Tactical Cybersecurity

Over the past several months, I was asked a rather intriguing cybersecurity question. The question was posed to me by the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of a rather prestigious healthcare system. Before, I share that question with you, allow me to give you a little bit of context.The hospital had recently completed a rather extensive NIST 800-53 and HIPAA cybersecurity and privacy assessment conducted by a third-party. Overall, the hospital did a rather decent job during the assessment and although some gaps were found, they were not critical, and the organization had vastly matured since their prior year’s assessment. In fact, on a comparative basis they did much better than most of their industry peers of similar size and complexity.Yet, when we conducted a penetration test, the results were devastating to say the least. We were able to achieve access to several critical systems, deploy malware, exfiltrate data and do so without knowledge of their security operation center or trip any of their defensive systems.This brings us to the intriguing question that was posed to me by the CISO, “John, why is it that your team was so successful, even though our assessment showed we were doing really well from a policy, process and practice perspective?” In this episode we are going to examine the answers to that profound question.

What cybersecurity tactic or tool do you think scares hackers and attackers the most? Well if you didn't say 'deception technologies' then you would be wrong. In this episode we explore how deception technologies should be a critical asset in your defensive cybersecurity strategy and how they provide an amazing last layer of defense on your network.

You spend a good amount, if not all, of your time developing strategies to defend against cyberattacks. But how much time do you actually spend analyzing and understanding the human behind the attacks? What is your visual perception of who is attacking you? Is your perception of your attacker outdated? What motivates them? How do you categorize the attacker?In this episode of Tactical Cybersecurity, you will walk down a path that ends with a better understanding of exactly who is your adversary! You will learn about their motivations, allegiances and background. You will also come to understand how you can use this information to open the eyes of colleagues, end-users and most importantly business leaders. Ultimately you will be learning about the attacker's perspective and how it should be shaping your strategies and defenses.So strap in buttercup, this is going to be another wild ride.

In this episode we learn more about the background and concepts that led up to the creation of tactical cybersecurity. Join your host John Gomez, CEO and Founder of Sensato as he explains why the cybersecurity emperor has no clothes.

In this episode we explore the psychology of the defender and how it contributes to insecure systems and weak cybersecurity strategies. We will examine why we minimize what we fear, how we don't understand the audacity of the attacker and several other concepts that all come under the umbrella of Cybersecurity Rational Response Theory.