Security Insights

Mind games: the psychology of cybersecurity

How important is human behaviour in cybersecurity? How well do we know our people, and do we understand the risks posed by individuals' actions?

Research suggests that the overwhelming majority of cyber breaches start with human error or poor practice. But despite investments in security training and security awareness, we still make mistakes.

Over the next three episodes, we will examine some of the human factors around cybersecurity, including human risk management, and how we change behaviour.

We'll start the series by looking at the psychology of cybersecurity, as well as how to measure change.

Our guest is Dr Thea Mannix, a neuroscientist and head of research at Praxis Security Labs

AI: chatbots, cut and paste, and data leaks

Our guest for this episode is Tim Freestone, of Kiteworks. He’s a long-standing expert in data protection and data privacy. And he's been following the growth of AI, and what it means for data privacy, security and confidentiality.

Even data specialists have been surprised by the rapid take up of generative AI and its benefits. But do we have the measure in place to guard against the potential security risks it brings?

It is not just malicious hackers who make AI tools such as chatbots a risk. Even something as simple as pasting information into a generative AI tool can cause problems. And he argues that we need to apply security's zero trust approach to AI too.

Interview by Stephen Pritchard

 

IT, OT, and CNI: a hidden threat?

Any advanced economy relies on the smooth running of its infrastucture.

And whether it’s transport, logistics, healthcare, the banking system, manufacturing – even food production – industrial and operational systems are what keeps it all running.

Those systems are now being targeted by malicious actors. Both state-sponsored and criminal groups are looking closely at operational technology and industrial systems.

Recent research suggests that many, if not most, of the groups attacking critical national infrastructure are linked to national intelligence agencies. And that raises some difficult questions about how both businesses, and their governments, should respond.

Our guest is Mark Magpie Graham, technical director for threat intelligence at Dragos, who carried out the research.

Ransomware: can transparency bring security?

It's hard to put an exact figure on ransomware attacks. All the available research shows incidents continue to grow year on year, and that the vast majority of cyber incidents are now ransomware or other extortion attacks.

But could more transparency and information sharing help defend against ransomware?

If more organisations disclosed attacks, we would have a clearer picture of the problem and be able to respond more quicky to new techniques or attack vectors.

That's the argument put forward by this week's guest.

Sabeen Malik is vice president of global government affairs and public policy at Rapid7. She has put together a ransomware disclosure framework, based around the "3 Cs" of capabilities, context, and collective action.

She tells Stephen Pritchard how it works, and why it could help.

Cyber war: new lessons from history?

The idea of cyber war is not new; researchers first suggested the concept 30 years ago.

Since then, there's been a debate on what cyber war means and what can be done to prevent it.

Some experts even suggest cyber war is already happening, even if it is mostly in the shadows.

For Peter Kestner, the rise of cyber attacks and an increasingly volatile geopolitical situation were just two of the reasons to examine cyber warfare in more detail.

Peter is both a keen student of history, and a cybersecurity professional with over 25 years' experience in consulting in the sector.

He decided to combine the two interests, and the result is his new book, "The Art of Cyber Warfare".

Peter believes that by looking into conflicts in the past, we can learn valuable lessons about how warfare, and especially cyber warfare, might develop. But history can also teach us how to improve our defences, against adversaries who are as comfortable attacking civilian as government or military targets.

• Please note this episode contains some stronger than usual language.

A CISO's Journey: Mani Nagothu, SentinelOne

The CISO’s role is changing; that is clear enough.

Indeed, constant change and the need to adapt is always a feature of cybersecurity.

And that’s why our guest this week lists curiosity as one of the key attributes for a cybersecurity career.

Mani Nagothu is field CISO at SentinelOne. Before that she headed up IT security for an energy company. That followed a career as a consultant.

But she didn’t start out in cybersecurity, but as an engineer. And the CISO’s role itself is becoming less technical, and more business focused, she says.

In this episode Mani talks to Stephen Pritchard about her career so far, what it takes to be successful as a CISO, and why greater diversity is the key to strengthening our security teams, and so our defences.  

Cyber on demand: filling the skills gap?

The cybersecurity skills gap is a problem that won't go away.

Worldwide, there are close to 3.5 million vacancies in the industry. The problem seems to be worsening, not least because we are all doing more business online.

And moves to recruit and retain more staff, as well as to widen the talent pool, take time.

In the immediate term this leaves CISOs with gaps to fill. One option is outsourcing. Another is to use “on demand” cyber specialists. But how do these options work with building larger and more effective in-house teams?

Do they go hand in hand, or are the two measures likely to conflict?

In the second of the second of our three part series looking at the evolution of the CISO role, we speak to Victoria Parker, advisory professional services manager at Orange CyberDefense.

We discuss how external experts can help organisations secure their environments now - but how CISOs still need to invest in their own teams, and that critical talent pipeline.

Chief Business Security Officers: a CISO's new ally?

What is a chief business security officer, and what do they do?

IT and data security are increasingly important. But so too are physical security and resilience.

The chief business security officer, though, is a fairly new addition to the security team.

Over the next three episodes of the Security Insights podcast, we’ll look at the changing role of the CISO, the role interim or outsourced security professionals can play in plugging the skills gap.

We’ll cover the role of interim and virtual CISOs, and whether outsourcing parts of security can make up for a growing skills gap.

But first, we ask Anaïs Beaucousin, Chief Business Security Officer at ADP International, about her role, the threats and risks she manages, and what is needed to make the most of a broader security team.

Ransomware: should payments be banned?

Ransomware now accounts for the vast majority of cyber attacks.

But regulators and law makers are increasingly concerned about the money being paid out to ransomware groups -- often, it is used to fund further crime.

Should paying ransoms be banned? Would a ban improve security, or make matters worse? And what steps can organisations take, to cut the risk of falling victim to a ransomware attack in the first place?

Our guest this week is Ian Thornton Trump, CISO at Cyjax. He believes that calls to ban ransomware are misplaced; a ban gives firms fewer options when it comes to responding to an attack. And fines for paying ransoms is further punishing victims of cybercrime.

He discusses the development of ransomware, why it is so dangerous, and how to counter it with Stephen Pritchard.

Cloud security: an identity problem

In this episode, we look at why a lack of robust identity controls are one of the biggest causes of cloud security failures.

Cloud operators, at least the larger ones, now have robust security in place. But that security is there, first and foremost, to protect their business. The "shared responsibility model" means that users are responsible for their data and applications.

The problem, as our guest this week identifies, is that senior managers fail to understand that point, and expect the cloud to fix everything.

It won't, and as Jennifer Cox, member of the global engineering team at Tenable, and director for Ireland of Women in Cybersecurity, warns "it always makes me a bit nervous when people think that something is foolproof".