Prospect: "We need to improve our security! The threat of AI attacks is worrying me."
My reply: “Better security starts with location.”
Location matters. When I was in the Navy on a “West Pac” cruise, I did some duty as Shore Patrol in ports where we docked. I noticed something.
There were parts of the cities where sailors could go and enjoy a nice dinner, have a few drinks if they wanted to, and return to the ship safely. And there were other parts of the city where danger lurked. I remember one man being carried back by his shipmates, bleeding, after he had been stabbed and robbed.
Yes, danger can happen anywhere, but some places are more dangerous than others.
And the Internet is a dangerous place.
You’ve read the articles. Artificial intelligence is going to increase the scale, speed, intensity, and unpredictability of attacks.
So the first question to ask yourself is, “Does my data need to be in this neighborhood?”
Some of it does, yes. Online ordering information needs to be on the Internet.
Customer data, on the other hand, can be moved offline. Employee data, too. Get it out of the dangerous neighborhood, and half your security problem is solved.
Bsides conferences are full of lectures on improving cloud security, but I’ve never heard a single lecture there on deciding what can be removed from the cloud. People have stopped thinking about the neighborhood. I’m not picking on Bsides; this is just an example. Cloud-only thinking is everywhere.
- When you're ready for a Wide Area Network built without Internet connectivity,
- When you're ready to admit that most of your data doesn't need to be connected to the Internet at all,
- When you're able to see that most of your data only needs to be accessible from a small number of locations,
Then you're ready for me to help your team design and implement:
1) a network that doesn't have a global attack surface,
2) and where data can't be exfiltrated over the Internet because the Internet just isn't connected to it.
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