Continued series from the Swift Exchange event in DC on April 11^th.

As discussed in the last blog, securing cyber space can endanger the free flow of information but we must discover and implement ways to globally collaborate around new information. Cyber is not an internet issue but a life problem as it will affect the chips found in everything from your computer and cell phone to your car, pacemaker and dishwasher. Imagine a world where this is all available remotely.

That world is here.

The cyber grid brings access to everything which will lead to new trends of criminals getting paid. Celebrities with hacked phones, leaked photos and messages pay outlandish sums of money to protect their secrets every day; we can only imagine what big corporations will pay for secrets that would have reputational damage if released.

Think back to the luxury of September 10^th when we didn’t know of the damage that was about to come. If we had known what our environment was and the hidden dangers, September 11^th may have played out differently. Every little bit of knowledge helps and the trendy wireless world is a growing threat. The ability to detect and monitor all cellular and Wi-Fi devices gives agencies and corporations a heads up to what the invisible environment is. Be prepared.

“Yesterday, the president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, John Stratton discussed how technology shifts would transform the IT landscape with a group of Industry Analysts.   Verizon believes we’ve entered the next major era of computing that is based on cloud and mobility.  Stratton said we experience a 10X growth in number of users with each wave computing.  He told us that this wave will create a discontinuity in a company’s business processes and commercial models.  He likened it to the days of Wang and how a business must reinvent itself during each technology shift or risk destruction.   Verizon believes that its standing in networks, mobility and cloud will afford it the opportunity to reinvent itself as we move into this next generation of computing.

Stratton’s assessment of the new IT landscape is spot on.  Yet it’s unclear that businesses understand the order of magnitude shift that Mr. Stratton described.  I also believe that we’ve entered the Mobile Cloud era (MOCLO).   Mobile isn’t just an access method or a collection of cool devices.  The move to mobile has created new operating systems (OS) for tablets and phones but will also change the OS for next generation laptops and desktops.  In fact, this new foundation software will run across a wide range of connected devices that span phones to automobiles.  This is the Post PC era taken to a new level.  How?  Over time this new foundational software and these new devices will force a businesses to change how it builds applications and engineers its business processes.  Applications will be device aware, location aware and network/cloud aware.  Business processes will assume a multi-device landscape and data portability.  The M2M market is also evolving to a set of services to compliment connected modules.  In some cases those services are customer facing like “smart home” and “smart energy” services.  In other cases, services are business related such as reporting and analytics services based on monitoring items such as sensors.

The cloud is also more than just cheap storage and processing power that resides outside of the corporation.  Mobile devices and cloud technologies will shift IT’s vision of where data should be located and how it will be accessed.  Rather than an “on-premise” or “off-premise” dialogue, a business will build policies on where data should reside and how it should be accessed.  Mobile and cloud shatter the  “firewall/DMZ” approach where all data is locked inside the corporate walls.  In the MOCLO era, firms will create context-aware security profiles that allow data to move seamlessly and securely between the corporation, the cloud and devices.  These profiles will be based on items such as type of device, location, users, regulations and roles.

Three big ideas:

• A cyber war is eminent.
• The next war will start with a cyber attack.
• Cyber intrusions are precursors to cyber attack as they represent a shift of balance and power.

Government agencies across the world are trying with the help corporations to secure the cyber world and prevent IP theft, financial devastation and more. However, fighting cyber crime is not an end in itself; a world without cyber crime enables economic innovation and growth and the free flow of information. With so much to gain, it is not necessary that national cyber policies of different nations are the same but that they are interoperable. It could be said that the primary interest of each country is first and foremost itself but this is a global threat.

To quote Chris Painter, Coordinator of Cyber Issues of the US State Department, we must be “patient, persistent and creative” in the development of international cyber policies. Yes, government should be involved but the cooperation of corporations and vendors is vital for national and international success. We are in this together and we need to join forces.

