What do major developments in big data, cloud, mobile, and social media mean? A CISO perspective..

Tuesday afternoon the CISO-T18 – Mega-Trends in Information Risk Management for 2013 and Beyond: CISO Views session as presented focused on the results of a survey sponsored by RSA (link below).  It provided a back drop for some good conversation, but more so it gave me a nice environment to elaborate on some personal observations and ideas.  The first tweet I sent, hammered the main slide:

“Major developments with Big Data, Cloud, Mobile, and Social media” – the context and reality here is cavernous.. “

My analysis and near-random break down of this tweet are as follows with quotes pulled from the panel.

First off – be aware that these key phrases / buzz words mean different things to different departments and from each level (strategic executives through tactical teams). Big Data analytics may not be a backend operational pursuit, but a revenue generating front end activity (such as executed by WalMart). These different instantiations are likely happening at different levels with varied visibility across the organization.

“Owning” the IT infrastructure is not a control to prevent the different groups from launching to these other ‘Major developments’.

The cost effectiveness of the platforms designed to serve businesses (i.e., Heroku, Puppet Labs, AWS, etc…) is what is defining the new cost structure. CIO and CISO must

>The cloud is not cheaper if it does have any controls. This creates a risk of the data being lost due to “no controls” – highlighted by Melanie from the panel.  <– I don’t believe this statement is generally true and generally FUD.

Specifically – There is a service level expectation by cloud service providers to compensate for the lack of audit ability those “controls”. There are motions to provide a level of assurance to these cloud providers beyond the ancient method established through ‘right to audit‘.

A method of approaching these challenging trends, specifically Big Data, below as highlighted by one of the CISO (apologies missed his name) w/ my additions:

• Data flow mapping is a key to providing efficient and positive ‘build it’ product development. It helps understand what matters (to support and have it operational), but also see if anything is breaking as a result.
• Breaking = violating a contract, breaking a compliance requirement, or negatively effecting other systems and user requirements.

Getting things Done – the CISO 

Two observations impacting the CISO and information technology organization include:

1. The Board is starting to become aware and seeking to see how information security is woven within ERM
2. Budgets are not getting bigger, and likely shrinking due to expectations of productivity gains / efficiency / cloud / etc…

Rationalization on direction, controls, security responses, must be be fast for making decisions and executing…

Your ability to get things done has little do with YOU doing things, but getting others to do things. Enabling, partnering, and teaming is what makes the business move. CIO and CISO must create positive build-it inertia.

Support and partner with the “middle management” the API of the business if you will.

• We to often focus on “getting to the board” and deploying / securing the “end points” .. Those end points are the USERS and between them and the Board are your API to achieving your personal objectives.

Vendor Management vs procurement of yester-year

Acquiring the technology and services must be done through a renewed and redeveloped vendor management program. The current procurement team’s competencies are inadequate and lacking the toolsets to ensure these providers are meeting the existing threats. To be a risk adaptive organization you must tackle these vendors with renewed. Buying the cheapest parts and service today does not mean what it meant 10 years ago. Today the copied Cisco router alternative that was reverse engineered lacks an impressive amount of problems immediately after acquisition. Buying is easy – it is the operational continuance that is difficult. This is highlighted by the 10,000+ vulnerabilities that exist with networked devices that will never be updated within corporations that must have their risks mitigated, at a very high and constant cost.

Panel referenced the following report:

http://www.emc.com/microsites/rsa/security-for-business-innovation-council.htm

Thank you to the panel for helping create a space to think and seek answers, or at least more questions!

James DeLuccia IV

Top 3 attributes for businesses to benefit from Data Analytics – an Information Security & Business process perspective

Big Data introduces an opportunity that organizations see when merging silo product operations together forming a service layer or an enhanced hybrid product. Big Data also requires exceptional enterprise intelligence from the perspective of establishing the scaffolding for enterprise grwoth. That scaffolding requires advanced information technology system and business process matrix visibility.  My thesis … let me elaborate below on a single thread here given this is a subject I have been developing on recently…

In order for Big Data to work it requires abundant access to systems, data repositories, and the merging and tweaking of data beyond original data owner expectations or comprehension. The enterprise that balances the advantage of Big Data analytics with superior scaffolding will appreciate higher run rates and profitability without unfunded cost centers and above trend OpEx generally. The opportunity of Big Data without this business intelligence will be squandered and the benefits not realized as a direct result.

