mailbag@liquidmatrix.org
Long time listener, first time writing in...
I find myself compelled to write inasmuch as I found myself shouting at my iPod yesterday. I, of course, am referring to "Liquid Matrix Security Digest Podcast Episode 2" where a conversation about "What Should You Do If You Are The CISO Of A Breached Company?" occurred. Forgive me as I left the Post-It note with the timestamps of the offending speech on the mirror in my bathroom so that I may focus my Daily Rage upon it as I carefully shave "I da CISO, bitch!" into my scalp each morning.
In essence Ben argued that the role of the CISO in the event of a password breach is to stride confidently into the CEOs office and say "I told you this was going to happen, this is not my fault, and we need to force all users to change passwords - Damn The Consequences, Man!" (While this is not a direct quote it it was I very distinctly heard...)
While this is a nice gedankenexperiment in that it is very cool to imagine ourselves in the role of "Captain Astounding: Protector Of Users" but the reality of a breached company has certain rules..
1) If the breached company is a startup or new venture the Senior Management regards this event as an existential crisis. Not so much to the company itself - but to their exit plan (hey, who doesn't dream of being bought by Facebook or Microsoft for a billion dollars?) or to their about-to-be-so-far-underwater-they-implode stock options. Lose track of this fact and You Are Toast.
2) If the breached company is an older company the critical component is the quality of business leadership available. If they take counsel of their fears - see Rule 1. If they take a more mature view you can actually get effective response but know that you have almost no influence on that outcome.
3) If you were the CISO pre-breach you have to realize your credibility and professional competence is seriously in question by *everyone*. It matters not that you wrote 523 emails protesting storage of passwords in clear text, nor that you did not get the budget to keep your IPS under maintenance, nor that $Security_Requirement was ignored. If this offends your sensibilities I would simply refer you to the Book of Hezekiah, Chapter 9, Verse 27 where it is written "Yea, and the LORD spake unto the people, and the LORD spake "Life is not fair - never said it was, never said it will be - Get Over It!" and thus the people were greatly nonplussed".
4) If you are the successor to the CISO who ran the shop pre-breach you have to realize that nobody believes anything you say without the Incident Response Consultants agreeing with you. You have not been around long enough for anyone to trust you or to accept your influence. You will not be seen having the same "at-risk" quotient as everyone else (See Rule 1 above).
5) Almost everyone company that experiences a major breach turns a significant portion of the response and decision making to Outside Counsel and Incident Response Consultants. There are good and bad reasons for doing this - let's just accept that it happens. Fighting these folks - especially Outside Counsel - is generally a No Win situation (See Rule 3 & 4 above).
So what do you do?
You do what you can. You use whatever influence you have to try to do the right thing. But realize a breach response is *not* a Security Problem it is a Business Problem and that business folks are going to be in charge. If you cannot deal with that - you might want to become a Incident Response Consultant.
Love, Uncle @armorguy