Brief Thought on Digital Security

I was asked to write an article for an upcoming issue of Information Security Magazine based on my Engineering Disasters blog post. I had the following thought after writing that article.

When an engineering catastrophe befalls the "real" or "analog" world, it's often very visible. Failed bridges collapse, levees break, sink holes swallow buildings, and so on. If you look closely enough, prior to ultimate failure you see indications of pending doom. Cracks appear in concrete, materials swell or contract, groaning noises abound, etc.

This is generally not the case in the digital world. It is possible for an enterprise to be completely owned by unauthorized parties, without any overt signs. If one knows where to look of course, indicators can be seen, and evidence of compromise can be gathered, analyzed, and escalated. This is the reason I advocate network security monitoring (NSM) and conducting traffic threat assessments (TTAs).