Tech Kettle

I was reading an article about cybersecurity strategy and how some principles could be brought on table for a business to hold a stable cybersecurity posture, like having global policy with all its procedures, guidelines and baselines, maintaining a disaster recovery plan for potential cybersecurity incidents and adhering to reknown security frameworks and standards like NIST 800-53a and ISO 27001. In that article there was one principle mentioned however, that doesn't flow nice with the best practices as far as my experience has taught me, that principle is "apply update as soon as it is available... or .. update promptly.." As matter of fact, when we operate critical systems we are so cautious that when an update is available, we set a delay period to observe and inspect potential feedback, so in case a reported bug or misconfiguration was originated by the applied update we would have kept our systems safe until a secure update has been released. A well respected busi...

I passed the CISSP exam on the first try at the 125th question, Thanks to GOD. I'm relieved as I don't have take this exam again. This is the most significant experience in my career, acquiring new knowledge in information security while studying for the exam, was a wonderful journey.   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Certified_Information_Systems_Security_Professional_logo.png   This is indeed the most satisfactory personal achievement in my career, as matter of fact I'm more keen then ever before, to springboard my career to new roles in cybersecurity. Study resources I used The CISSP community on Reddit is a gold mine for CISSP exam takers. Used the CISSP Official Study Guide OSG (8th edition) as reference, but never read it cover to cover. Multiple videos form "Thor", "Certification destination", "Inside cloud and security" and many others. Boson CISSP, this practice exams goes deeper in details (more technical), which may help to...

When classified data are disclosed or lost, an organization could experience tremendous unrest that impacts their business, like facing a bad reputation and loss in income. Classified data could be critical or sensitive to a business, but what is the difference between the two ? Sensitive data are meant to be confidential. When sensitive data are disclosed, the competitiveness stance of the business could be weakened or brutally shattered. An organization could also be put liable on a data breach if it hasn't shown due care and due diligence in managing its security. Critical data are meant to ensure availability, in this case when data are lost, the service that relies on it will not be available, in some cases a whole business could be impacted. Critical data can range from configuration files to a set of business data.  

  Threat and vulnerability are two tightly coupled aspects . There is no point to focus on a vulnerability if the threat doesn’t exist, similarly you can’t stress on a threat, if your asset is not concerned with the vulnerability (or weakness).   The question one should ask is “What are the risks to my asset ?” , and to answer this we need to run a whole Business Impact Analysis (BIA), which involves qualitative and quantitative risk assessment. As a general equation:  Risk = Vulnerability x Threat On the basis of the above equation, we can conclude that if an asset has a Vulnerability and that Vulnerability is exposed to a known Threat, then the asset is at Risk.  Now that the two elements exist you need to tackle just one of the two not both, to eliminate the risk. originally posted here

There is a general misconception that biometrics are inherently more secure than password when used for remote authentication, this is because of the way, the industries are marketing fingerprinting and face recognition for authentication. Biometrics that target general public, like what is integrated on smartphones and other devices, are meant to provide user with convenience not improving security. After all, security is a one thing and convenience is another thing. That being said, with all the advances they get, biometric sensors are still not infallible, as you can check on the video that shows how it is possible to fool Face ID on IPHONE X with 3d printed mask.  While faking or cloning the biometric characteristics is not an easy task, a strong password remains the most reliable medium for remote authentication, this is because some of attack vectors that target biometric authentication systems, are conducted through visually obtainable information, whereas a...