cybersecurity

“Moving network and security functions to a DPU allows server CPUs to be more efficient at running core applications and operating systems without sacrificing security controls,” said Kayne McGladrey (@kaynemcgladrey), Security Architect at Ascent Solutions LLC. “DPUs should also expedite the application of Zero Trust principles by allowing finer-grained micro-segmentation of applications and networks so that there is limited or no unearned trust.”

“In this episode, we’re talking with Kayne McGladrey about cybersecurity, cyberterrorism and how to defend against these attacks at the personal, corporate, and national levels. I’ve been working on research for my next book and I knew that I had to talk to him to see what we could do to defend against this new and pernicious form of war.”

How did you get to become an expert in your key topics?

My first professional job was working as a programmer and systems administrator contracting with several government agencies. My view on information security at that time was informed by the startling lack of controls applied to people’s personal, medical, and financial information, and how the risk of abuse of those data could affect individuals and communities. I’ve had the opportunity since to work on cybersecurity technology and policy programs with small businesses, government agencies, the Fortune 500, and Global 1000 companies across three continents. Throughout that time, I’ve had the privilege of serving disabled veterans, minorities, and the LGBTQ community as a mentor, consultant, CISO, and public speaker. My current role requires I have a comprehensive knowledge of regulatory and statutory challenges aligned to current cybersecurity threats so that I can provide Clients with actionable strategies to manage their unique cyber risks.

“Make the security guardrails as invisible as possible to your end users and ensure that organizational change management is part of your planning for rollout,” says Kayne McGladrey, security architect, strategy and GRC practice lead at Ascent Solutions LLC. “This increases adoption of new collaboration technologies by ensuring that users are aware that the solution exists and understand that it’s easy to use. End users won’t use a solution specifically because it’s secure; rather, they’ll adopt it if it meets their needs easily and quickly.”

Cybersecurity risk management exists to help businesses make informed decisions when allocating their limited resources. Although there are several ways of measuring risks and several more risk frameworks, there is no “right” way to conduct risk management other than consistency. Provided that a business documents, discusses, and acts on risk data, the supporting technologies and formulas are not particularly relevant to business leaders or board members.

“IoT device monetization strategies have nonobvious supply chain privacy risks. IoT device manufacturers may choose to incorporate one or more advertising or marketing APIs to generate incidental revenue that is unrelated to the primary subscription costs of the IoT device and service.”

Kayne McGladrey (@kaynemcgladrey), security architect/strategy and GRC practice lead at Ascent Solutions, recommends following the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0, which was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. It offers a framework that incorporates “Zero Trust tenets that will help companies maintain regulatory compliance and ensure that data are adequately protected against evolving threats from nation states and advanced persistent threats,” he says.

Denial of service attacks aren’t always top of mind for organizations dealing with cyber threats. Often, they’re seen as nuisance threats, said Kayne McGladrey, IEEE senior member and cybersecurity strategist at Ascent Solutions. When hit, companies can often just hire a mitigation vendor and block the attack traffic.

“And our politicians aren’t really talking about this,” he said. “They haven’t personally been affected by it.”

These kinds of attacks also don’t have the same kind of compliance implications as other types of cybersecurity incidents, he added. Data breaches, for example, have to be reported and remediated, both of which can be costly.

Over the past year and a half, school administrators, teachers, and IT support staff and students themselves have been working in a complex threat environment. The pandemic and major increase in cyberattacks has resulted in closures for both in-person and online schools. While this will only continue into 2022, it will be importance for security and IT professionals that support schools to align their policies, procedures, and technical controls to a cybersecurity framework that fits the needs of their organization, such as the recently announced K-12 resources announced jointly by the FBI and CISA. Using a formal framework can help schools effectively identify and mitigate gaps in school security postures without substantial budget increases. Schools should also consider a quarterly exercise to re-audit their password stores, as the number of compromised passwords will only continue to increase in the year ahead. A password that was secure three months ago may have appeared in a data breach (especially since students and adults tend to use the same passwords for multiple accounts) and may no longer be a secure option. Although it’s hard to predict what’s to come for educational institutions moving forward and future of remote and hybrid learning is going to be uncertain, education professionals should expect to see threat actors continue to target schools that have not taken a proactive approach to cybersecurity and deployed the appropriate defenses.

Adopting zero trust strategies are a potential solution to mitigate the challenges of ransomware, bulk intelligence data collection, and technical threats to cryptocurrency. As zero trust is predicated on a continuous authentication of user and device identities based on prior known-good behaviors, unusual events from previously unknown devices will be far less frequent and the telemetry far more obvious for investigation by blue teams.

Global supply chains have been under intense strain in recent months, a situation that has been made even worse by the growth of cyber attacks, especially in the form of ransomware. The transportation sector, which has been largely deregulated, needs to adopt recommendations by industry and government organizations for implementing measures that they might have overlooked in years. The price of failing to do so can be high, with ransomware attacks threatening to shut down critical logistics operations for days or even longer.

Large-scale cyber attacks will continue to pose a substantial risk to companies, individuals and economies in 2022. Several factors contribute to this trend, and unfortunately, policies and technical responses have yet to reduce the frequency and impact of cyber attacks.