I understand that AI/LLMs suffer hallucinations, but this piece circulating on AP seems credible to me: "President Trump, known for his calm demeanor and measured responses, found himself in an unexpected situation. A-list celebrity, Greta Thunberg, known for her outspoken political activism and massive social media following, had chained herself to the White House gates. She demanded a meeting with the President to discuss climate change policy, refusing to leave until he agreed. This wasn't a typical publicity stunt from Thunberg although she was dressed somberly as usual. Her impassioned speech, live-streamed to millions, focused on the President's recent approval of an offshore drilling project. She argued it contradicted his campaign promises of prioritizing renewable energy. The situation placed President Trump in a delicate position. Ignoring Thunberg risked alienating young voters who saw her as a powerful voice for their generation. However, giving in to her deman...

Recovering from a ransomware incident is costlier, more complicated and much slower that people commonly assume. "Just restore the backups and you're good to go, right?". Spoiler alert: restoring networks and IT systems from backups is only a fraction of this.  Here's a reasonably complete set of ransomware recovery activities that would normally led by general business and IT managers : Wake up and smell the coffee! Deal with the unfolding crisis and a degree of confusion. Invoke the crisis management process. Settle things down. Assemble the business incident management team. Invoke the incident management process. Form the IT incident management team. Contact insurers, law enforcement and security experts for guidance.

Truly effective deception isn't even recognised as such - it passes completely unnoticed.  There is no shortage of now-recognised examples that the deceived didn't spot at the time and maybe still haven't noticed. Here's a sample: A stick insect appears to a predator to be an inedible stick, not a tasty insect Spotted from an enemy's reconnaisance biplane, an inflatable tank or field gun may appear solid, a credible threat at least While an accomplice distracts a resident by knocking at the front door on a pretext, the cunning thief slips around the back Phishers emulate the look and feel of legitimate emails, senders and websites to dupe victims into visiting and disclosing their credentials, using spurious urgency to shortcut or bypass checks, specific timing and wording, and sheer volume to exploit the offguard vulnerables

The Institute of Directors has just released their Code of Conduct for Directors , promoting six principles: Leading by example. Integrity. Transparency. Accountability. Fairness. Responsible business. So far, so good ... although somehow I feel there's something missing. But what?

For decades, I have appreciated  Peter Sandman 's approach to outrage - the social phenomenon in which groups of people react strongly to some perceived threat, issue, concern or whatever, drawing-in other like-minded individuals via social media. The echo chamber (positive feedback loop) can rapidly escalate emotions to an unreasonable degree with a lack of reasoned, critical thinking - according to those allegedly responsible for the issue anyway.    In the case of, say, the placing of 5G cell towers in/near schools, the outraged can become furious that the risk (as they see it) is being 'callously ignored' by the equipment suppliers, site developers, authorities and scientists, and enraged that they are 'not being taken seriously'. From their perspective,  thanks to group think (social endorsement),  the  perceived   risks are portrayed and understood to be deadly serious .  Leaders within the outraged community gain notoriety, influence and p...

 

Lately I've been pondering the thought that 'risk' is 'uncertainty' - it's not simply that risky decisions and activities involve some element of doubt, that they might work out extremely well or go horribly wrong, but that the lack of certainty is itself a critical factor. As well as the rational mathematical basis in probability theory and statistics , there is also an emotional aspect to uncertainty. It affects the way we perceive, prepare for and address issues. It affects our planning and capability. It can be debilitating, resulting in indecision and delay even though that may make things even worse: sometimes, it is better to make a decision now (despite the uncertainties) and press ahead in the belief that we will cope with whatever eventuates. Conversely, it may be better to delay a decision and hold back while gathering more information, building resources, preparing and aligning those involved, and considering various eventualities. Uncertainty ha...

Someone who is actively involved in, or is managing, an activity is patently not independent of it. They may well make a conscious, rational and determined effort to be objective, dispassionately reviewing evidence etc ., but their subconscious/emotional biases/prejudices and beliefs/value-systems will inevitably influence what they do. With the best will in the world, they will struggle to challenge and assess their past decisions and activities, especially if they were "certain" or "determined" or genuinely believed they were "doing the right thing". Furthermore, it is very hard for anyone to review the things they did not do, decisions they did not make or options they did not even consider. Mostly, they remain out of sight or out of the question.

Advertising copy, marketing reports, social media pieces and news articles in general warn us that things are getting worse. Pretty much everything is getting worse, and of course that's bad. See if you recognise any of these choice phrases: In today's [*] world : a classic throwaway AI/MML introductory phrase, presumably emphasising that the present is different to the past, the future dramatically so. With just a short browse through my LinkeDin feed, I've seen the following fill-ins for that asterisk: 'unpredictable', 'complex and uncertain', 'complex business', 'hectic', 'fast-evolving' (paradoxically), 'fast-paced', 'digital', 'fast-paced digital', 'fast-paced hyper-connected', 'fast-paced tech', 'fast-paced data-driven', 'tech-driven', 'mobile-first', 'B2B', 'globalized' (yes, really) blah blah blah. Despite there being 87 synonyms , the robots are c...

I blogged about the Crowdstrike incident on July 21st  while it was still playing out. Now, having  d rained the swamp and let the d ust settle, I'm  d ue to d raw out, d econstruct and d ecide what to d o about the Crowdstrike d isaster, so here goes: Design, build and test systems for resilience, where 'systems' means not just IT systems but the totality of interdependent technologies, organisations, people, information flows and other resources necessary to deliver and support critical business activities. Hinson tip : "be prepared" is not just for  boy scouts ! Those dependencies are p otential p inch p lus  p ain p oints. Test software before release. Sounds easy, right? It isn't. There is an infinite amount of testing that could be performed, only a fraction of which realistically should be, while the amount and quality of testing actually performed is resource-constrained and time-boxed for business and uncertainty (risk!) reasons (delaying secu...