We need to ask, “What is the goal?” What are we trying to do? Do we want to lock down the internet and cyber roads so much that the flow of information slides to a halt? We need to pause before pushing legislation that builds a Great Wall of China around each country in hopes our secrets are safe inside. President Obama said that cyber is the biggest threat we face as a nation. It’s time to accept this and address it with the same respect we give to physical defense movements.

This is a scary example of unknowingly transmitting information to an outside location.  However, it’s not alone.

Earlier this month, a hacker was able to jump into dozens of conference rooms around the world through videoconferencing equipment.  Fortunately for the companies that were “spied” on, the hacker wasn’t trying to steal information but was looking for security holes.  Unfortunately, the companies that were hacked into are well recognized and using the most popular types of videoconference equipment.  The automatic acceptance of new callers and participants in video-conferencing allows someone to dial in and look around without being noticed.

Your office may have more participants than you think.  The importance of knowing your wireless environment is becoming more significant.  What you see is not necessarily all there is.  The logical world cannot explain the cyber happenings going on without understanding your entire environment.

AirPatrol recently came out with a white paper on “Advanced Persistent Response to Mobile Threats.”  In the beginning, AirPatrol concentrated on monitoring wireless devices operating on Wi-Fi or cellular frequencies – wireless situational awareness.  Now, AirPatrol is bringing intelligence into mobile security as we allow you to see who/what is trying to connect to your network, what devices are transmitting that you may not think of (such as the thermostat in the first example) and more – cognitive mobile security.  AirPatrol is ahead of the game and is enabling the management of mobile devices by changing the operating policy depending on contexts such as location – context-aware computing.

Your adversaries are becoming more resourceful and using tools you already have in place to their advantage.  Be ahead of the opponent and be proactive.  If you know where your weaknesses are, if you know what your tools are doing without your consent, you’re prepared and protected.  Wireless devices are continuing to gain capabilities and today, almost 20% of US adults have a tablet or e-reader on top of their smart cellular device.

Wireless situational awareness.  Cognitive mobile security.  Context-aware computing.  AirPatrol.

People often joke that they could not pry their teenager’s iPhone out of his or her hands if their life depended on it.  This is met with understanding laughs but we aren’t really any different.  The younger generations may have their smart phone permanently affixed to their hand to update Facebook with an Instagram picture of their new Ugg boots, retweet a coupon for hot chocolate on Twitter, check in at the ice skating rink on FourSquare or send a mass text asking why no one else is at the rink yet.  All of this while ignoring everything else with earphones blasting iHeartRadio.  This is the stereotype, right?

Take a step back and look at what you’re doing right now.  If something called you away from your desk, you wouldn’t dare walk away without grabbing your cellphone; it’s probably within a foot of your keyboard.  Sure, you use your phone for email, keeping track of appointments, your contact list and other business related applications but Pandora and a Star Wars soundboard (we’re all techies at heart) may also be there.  Your building gets poor cellular reception so you jump onto the office Wi-Fi the instant you walk in so you can get BBMs, iMessages, etc.

Our dependence on these smart devices is strong, ranging from communication to navigation to entertainment to work and more.  Each device is becoming more intelligent; contextually-aware devices and applications take into account where you are and what you like as they instantly push-out notifications.

These devices can become “dirty” without the user’s knowledge and may connect to your enterprise’s network without your consent, possibly through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.  It’s important to manage this access, to know who and what is entering through not just your physical walls, but your cyber walls.  Those signs that say “NO CELL PHONE ZONE” are not relevant as we enter 2012.  Smart devices are going to sneak in as people honestly feel uneasy without one.

AirPatrol’s suite of products monitor what is physically in your corporation, what devices are trying to connect to and can even manage the current policy on a device depending on contexts such as location.  Here’s a video about it.  You can watch it on your mobile device that is permanently within your reach.

Happy New Year!

As we hear the drone of commentary regarding the advanced persistent threat, we must come to appreciate that these attacks are nothing new.   The APT, aka digital insider, is merely the natural evolution of tradecraft and criminality.  The arms bazaar of the internet has leveraged asymmetrical capabilities to the masses. The hackers and traditional miscreants will inevitably compromise your digital and physical infrastructures.