The CIO has this ownership and it is the purview of the Audit Committee to ensure that these risks are understood and tackled. The Board of Directors have proven to value equally the aggressiveness of Data Analytics with the ongoing revaluation of the risk tolerance and acceptance points of the business. As one can imagine, this is a familiar yet distinct activity within the executive structure, but three key attributes / activities that indicate a successful approach are as follows:

1. Vertical awareness - product awareness, strategy, and full line of sight for each major revenue center
2. Scrum topical teams – risk assessments and activities linked to the product market research initiatives
3. Senior strategy alignment – what does the Board seek in this DA movement; What does the CEO/CIO envision on these product expansions; What is the audit committee observations (meaning that they must have visibility and mindfulness to the impact)

Think Big Data is not huge business? … consider these figures:

• Gartner: Big Data Market is Worth $3.7 Trillion, Generating Over 4 Million Jobs by 2015 – article
• Good short presentation on value of pattern based strategies, by Gartner
• $29B will be spent on big data throughout 2012 by IT departments.  Of this figure (Forbes)

Or a classic business case example:

“The cornerstone of his [Sam Walton’s] company’s success ultimately lay in selling goods at the lowest possible price, something he was able to do by pushing aside the middlemen and directly haggling with manufacturers to bring costs down. The idea to “buy it low, stack it high, and sell it cheap” became a sustainable business model largely because Walton, at the behest of David Glass, his eventual successor, heavily invested in software that could track consumer behavior in real time from the bar codes read at Wal-Mart’s checkout counters.

“He shared the real-time data with suppliers to create partnerships that allowed Wal-Mart to exert significant pressure on manufacturers to improve their productivity and become ever more efficient. As Wal-Mart’s influence grew, so did its power to nearly dictate the price, volume, delivery, packaging, and quality of many of its suppliers’ products. The upshot: Walton flipped the supplier-retailer relationship upside down.” – Changing The Industry Balance of Power

A good (no paywall) article on Forbes here breaks down the IT spent related directly to Big Data and compares against prior years up to 2012 & by industry.  

Also check out this MIT Sloan article co-developed with IBM entitled Big Data, Analytics and the path from Insight to Value  - most interesting for me was page 23 relating to Analytics trumping intuition.  This relates to EVERY business process, product, sales opportunity, accounting, fraud detection, compliance initiative, security analytics, defense and response capabilities, power management, etc …  A worthwhile read for each executive.

Think strategically act vertically and influence horizontally – scale!

James DeLuccia IV

*See me speak at RSA 2013 on the topic – Passwords are Dead

The Enterprise Compliance and Security Game board

Questions that must be managed by the COO and CIO of every business relates to dedicating finite resources across the company. The products and services sold the by the business are developed and delivered to market as rapidly as possible in a race to be competitive. In the startup realm the concept of building in security, compliance, and privacy elements is very low priority. In most cases startups (and skunkworks within larger enterprises) depend upon the security of the libraries (ruby on rails, java libraries, etc…) and product components (UL Certified) to deliver security. Unfortunately depending upon the security and safety of the individual pieces is insufficient and inadequate when the elements (from here forward meant to refer to technology code and physical product components) are brought together in a new and non-obvious way. The emergence of these new products and services introduces dependencies, communication channels, new operating environments, and custom elements that reduce or eliminate the security-compliance-privacy elements that existed individually.

Leadership must then prioritize as immediately possible to introduce security-compliance-privacy. Companies certainly benefit by building these natively within the products and services at the Design & Build stage, as it is cheaper to build once then to re-design / re-code to meet the market expectation of security-compliance-privacy. The case when the organization must review its existing portfolio and decide what should be done, is the focus of this article. An analysis is necessary to evaluate the landscape of necessary and appropriate security-compliance-privacy requirements, and which products or services should be updated.

Or stated another way …

Where on the game board do the services and products of our company get prioritized to receive compliance, security, and privacy ‘attention’?

Such an analysis should at least include:

1. Listing of all required regulations and business best practices
2. Listing of all legal and contractual obligations
3. Discovery of similar product / services in the market and list any requirements outlined resulting from litigation and similar government agency enforcement actions
4. Strategic roadmap review – identify any likely near term requirements
5. Listing of all requirements the individual products & services will be subject to from the customer’s perspective

At this point a robust listing exists on what the products and services should support. A cross-map of these requirements should then be produced for optimized adoption and sustained operation. The cross map will also provide the design specifications that will contribute to the use cases and product development life cycle.  An example of such is below:

The above then (in sequence 1 to 5) are placed on your product / services game board and prioritization and risk management are possible. This is a process I designed in 2008 and have enhanced based on experience and client feedback building global security and compliance programs. Your program may need to consider additional facts and realities. I would love to hear your thoughts to enhance and challenge this method.