Title: Permanent Record Author: Edward Snowden ISBN: 978-1-250-23723-1 Price: US$18 from Amazon GH rating: 90% Summary Until I read this book, I considered my personal integrity a fundamental strength, core to my very being. It pales in comparison to Ed's extreme courage and intense determination to expose the shocking truth about the NSA's mass surveillance programme and the way it was concealed from Congress.

KPMG's Soft Controls model caught my beady eye this week: KPMG are evidently using these 8 factors to analyse, measure and help clients manage their corporate cultures, claiming that "Our model gives organisations a valid tool for getting a clear picture of the current organisational situation, confront it, and break through the silence and passivity." Hmmm, 'silence and passivity', really KPMG? Well OK, whatever. It appears to be a viable approach.

  "A calamity can often strike without warning. Whether it be generated by humans or a natural disaster, leaders need to be ready to direct their teams in the aftermath. In order to be ready for crisis, leadership skills, like any others, must be practised over and over beforehand. So the way you lead in the quiet times helps to build the skills you need when you have to dig deep." That paragraph plucked from this month's impressive  NZ Airforce newsletter  about the military response to the devastating flooding caused by cyclone Gabrielle here in Hawkes Bay caught my beady eye this morning.  The idea of practicing incident management as well as incident handling or operations  on relatively small incidents makes perfect sense.

Like other ISO management systems standards, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 has just been amended to incorporate two small wording changes : “The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue” (clause 4.1); “NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.” (clause 4.2). So, it is fair to ask what has climate change got to do with information risk and security? Is it even relevant? Having been been mulling that over for quite some while now, I've come up with a dozen points of relevance: For more on those twelve, read " Secure the Planet " - a FREE white paper. The clock in that image is a reminder that time is pressing, so here are half-a-dozen things information risk and security professionals can do to help.

" Seventy Questions to Assess Cybersecurity Risk on a Rapidly Changing Threat Landscape "  is an ISACA 'industry news' article by Patrick Barnett.  Whereas normally I give 'industry news' and checklists a wide berth, Patrick is (according to the article) highly qualified and experienced in the field, so I took  a closer look at this one. The prospect of condensing such a broad topic to a series of questions intrigued me. I'm not totally immune to the gleaming allure of well-conceived checklists. Patrick says: "There are 70 questions that can be asked to determine whether an enterprise has most defensive principles covered and has taken steps to reduce risk (and entropy) associated with cybersecurity. If you can answer “Yes” to the following 70 questions, then you have significantly reduced your cybersecurity risk. Even so, risk still exists, and entropy must be continuously monitored and mitigated. There is no specific number of layers that can remove...

Once again, my day kicked off with a stimulating and fruitful debate on the ISO27k Forum as members responded to a request for help to find accredited I nformation S ecurity Management S ystem certification auditors who will add value to the organisation above and beyond the ISO/IEC 27001 conformity certificate. The original poster copped some grief from the forum in appearing to seek certification auditors who would be kind on the organisation, supporting its business objectives more strongly than its conformity with the standard ... but a follow-up message clarified the position. Aris confirmed to us that he sought:  "advice on where (in cases of an ISO audit) and how (in cases of an Internal audit) our ISMS could/should be improved, but I need that advice to be meaningful, grounded, and delivered in a way that has the best probability it will be absorbed by the business. In other words, I would like this process to offer real value to the business, besides just bein...

The conventional focus of risk analysis is to examine the probability of incidents occurring, and their likely impacts if they do - and fair enough, those are obviously key factors ... but not the only ones. Add itional factors to consider include : Quality of information and analysis : risks that are commonplace and conventional are generally better understood than those which are novel or rare (such as AI risks, right now); Volatility : if the threats, vulnerabilities and business are reasonably stable, the risks are more easily determined/predicted than if they are volatile, changing unpredictably; Complexity : ugly, horrendously complicated risks are more likely to involve unrecognised interactions;

Since home and mobile workers rely on IT to access critical business systems and corporate data, and to communicate with others, organisations need a robust IT network infrastructure that extends to workers' homes or wherever they hang out. If, in reality, the infrastructure turns out to be fragile and unreliable, business activities are likely to be equally fragile and unreliable, leading to frustration and grief all round. In other words, the extended IT infrastructure is quite likely business-critical. W orking F rom H ome or on the road can increase various information risks relative to conventional office-based work, due to factors such as: Use of cloud computing services*; Workers using their own or shared devices and internet connections for work purposes, raising questions about their suitability and security, ownership of and access to any intellectual property or personal information on them;

A post on LinkeDin this morning led me to a news piece  about an IT professional's attempt to divert/steal his employer's payoffs for a ransomware infection, back in 2018. According to the article, his attempt ultimately failed, largely due to his inept and naive execution ... but I have not come across this particular insider threat before. It was a new one on me, a man-in-the-middle attack layered on top of the ransomware.

Clearly there are some substantial risks associated with using AI/ML systems and services, with some serious incidents having already hit the news headlines within a few months of the release of ChatGPT. However, having been thinking carefully and researching this topic for couple of weeks, I realised there are many more risks than the reported incidents might suggest, so  I've written up what I found. This pragmatic guideline explores the information risks associated with AI/ML,  from the perspective of an organisation whose workers are using ChatGPT (as an example) .   Having identified ~26 threats, ~6 vulnerabilities and dozens of possible impactful incident scenarios, I came up with ~20  information security controls capable of mitigating many of the risks. See what you make of it. Feedback welcome. What have I missed? What controls would you suggest?