I was talking to somebody and this following paradox occurred to me:
- Obviously, all organizations have [some] risk of being successfully attacked by "malicious hackers" (and other threat actors) and thus suffering [some] financial loss (this just reminded of it too)
- However, few know what is the chance and amount of said loss, so they ignore it (absorb it) and do nothing
- As a result, all sorts of bad things happen (insert TJX, VA, etc) so governments and other bodies create requirements: the "C"-word is born (compliance)
- What results is a new threat actor for the organization: an auditor or regulator. Fortunately, this one does have a specific, quantifiable loss amount (e.g. PCI DSS fine) and a more measurable chance of "a successful hit" on the organization
- Thus, people pay more attention to this new threat factor since they can grasp what the loss might/will be: they choose to act on the imposed requirements
- What results is that their security is improved by a still unknown amount and some money is wasted as well
- "Are there yet?" At this point, go back to item #1 and run through this again! Again! Again!
Sounds stupid? This seems to be the world we live in ...
Comment away!
UPDATE: looks like Richard has been thinking about something similar here where he talks that sometimes "achieving compliance may cost more than potential damage" [from an attack].UPDATE2: Symantec risk report [PDF] mentioned here uses the same approach as Pete says: "To suggest that compliance has its own risk is to acknowledge auditors/regulators as a threat. [...] I am pretty sure they are serious but I suspect auditors and regulators don't see it that way."
UPDATE3: Auditor is a risk? You bet! - says Guerilla CISO here. He then asks a really, really good questions with a really, really bad answer :-) : "Do you think people care about compliance, or do they care more about not being caught out of compliance?"
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