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2017-05-12 02:51:43 | Some notes on Trump\'s cybersecurity Executive Order (lien direct) | President Trump has finally signed an executive order on "cybersecurity". The first draft during his first weeks in power were hilariously ignorant. The current draft, though, is pretty reasonable as such things go. I'm just reading the plain language of the draft as a cybersecurity expert, picking out the bits that interest me. In reality, there's probably all sorts of politics in the background that I'm missing, so I may be wildly off-base.Holding managers accountableThis is a great idea in theory. But government heads are rarely accountable for anything, so it's hard to see if they'll have the nerve to implement this in practice. When the next breech happens, we'll see if anybody gets fired."antiquated and difficult to defend Information Technology"The government uses laughably old computers sometimes. Forces in government wants to upgrade them. This won't work. Instead of replacing old computers, the budget will simply be used to add new computers. The old computers will still stick around."Legacy" is a problem that money can't solve. Programmers know how to build small things, but not big things. Everything starts out small, then becomes big gradually over time through constant small additions. What you have now is big legacy systems. Attempts to replace a big system with a built-from-scratch big system will fail, because engineers don't know how to build big systems. This will suck down any amount of budget you have with failed multi-million dollar projects.It's not the antiquated systems that are usually the problem, but more modern systems. Antiquated systems can usually be protected by simply sticking a firewall or proxy in front of them."address immediate unmet budgetary needs necessary to manage risk"Nobody cares about cybersecurity. Instead, it's a thing people exploit in order to increase their budget. Instead of doing the best security with the budget they have, they insist they can't secure the network without more money.An alternate way to address gaps in cybersecurity is instead to do less. Reduce exposure to the web, provide fewer services, reduce functionality of desktop computers, and so on. Insisting that more money is the only way to address unmet needs is the strategy of the incompetent.Use the NIST frameworkProbably the biggest thing in the EO is that it forces everyone to use the NIST cybersecurity framework.The NIST Framework simply documents all the things that organizations commonly do to secure themselves, such run intrusion-detection systems or impose rules for good passwords.There are two problems with the NIST Framework. The first is that no organization does all the things listed. The second is that many organizations don't do the things well.Password rules are a good example. Organizations typically had bad rules, such as frequent changes and complexity standards. So the NIST Framework documented them. But cybersecurity experts have long opposed those complex rules, so have been fighting NIST on them.Another good example is intrusion-detection. These days, I scan the entire Internet, setting off everyone's intrusion-detection systems. I can see first hand that they are doing intrusion-detection wrong. But the NIST Framework recommends they do it, because many organizations do it, but the NIST Framework doesn't demand they do it well.When this EO forces everyone to follow the NIST Framework, then, it's likely just going to i | Guideline | Yahoo Tesla |
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