The New Network Security Equation We’re Discovering by Accident: IT<IIoT
Right after we celebrate the birthdays of two of the most destructive cyber attacks ever launched (WannaCry and NotPetya) a disturbing VxWorks advisory is issued for billions of IoT devices, and perhaps millions of them are unpatchable. There is a simple, fundamental equation that no one seems to grasp when ... Read More
Health Care Digitalization Brings New Security Challenges
The advantages of digitalization are well documented and understood, especially in health care. Patients, for example, benefit when their doctors can access critical data by simply plugging a device into a wall jack. That wall jack typically connects to every other connected device in the hospital. If the hospital is ... Read More
Happy Birthday WannaCry
Microsoft released a patch update to… Windows XP? What’s up with that? Here are highlights from Ars Technica ( Dan Goodin) augmented with recent commentary: Microsoft is warning that the Internet could see another exploit with the magnitude of the WannaCry attack that shut down computers all over the world ... Read More
The Zero Trust Paradox
Or The Zero Trust Graveyard… your choice. I just glanced through an analyst report on “zero trust” and noted the sizable eco-system of startups and security cartel players who have all managed to join the party. After all, it’s a noble aim. If there isn’t a way for an untrusted ... Read More
Connecting the Dots on OT/IT Convergence
Gabe is Back In the heady days of massive network infrastructure growth there was a single analyst who knew the vendors cold. And all of us on the Wall Street briefing circuit knew Gabe Lowy. Gabe didn’t waste time with small talk. On the way to the conference room he ... Read More
Converged Infrastructure: The Cyber Security Stakes are Higher than Ever
Promiscuous Connectivity The TCP/IP stack made it easy for billions of devices to connect over the internet in just a few decades, starting in the 1990s. Now we’re expecting more than 75 billion devices to be connected by 2025. Maybe TCP/IP was too good at its initial mission to ensure ... Read More
Will the next war be cyber?
In 2018 I moderated a Future in Review panel on Russian cyber meddling in Ukraine. One of my comments during the panel (“What happens in Ukraine doesn’t stay in Ukraine.”) ended up making it into Newsweek only to be inadvertently validated by the Russian election interference news cycle. At the ... Read More
O/T Cyber Security Accelerated
How to Fight Stack Fatigue and Win As I mentioned in OT/IT Convergence I had the chance to meet someone responsible for securing and isolating control infrastructure for a state-wide array of more than 600 smart buildings, ranging from campus offices to remote agricultural labs, in a matter of weeks ... Read More
Will OT/IT Convergence Force a TCP/IP Transformation?
So much has changed since the creation of the TCP/IP stack. Work on the stack began in 1973 and the first public WAN was initiated in 1982 (see this timeline for a great point of reference). About a decade later network security solutions started appearing in response to various emerging ... Read More
Freedom of Cloud Domain Available
A Domain for a Cloud Provider or Partner with Passion Years ago I wanted to create the ideal name for a domain that expresses a vendor’s passion for enabling their customers to have the freedom to pick their clouds as needed, when needed… and it came to me: Freedom of ... Read More
