threat

Anton posted about Cyber Security Plans.

I follow you 100%, Anton! There has been a large number of these hijacks lately, and it is obvious that being paranoid is not enough.

It is due time to set up your cyber security plan, and as a bare minimum I suggest it should include:

• list of all your profiles online, with your log in.
• list of all your IM/e-mail and other communication tools, with log in
• list of other sites/tools that requires you to log on.
• The lists above should also include each sites URL or contact information for changing passwords, or in worst case shutting them down.
• a friends-list who you trust, and who are willing to help you get back your own life online. The purpose is to have them help you rebuild your internet presence. Make sure you agree some way for them to be certain that they are communicating with you, and not someone else.
• in case you are living in a less secure part of the world, being 0wned online may also mean you are a target in the real world. A friend of mine got attacked online, and then the appartment was broken into. Nothing but memory cards, pins and similar computer storage was stolen. Makes you wonder, right?

The list will grow. Please help me - what should the Cyber Security Plan look like? What would you do if the worst happens?

Recently, I posted a question on LinkedIn. I asked LinkedIn professionals and everybody else how they define Information security. The reason behind the question is simple - I meet a lot of people thinking I am a IT-security guy. And allthough I do know what a firewall is, and how to operate an IPS, I am an Information security specialist. To me, that means I deal with information - not only the technology we use to communicate.

Not surprisingly, many answers where in the technology-sphere:

• I define it as the protection of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive data.
• interpretation is the building of a Digital Infrastructure ( D.I ) to be able to authenticate and verify the real person versus an imposter.
• the technological methods deployed by the intruders to hack this information versus technological methods used by you to protect this data

To me, technology is merely the tools we apply to get a part of the job done. So it is only important when the information itself resides or communications using technology.

A few smart comments where made as well:

• I'd rather clearly view the difference between information and desinformation.
  

Juri here points directly as one important feature of information security - the control of information, and the extension of using the same control to impact your environment. An example is from the spying business, where disinformation is used to create FUD. The same is applied by vendors in their sales process, making the customer uncertain about choosing the competitors products.

Although disinformation is not widely focused upon in the industry, I find it very interesting and important. Not necessarily to use it, but to understand that others might be.

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Not surprisingly, Bruce Schneier's definition surfaced, in Jennifers wording:

Security is a defense against something intentional; Safety is a defense against something accidental.

My favorite is the definition made by Bruce Hallas. He will smile now!

"Security is about the management of commercial risk stemming from the interaction between people, both known and unknown, with an organizations information and information systems."

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Imo, when security personal cries about not getting heard by their management, I believe they are responsible themselves. The purpose of security is not security it self, but the control of risks related to the organization.

You have a successful blog or a company website. You serve your visitors well, and provide good quality information that attracts a high number of visitors. Your website is hosted on one of the many ISPs, and you are confident that they have taken care of all the security for you. No need to worry about a crook hijacking your website, nor a spammer using you as a relay.

You get a complaint from one of your visitors that there are strange things going on when they visit your website, but as you never heard this before, you decide it is the visitor at fault, not the website. A few weeks go by; you see on the stats that the number of visitors decreases. One day when updating your website, you get a window popup you never saw before, and suddenly your antivirus client starts screaming and kicking. You do have an updated anti-virus client, right?