Best,

James DeLuccia

Social Media guidance from FFIEC and governed agencies .. up for comments!

The FFIEC released today (January 22, 2013) the “Social Media:  Consumer Compliance Risk Management Guidance” and is available here online.  The release is seeking comments and is a great opportunity to see where enforcement agencies are leaning; what are the concerns they are seeing on a macro scale, and their intended path to mitigating these unique areas.

“The 31-page proposal addresses how social media impacts compliance and legal risk, operational risk, reputational risk, and an increased risk of harm to consumers. While the agencies note that no additional regulations apply to social media, the relatively casual communication channels are not exempt from the rules, either.

According to the proposal, social media risk management programs should include a governance structure that includes how social media contributes to strategic goals, policies and procedures, third party due diligence, employee training, oversight, audit and compliance functions, and a reporting process.” – reference

Considering the velocity of the risks in this area and the lagging of legislation, it is fair to say that those even OUTSIDE the purview of the FFIEC, should strongly consider these as inputs to their compliance and security programs.

“The FFIEC invites comments on any aspect of the proposed guidance. It is specifically seeking comments on the following questions:

1. Are there other types of social media, or ways in which financial institutions are using social media, that are not included in the proposed guidance but that should be included?
2. Are there other consumer protection laws, regulations, policies or concerns that may be implicated by financial institutions’ use of social media that are not discussed in the proposed guidance but that should be discussed?
3. Are there any technological or other impediments to financial institutions’ compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies when using social media of which the Agencies should be aware?”

Participate in the comments and invoking of these guidances here.

The guidance itself is again available here. (pdf)

Best,

James DeLuccia

*See me speak at the RSA 2013 Conference – Passwords are Dead (I’ll also be posting research elements on this site for the communities input)

Implications of BYOD .. cultural implications & Chief Executive considerations

BYOD ..

What is it?  Commonly referred to as Bring Your Own Device, it refers to the unstoppable trend of end-users within enterprises utilizing consumer devices in the word place.  This is a simplification, but captures the essence of how board of directors are using iPads, and how Facebook became a permitted service inside organizations.  (the Facebook example is a poor one, as that is an Application .. but that will be raised in a future discussion).

The challenge to enterprises is how to enable these end-users with these technologies?  How to gain efficiencies and advantage?  How to allow end-users to be happy with their ability to self select their devices.  As ultimately, the end-users within corporations are quite happy with their iPhones and such devices .. it is only the need of corporate IT to streamline the integration.

Here is where things become interesting …

BYOD in most regions of the world refers to “Bring” your own device, while in certain regions it refers to “Buy” your own device.  Ownership of the device is quite important legally, upon how someone uses that device, and what controls are generally accepted.

In the United States for instance – end-users Bring and Buy their own devices, generally.  This means that Corporate IT must wrestle with ownership, MDM, and a diverse device / OS ecosystem.  Such challenges center on the ability to fully wipe a device in case of a policy violation.  The capability to fully monitor and restrict via policy the permitted applications.  In addition simply utilizing the full breadth of technology on the device – i.e., conjoining GPS proximity technology with multifactor authentication to increase the confidence of user credentials when within corporate offices (a general uneasy concept with personal devices, but something magically simple when the whole device is owned and part of the operations and security ecosystem).

In other regions, such as in Europe, the devices are purchased by the business and provided to the end-users.

So is it really “BYOD” or not, for intents and purposes the end-user drive; the customization applied to these devices; the personalization, and such are all identical to that of the U.S. BYOD.  The difference is in HOW the user interfaces with the device and WHAT can be done to safeguard the device.

• How is your organization managing these cross cultural perspectives?
• How have you considered the cost and operational expenses of each BYOD?
• What are the implications for security, compliance, and long term competitiveness (as it is ultimately being competitive that ensures that security and compliance will continue to matter)

Business operations, electing and incorporating mobile / BYOD technology is obviously a decision that has been made by most organizations.  Either by the rebelling user base, or through sanctioned programs.  The next field of play is to focus on the cultural aspects and embrace a forward looking vision at the emerging legislation related to such protections & expectations of consumers.

Culture eats strategy for lunch … so BYOD, please meet Culture.

Best,

James DeLuccia IV