Traditions
As the turkey and stuffing (and leftovers) have faded into happy memories we are left with two things: 1) additional pounds from the feast and 2) traditions. The holiday tradition directly stems from our lasting memories and habits of celebration. This time of year, I can’t help but think about traditions and how that applies to an organization’s security posture.
According to Wikipedia, Tradition is the belief or behavior passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past.
To get us started, let’s jump to the tradition of roasting a turkey. Below are two roasters; one belonged to my wife’s grandma and the other we acquired in recent years. Can you tell which is which? Ha! The design and goal with the 60’s roaster is similar to our modern device. Dials have been replaced with buttons while safety features like auto-shutoff and grounded electrical cords have been added. One thing is for sure – the goal of the device is the same…produce a delicious result!
Like a roaster, the topic of security shares a number of traditions passed down through the years. No matter how you slice it, the goals have been and always will be same:
- Provide me an Inbox free from dangerous emails – yesterday’s traditional spam and anti-virus scanner technology are insufficient for today’s modern threats. Advanced threats such as malware, embedded links, and phishing attacks are the new wave.
- Keep my computer infection free – our employees are under attack with well-crafted phishing emails and sophisticated browser exploits. Protective technology and culture improvement are ripe for a “new tradition”.
- Allow me access to files to get my work done – employees are productive when systems are humming and employees have access and ability to find information. This is possible only if IT has planned for contingencies and provides an “Easy Button” approach for access.
“New” Traditions
To reach these security goals, we traditionally organized elements of People / Process / Technology into a solution that helped us reach our goal. Over time, we have seen tradition-based technology losing the battle to modern threats. This makes it impossible to reach our traditional goals outlined above. Similarly, over the years your family may have changed (marriages, children, new home, fancy new roasters) which has probably led to new traditions during the holidays. So what new traditions can we bring to our world of security?
If today’s threats are making you question your security traditions, we’ve written dozens of blogs on advancing your security traditions in areas of People / Process / Technology that might help you come up with some new ones:
Goal: | People | Process | Technology |
Inbox | Security Awareness | Next Generation Firewall | Microsoft Adv. Threat Protection |
Keep | Security | Patch, | Browser-based |
Allow | People, Process, and the Facility of course | O365 Teams, Groups, SharePoint & OneDrive | Easy, secure VPN |
If you are want a deeper dive on anything you’ve read or have interest in advancing your traditions, drop us a note at info@peters.com.
