I get to speak to a masters in cyber security class at a major university on Monday. They are learning about interacting with senior leadership/BoD on topics of cyber risk. I have many stories to share with them, but curious if y’all have any ideas on what you thank that group should know
I should probably figure out what cyber security means before I go speak to a masters class about cyber security.
@jerry cybersecurity means being both the problem and the solution. ducks
@da_667 @jerry Computers solve the problems we didn't have without them 😎
@jerry Nah. I didn’t, and it went fine.

@paul_ipv6 @jerry
That's the great thing about the word "cyber" – it means whatever the speaker wants it toean.

That's also the awful thing about the word "security."

@brouhaha @jerry

cyber. isn't that something you're supposed to have more of in your diet so you're "regular"? :)

@jerry It’s when you “cyber” securely, e.g. door closed, lights off, all alone.
@jerry I put on my robe and wizard hat… securely 
@hotsoup I doubt anyone there will be old enough to understand that reference
@jerry @hotsoup Damn it, that means I'm the same age as old people.
@hotsoup @jerry “I cast lvl 3 eroticism..”
@jerry going all philosophical
@jerry if it is a professional focus - maybe something along the lines of "it is about influencing people, not saying no to them"

@jerry too fastidious.

Just say "3.0" at some point.

@jerry

Go with the SANS retro-encabulator video and then ask for questions 😉

@jerry generations of school kids keep asking me this exact question and I still can't come up with an answer that could make any sense
@jerry Can you just speak about cyber insecurity and then tell them to imagine the opposite?
@zcutlip @jerry Um, what is the opposite of cyber?
@jerry just ask Ai. You will be fine 😏
@jerry
Hack all their accounts, before arriving.
@jerry cybersecurity means never having to say you’re sorry.
@jerry it's having a warm fuzzy feeling 🧸❤️ about the cyber 💻
@jerry "risk acceptance and good insurance"
@jerry yeah... I think you got this one. :)
@jerry relating any recommendations to financial impact is all they care about. How much it will cost to implement, vs. how much it'll cost if we don't implement it.

@da_667 @jerry Yes, indeed. Especially the bean counters need to have an NPV waved at them!

But the rest of the board should also care about reputational risk.

So the lesson is that while CxO should care about data security and operational integrity - and the tech and training that that implies - it may need to be translated into money and shame to be salient...

@DamonHD @da_667 @jerry i dare you to ask them how many have any technical background whatsoever

@Viss @DamonHD @jerry I had a music major as my datacenter ops manager.

I want you to understand, I know that sometimes, someone changing majors and/or professions sometimes happens and that these people can be quite good in a totally difference space (edit:clarification), but this dude paid for a cleaning service that does datacenters to come and clean the datacenter. It didn't really need it, and was genuinely a waste.

Now, us replacing all of our network fabric, and re-doing our cable management, which was another huge endeavor, was a big win.

@da_667 @Viss @DamonHD @jerry I have 7/8 of a music degree.
@Sempf @da_667 @DamonHD @jerry sure, its totally possible for people to be nerds and that not match their major. ive just encountered so many people with a 'masters in cybercyber' that dont have even basic experience, like installing an os or configuring a linksys its tainted the whole degree for me

@Sempf @da_667 @Viss @DamonHD @jerry

3+4? 4+3? 2+2+3?

jaunty meters no frighten the stakeholders?

@jerry this also relates to budgeting for new tools, and head count. Learn to create proposals for head count and/or tooling. Including cost figures in those figures. I worked tech support at Sourcefire for a number of years, and had team leads who were bitching that we didn't have all the tools we need to do the job. One of them would put a draft together, submit it, the boss would ask "where are the costs?" and it would NEVER progress. It all comes down to cost. If you don't mention cost, they don't care.

@da_667

@jerry

That's what I'm trying to do, but I generally have doubts about my estimates. When it comes to cybersecurity trends or estimated losses if security features remain unimplemented, I always feel that the figures I have are pretty random and not sufficiently backed up by facts.

@bongoknight @da_667 @jerry In my experience, that doesn’t matter as much. Just cite known examples of breached companies who had to pay damages, spend huge amounts to fix any damage, added costs for additional crisis PR management or the money spent on lawyers. Even just ballpark averages for those costs are usually enough to wake them up to the costs of disaster if things go unimplemented.
@da_667 @jerry Walk the fine line between fearmongering and allowing the BoD to snooze.

@jerry The importance of being able to marry technical jargon and precision with a layperson's understanding.

I have had so many senior leadership/Board discussions and it always boils down to being able to have a depth of understanding that allows for that ELI5 type of communication.

@jerry Knowing Corporate only gets you that far, at some point you must know the Individuals.

Risk perception and appetite is a deeply personal trait.

@jerry

just enjoying the idea of referring to senior leadership as the blue screen of death 💀

@jerry ask if they are on this instance! 🤭
@jerry "Contemporaneous notes" are admissible as evidence in court. Cover your ass.

@jerry I'd suggest two things: a) Ethics - should you do something, or should you say something when you discover a problem?

b) A couple of stories about why security researchers/sysadmins can be like magicians - because we will spend an inordinate amount of time on doing some tiny thing to absolute perfection in order to find out something that is bugging us:

1/ Clifford Stoll found an unauthorized user who had apparently used nine seconds/75cents of computer time and not paid for it. It was a KGB Hacker. Oh, and "The Cuckoos Egg" had a nice cookie recipe too.

2/ The XZ Backdoor was found by a user, testing SSH, who saw that logins were taking too long.....

@jerry Understand what the personal risks are for the board. Usually it is tied to shareholder value and/or profit loss.

Play on that. In for-profits, nothing else will work.

Sorry to sound so cynical.

@jerry Let them know that despite there being plenty of anti-AI sentiment out in the world, it is not only NOT going away but it is up to the security community to fix it. Just like we did with PHP when that came out spawning hundreds of vulnerable websites from non-HTML programmers. Just like we did when we moved from server rooms to the cloud. Before HTTPS. And on and on. Whether we like it or not, security pros have to fix things.

@jerry @simplenomad

GIVE THIS PERSON AN AWARD!!!
🎖️🏅🥇

@simplenomad @jerry I just make all my prompts end with “and be sure you make it secure” and everything is fine
@joshbressers @jerry I take a step further, repost the LLM’s code in a separate chat, and say “I wrote this code but strongly suspect it is insecure, please show me the flaws and give me a diff to fix things.”

@simplenomad @jerry it’s amusing to me that LLMs are better then the average security bug hunter

But they also can’t write secure code

@jerry relaying how their org is doing when compared with their peers. I get asked that on the weekly. Understanding the risk completely and how that impacts the org is really important too, and being able to explain that risk. Don't misspeak either, especially in consulting roles.

Don't be that nervous. They're just people at the end of the day who (hopefully) want to see their org mitigating future attacks. This one I notice a large difference between internal and consulting roles.

@jerry For high-level Corp. mgmt., communication governance in an incident is key. They may have to manage confidentiality while allowing the investigation to proceed, and they shouldn't allow info to propagate, even though high-ranked officials will demand access to the info. The story could get out before they could control this, which (obvs) will be detrimental to the stock price.