Attacker 3.0

Gunnar Peterson mentioned a few terms that, for me, brilliantly describe the problem we face in digital security. To paraphrase Gunnar, the digital world consists of the following:

  • Security 1.0

  • Web 2.0

  • Attacker 3.0


To that might I add the following:

  • Government -1.0

  • User 0.5

  • Application Developer 2.5


What do I mean by all of this?

  • Government -1.0: in general, hopelessly clueless legislation leads to worse security than without such legislation -- often due to unintended consequences

  • User 0.5: users are largely unaware and essentially helpless, but I wouldn't expect them to improve -- I'm not an automobile designer or electrical engineer, yet I can drive my car and watch TV

  • Security 1.0: security tools and techniques are just about good enough to address yesterday's attacks

  • Web 2.0: this is what is here, with more on the way -- essentially indefensible applications all running over port 80 TCP (or at least HTTP) that no developer really understands and for which no one takes responsibility

  • Application Developer 2.5: by this I do not mean developers are ahead of anyone with respect to security; rather, they are introducing new features and capabilities without regard to security, thereby exposing vulnerabilities no one (except intruders and some security researchers) really understand

  • Attacker 3.0: in Tao I said because some intruders are smarter than us and unpredictable, prevention eventually fails -- it's more true now than ever


The only way I know to deal with this problem is to stay aware of it through monitoring and to deter, prosecute, and incarcerate threats. With Attacker 3.0 free to exploit at will without fear of attribution and retribution, I care less about these problems.

Comments

Anonymous said…
"intruders are smarter than us and unpredictable, prevention eventually fails -- it's more true now than ever"

So if intruders are smarter than us (and I agree) then why are we allowing people far removed from our distinct and unique situation to enforce their risk tolerance on us via compliance to external standards like PCI?

In the case of MN and TX, do we really believe that law makers are able to pass legislation concerning our controls and risk management programs with any semblance of the speed with which the threat community adapts and evolves?
5:02 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technical or pol
Read more