One of the goals of this blog, as well as the ultimate goal of my career, is to simplify all aspects of cybersecurity. Well, maybe not all. I have no idea how to simplify a penetration test (or even perform one), or encryption mechanisms, but I’ve got the high-level stuff covered! 🙂

From my perspective, cybersecurity is already simple. You would hope so, it’s what I do, but that’s not actually what I meant. Which is that every aspect of cybersecurity must be simple for it to even be effective security in the first place. There is no room for complicated. It must also be accessible to everyone who needs it, regardless of their current role or previous experience.

It is therefore the job of every cybersecurity professional to make this stuff easy, but clearly we are not doing a very good job. In fact, I would go as far as to say that there are certain elements that seem to go out of their way to make things difficult!

What / who are these elements, and why are they doing it?

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1. No offence, but Element 1 is You; While you may not be a security expert, you are every bit as responsible for security as those who are the experts. Ignorance of your responsibilities is no excuse, and if your organisation does not provide you the necessary training, demand that they do so. Unless you’ve lived in a hole for the last 10 years, you have seen the headlines related to data breaches. You really don’t want to be the cause of one.
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2. Which is the ideal segue into the Element 2, which is; Senior Management. If they don’t care about security, there’s a very chance you don’t care (see element 1.). If cybersecurity is not in the Top 5 priorities of your BoD / CEO, then you likely have an entirely ineffectual security program. If you even have one at all. There is nothing more difficult and seemingly complicated than starting something from the very beginning, but start you must.
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3. Element 3 is of course, Lawyers / Regulators. Not that they do this on purpose, it’s that they just can’t help themselves. The language of the law is practically incomprehensible to the rest of us, yet it has to be lawyers that write every contract, regulation, and [of course] law out there. Combine their legal-ese with something you already don’t understand [cybersecurity], and you’re left scratching your head in frustration. Or worse, avoiding it altogether.
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4.  And the worst of the bunch, Element 4; Security Vendors. This is the one that is truly reprehensible. How many of you, for example, know what Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) are? Or User and Entity Behavioral Analytics (UEBA)? What about Intelligence-Driven Security Operations Center Orchestration Solutions? No, me either. What I DO know is that you don’t need ANY of these things until such times as your risk assessment TELLS you need them! You have that process well oiled, right?

Of all the horrendous clichés out there, my favourite is ‘Back to Basics’. Cybersecurity is simple, bloody difficult, but simple. Anything that complicates it can be effectively ignored until such times as you’re ready for it. You will never get there by buying technology, and you will never get there until you get the basics right.

Luckily the basics are the cheapest things to fix. All you have to do is get your CEO to care, formalise your Governance, and get all of your policies and procedures in place.

Simple, right?

OK, that was facetious, but if you think any of these things is complicated you’re just not asking the right people the right questions.

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