The threat is there and the only way to manage the threat is with advanced situational awareness.  Know your environment, both wireless and physical.  Know who is entering your borders in both the physical and virtual senses of reality.

In today’s world, wherein physical reality and virtual reality are converging on tablets and smart phones, we must come to grips with the need for a paradigm shift. How might we maintain continuity of operations as well as increase the level of discomfort to the adversary to a point wherein they no longer care to expend the resources to maintain persistence?

Advanced persistent response is the new paradigm.   In order to achieve an advanced persistent response to the APT that lingers in our smartphones and tablets, we must be able to blend our cyber and physical incident response capabilities.  Transparency must be realized through both the physical security and cybersecurity SEMs and visibility into the wireless spectrum must be overlayed.   As a nation, we must appreciate that converged threats are here to stay and only through “advanced situational awareness” will our enterprises be capable of developing a concerted advanced persistent response.   Strategic awareness must blend incident response in order to heighten the pressure we place upon the digital insiders that reside within our enterprises.  The question should no longer be about building a better castle but rather how to build a better dungeon for the insider to reside within.

Next week I’ll be discussing Advanced Situational Awareness and the Security Threat Convergence with Brian Zaas, Director for Enterprise Solutions at Avineon.  Please join us for the discussion and the Q&A session that will follow.  I look forward to your questions.

Registration is free, but required here: http://airpatrolcorp.com/webinars/webinar_register.php.

One of the best business books I have had the pleasure of reading is, not surprising, Good to Great by Jim Collins. In the book, Collins and his colleagues outline the key aspects that take a company from just being ‘good’ to true ‘great’ success. Several of his analogies stuck with me through the years and still ring true years after I have first read this good book, nay, great book.

One of the most powerful analogies used in the book is the one which refers to a company as a flywheel. The essence of this analogy is that the additive effect of many small initiatives allows them to act on each other like compound interest. Said differently, the flywheel is a truly heavy contraption that’s very hard to get going. You start off pushing and pushing and pushing just to get it to begin to turn. You then wipe the sweat from your eyes, take a quick sip from the cold (and bitter) cup of reality and return to pushing some more. However, if you keep at it long enough and if you can overcome the friction and other hurdles you face, eventually the flywheel begins to turn more and more rapidly. First it completes a first turn, then a second one and a third and so on and so forth. Soon enough what you have in front of you is one of nature’s most simple, yet powerful machines. In its very core the flywheel is an energy storage apparatus which can pack tremendous amounts of power and momentum and which is extremely hard to stop.

Back to the company analogy, this is the stage when you feel that your company’s engine is humming, Sales are picking up, customers return for some more of the great stuff and engineers are going home smiling (preferably well before midnight). This transition from a slowly rotating huge flywheel that looks too hard to move to a rapidly revolving, unstoppable machine is the so called ‘inflection point.’ I have experienced these inflection points in the past and, no matter how much you expect them, they always catch you by surprise. Suddenly, sales quarter-over-quarter jump 10x, the press is all over you, unsolicited resumes start landing in your mailbox and the boss gives you an expensive bottle of Bordeaux for the holiday (hint to our BOD: left bank please, preferably from Pauillac).

‘Are we there yet?’ you might be asking kids.

‘Well, not quite yet’ would be my answer. But I can smell it coming, real soon.’

Activity is picking up. Our VP of Sales has been spotted in the wild talking on two cellphones, one pressed to each ear, at the same time, and the trickle of sales is rapidly becoming a steady stream with growing strength.

The AirPatrol flywheel is now revolving more and more rapidly. The tension is building up internally and excitement accompanies it, like a loyal friend.

‘Here we go again,’ I mutter to myself, uncorking a bottle of a good Brunello di Montalcino, pouring it to my wine glass. ‘What a good wine but, more importantly, it just cleared some room on the shelf in my collection for that great bottle of Bordeaux that’s coming (thank you, our BOD, in advance).’

