News & Thoughts from the Axenic Team
We think that the new version of NIST’s Cyber Security Framework is a significant improvement. There’s one big change, but it is the lots of little changes that add up to a massive overall improvement. New Zealand organisations will still need to do some work to plug some of its idiosyncratic gaps, however.
Primarily the story about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is one of great human tragedy. Nothing I write here is supposed to take away from the fact that the main story is about the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Even at the other end of the world here in Aotearoa New Zealand, however, there will be impacts. Though they may just be echoes of the fury in Europe. It’s no secret that cyber attacks are part of Russian military strategy, nor that New Zealand organisations have been the victims of Russian cybercriminals. So what effects – if any – will the war in the Ukraine have on cyber security here?
All the experts agree – cyber security should be an organisation-wide concern. And yet, in my experience too many organisations, and too many people in those organisations think that cyber security is solely the concern of (a) the security team, or (b) the IT/digital team. In case you need convincing my favourite response is that if there is a cyber-attack (or incident) then it is not the IT team’s job that is at risk, but part of the organisation (if the HR system is compromised it is the HR team who won’t be able to work, not the IT or security teams). Who knows what the impact is of an attack? It’s not IT, that’s for sure. And who is best placed to balance off the needs of the organisation with the cyber risks? It’s not security: if you left it up to me, I’d turn everything off! That’s the only way to be sure (and I get no benefit from it being on, so…)
Last week Michael Price, Ahmed ElAshmawy and Chris Blunt from Axenic were fortunate enough to make the trip across the Tasman to Sydney for the 2nd annual COSAC APAC Security Conference. All 3 had the chance to speak to the attendees and without any bias, Michael shares his take on the Top Talk and some other notable mentions.
Information security is all about context!
In my previous two articles in this series focused on developing an Information Security Management System (ISMS) based on ISO 27001:2013, I presented the common myths associated with the standard. In this article, I am going to provide an overview of the standard and section 4 Context of the organisation.