And the goal for you listening was to give you
Speaker 2: that solid foundation, those practical insights, to turn what can
Speaker 2: feel like overwhelming information into knowledge you can actually use
Speaker 2: or at least understand better.
Speaker 1: Right, actionable knowledge exactly.
Speaker 2: And maybe leave you with the final thought to chew on.
Speaker 2: Oh well, as our lives get more and more tangled
Speaker 2: up with things like AI autonomous systems, how is that
Speaker 2: going to change cybersecurity? How will concepts like control and
Speaker 2: accountability even work when the systems won't be making decisions
Speaker 2: on their own?
Speaker 1: Huh? That's yeah, what new dilemmas might pop up for
Speaker 1: us for organizations when AI is managing security or potentially
Speaker 1: becoming a threat itself.
Speaker 2: It's definitely something to think about, isn't it. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: landscape is always shifting.
Speaker 1: A really thought provoking question to end on. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on this deep dive today. Keep exploring,
Speaker 1: keep learning, and apply these insights to stay safer in
Speaker 1: our digital world.