In Information Security, Complexity is certainly bad and reducing complexity will beneficial both in terms of cost and otherwise.
By Kannan Subbiah
Image Attribute: Backlit keyboard, Source: Wikimedia Commons
Change is constant and we are seeing that everything around us are evolving. Primarily, the evolution is happening on the following categories:
Threats:
There is a drastic change in the threat landscape between now and the 1980s or even 1990s. Between 1980 and 2000, a good anti-virus and firewall solution was considered well enough for an organization. But now those are not just enough and the hackers are using sophisticated tools, technology and sills to attack the organizations. The motive behind hacking has also evolved and in that front, we see that hacking, though illegal is a commercially viable profession or business.
Compliance:
With the pace at which the Threat landscape is evolving, governments have reasons to be concerned much as they are increasingly leveraging the technology to better serve the citizens and thus giving room for an increased security risk. To combat such challenges, Governments have come up with regulatory compliance requirements making it even complex for the CSOs of enterprises.
Technology:
Technology is evolving at a much faster pace and as we are experiencing, we are seeing that the things around us are getting smarter with the ability to connect and communicate to internet. On the other side, considerable progress have been achieved in the Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, etc. These newer ‘smarter things’ are adding up to the complexity as the CSOs of the have to handle the threats that these bring on to the surface.
Needless to mention that the hackers too make the best use of the technology evolution and thus improving their attack capabilities day by day.
Business Needs:
The driver of adoption of these evolution is the business need. As businesses want to stay ahead of the competition, they leverage the evolving technologies and surge ahead of the competition. With a shorter time to market, all departments, including the security organization should be capable of accepting and implementing such changes at faster pace. Due to this time pressure, there is a tendency to look for easier and quicker ways to implement changes ignoring the best practices.
Consumerization:
IT today is to simplify things to the consumers within and outside the organization and this raises the user expectation and thus leading to too many changes with some being unrealistic as well. This may include the users bringing their own anything (BYOA). This will soon include Bring Your Own Identity with chips implanted under the skin. As you would know, employees who work at the new high tech office campus in Sweden, EpiCenter can wave their hands to open doors, with an RFID chip implanted under the skin.
Connected World:
Most enterprises are now connected with their business partners in terms for exchanging business data. With this the IT System perimeter extends to that of the partners’ as well to some extent. Rules and polices had to be relaxed to support such connected systems. Now that we are looking at things that we use every day will transform as connected things, adding up to the complexity.
Big Data:
Basically the need for big data tools to handle this. While this complexity did exist earlier, the attacks were not that sophisticated then. Today with the level of sophistication on the attack surface, the need for simplifying complexity of handling huge data is very much required.
Skillset:
The threat landscape is widening and the attacks are getting sophisticated, which call for even better tools and technologies to be used to prevent or counter them. This means that there is a continuous change in the method, approach, tools and technology used, making it difficult to maintain and manage the skills of the human resources.
Application Eco System:
A midsized organization will have hundreds of applications, needing to have different exceptions to the policies and rules. These applications may in turn use third party components and thus the chances of a vulnerability within these applications is very high. Given that these applications constantly undergo change and evolve, there is a possibility that the code or component left behind might expose a vulnerability.
How does this impact
Complexity impacts the security capability in many ways and the following are some:
Accuracy in Detection:
The complexity makes the detection of a compromise difficult. Having to handle and correlating large volume of logs from different devices and that too different vendors will always be a challenge and this makes timely and accurate detection a remote possibility. A successful counter measure require accurate detection in the pre-infection or at least in the infection stage. The later it is detected, it is complex to counter the same.
Resources:
Each new security technology requires people to properly deploy, operate and maintain it. But it is difficult to add new heads to the Security Organization as and when a new tool or technology is considered. Similarly, managing the legacy solutions put in by older employees who are no longer employed in the organizaiton is likely to remain untouched due to the fear of breaking certain things.
Vulnerabilities and Exposures:
With the huge number of applications used by the enterprise, this is a complex and huge exercise, unless the same is integrated into the build and delivery process by mandating a security vulnerability assessment. With innumerable number of applications, components, and the operating systems connecting to the enterprise network, this is almost impossible. Needless to mention that with the wearables and other smarter things connection to the network, who knows, what vulnerability exist in such smarter things and in turn exploited by hackers.
Methods for Reducing Complexity
Complexity is certainly bad and reducing complexity will beneficial both in terms of cost and otherwise. However, simplification by any means should not result in compromising the needed detection and protection abilities. A balanced approach is necessary so that the risk, cost and complexity are well balanced and beneficial to the organization. The following are some of the methods that may help reduce the complexity:
- Integrated processes as against isolated security processes. Every Business process should have the security related processes integrated within, so that every person in the organization will by default contribute towards security. The security process framework shall be designed in such a manner that it evolves over a period based on experience and feedback.
- Practicing Agile approach within the security organization, so that the complexity is hidden within tools and appliances by automating the same. Agile approach also helps the security organization to embrace changes faster, especially, when implementing changes in response to a detected threat or compromise. One has to carefully adopt such practices into the Security framework.
- Outsourcing the security operations to Managed Security Service Providers(MSSP) is certainly an option for small and medium enterprises that brings takes some of the complexity away and thus benefits the organization. Needless to mention here that outsourcing does not absolve the responsibility of the security organization from any security incident or breach.
- “Shrinking the Rack” – Consolidating technologies whereby devices combining multiple technology and capability within it may make it easier for deployment and administration. At the same time this has the risk of ‘having all eggs in one basket’, i.e. when such a device or solution is hacked, then it is far and wide open for the hackers.
- Mandating periodical code, component and process refactoring, where by unneeded legacy code, component and process are periodically reviewed and removed from the system. This will help keeping the applications maintainable and secure. Also implant security as a culture amongst all the employees, so that they handle security indicators responsibly.
About the Author:
Kannan Subbiah (TR RID: J-8107-2016), management professional with 27 years of overall experience in IT Project, Product and program Management, Enterprise & Solution Architecture and Design & Deployment. One can subscribe to his daily digest at Tech-Bytes by Kanna Subbiah and can follow him at twitter - @kannagoldsun
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