However, we are just now harnessing this ability.  Better yet, our mobile devices are doing so.

For example, more and more doctors are no longer working statically at one location.  As their services are needed in multiple places, the transportation of sensitive customer data is occurring more often than most would like.

Say you are a doctor that specializes in a rare form of cancer and your patients are in a variety of care centers around the city.  Understanding and having each individual patient’s data is vital to the success of treatment.  Memory is faulty but records, by definition, are true.  How can you guarantee the patient’s history of treatments, their allergies and more without factual data?  What is the risk of traveling with these sensitive documents from one location to another?  What if you lose the documents?  What if you read off the wrong chart?

What if your patients bounce back to health and none of their sensitive information has been leaked or exposed?  I think we’d all pick this “what if.”  This is why smart devices are infiltrating hospitals as the required records are instantly accessible and updated.  This is why doctors are able to use information, such as location, to access what they need.

Empowerment through transformation.  We bring this ability by altering the capabilities, the applications, the records, the purpose of a mobile device depending on contextual information that makes you situationally aware.  With dynamic changes, doctors are able to see the records of the patient at the first hospital but, when in a second hospital with a different patient, are unable to access and possibly leak the first patient’s data.

It’s mobile intelligence and it’s here.

Chubb and AirPatrol recognize the tremendous risk of data leakage posed by mobile devices including smart phones, tablets and laptops in the workplace. The use of mobile devices by nefarious insiders coupled with the explosion of cyber intrusions into mobile devices creates a perfect storm for exfiltration of intellectual capital as shown in this SAIC report.

Given the explosive growth of attacks on mobile devices, it has become vital to manage the risk of a potential data breach. AirPatrol is able to offer a solution to proactive and forward thinking companies regarding future threats.

Wireless Risk Management and a Wireless Risk Transfer are fundamental to conducting business in 2011 and onward. Mobile risk management in her very essence is: Analysis of mobile risk posture and remote access policy. Specifically, this is the wireless continuous monitoring achieved through technology deployment that detects mobile devices and determines remote access policy compliance.

There are no shortcuts through the cyber forests.

Our country is hemorrhaging a library of congress of data every week. One terabyte of data is exfiltrated from our networks weekly, by both state and non-state actors.

Private Manning – Mr. Assange’s mule -  facilitated the WikiLeaks fiasco (http://wikileaks.org).  In case you have been traveling in Timbuktu, Wikileaks ushered in the new anarchy movement.

Since Private Manning’s arrest, the United States government has performed copious analysis of the threats posed by insiders empowered by technology.  Recently the Administration issued an executive order entitled “STRUCTURAL REFORMS TO IMPROVE THE SECURITY OF CLASSIFIED NETWORKS AND THE RESPONSIBLE SHARING AND SAFEGUARDING OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION” (http://m.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/07/executive-order-structural-reforms-improve-security-classified-networks-) There are many important elements to this order.  Firstly agency heads must now sign off on the implementation of this plan, rather than hiding behind the veil of plausible deniability.  Second – and what I perceive as paramount – is stated within Section 2.1b: “(b) implement an insider threat detection and prevention program consistent with guidance and standards developed by the Insider Threat Task Force established in section 6 of this order”.

The great public servants of the Office of National Counter Intelligence Directorate (ONCIX) have spent thousands of hours focused on how to thwart both the traditional insider and the digital insider threat.  By the grace of god, the administration woke up and listened.  I commend their efforts and applaud the recent executive order, as it will thwart the hemorrhaging of our national secrets.

We here at AirPatrol recognize the pervasive threat posed by proximity attacks.  The nefarious insider’s greatest instrument is the smart phone.  Managing the risk posed by these insiders, and the digital insiders inhabiting smart phones, is our priority.  We salute the ONCIX and the President for taking a tactical stand against the insider threat.

Sometimes it is best to look in the mirror.