Security: If it doesn't hurt, you're doing it wrong!

The Informationsverbund Berlin-Bonn (IVBB), the secure network of the german government , was breached by an unknown hacker group. Okay, a secure government network might be a worthy target for an attack, but your network not, right? Do you use the same password for multiple accounts? There were multiple massive data breaches in the past. Have you ever checked if your data were also compromised? I can recommend haveibeenpwned.com. If you want to have some fun, scan GitHub for -—-BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—–. Do you use a full disk encryption on your laptop or PC? Do you sign and/ or encrypt emails using S/MIME or PGP? Do you use different passwords for different services? Do you use 2FA/ MFA to secury importan services? Do you never work with admin privileges when doing normal office tasks? No? Why? Because it’s uncomfortable to do it right, isn’t it?

My focus is on infrastructure, and I’m trying to educate my customers that hey have to take care about security. It’s not the missing dedicated management network, or the usage of self signed certificates that makes an infrastructre unsecure. Mostly it’s the missing user management, the same password for different admin users, doing office work with admin privileges, or missing security patches because of “never touch a running system”, or “don’t ruin my uptime”. I don’t khow how often I heard the story of ransomware attacks, that were caused by admins opening email attachments with admin privileges…

My theory

Security must approach infinitely near the point, where it becomes unusable.

Security is nothing you can take care about later. It has to be part of the design. It has to be part of the processes. Most security incidents doesn’t happen because of 0-day exploits. It’s because of default passwords for admin accounts, missing security patches, and because of lazy admins or developers.

Don’t be lazy. Do it right. Even if it’s uncomfortable.