“Things have always been done this way.” —> Doesn’t mean they will be done that way in the future, or even that this is a good way.
“We know we need to change, but we can’t find the person who can authorize the changes we need.” —> Then who will punish you for the change? Even if punishment comes, you still win, as you’ll know who can authorize the change in the future.
“We don’t have enough time, money or skills to support those controls, even though we agree they are necessary.” —>Have you communicated this to upper management? If not, why not? How high have you gone? Go higher. Try harder.
“That’s too fast for our organization, we can’t adapt that quickly.” —>Welcome to the data age. Attackers are moving faster that ever before. You better adapt or your lack of speed WILL get exploited.
In many of my clients, complexity and bureaucracy have become self re-enforcing regimes. They lean on them as a way of life. They build even more complexity around them and then prop that up with layers and layers of bureaucracy. Every change, every control, every security enhancement or even changes to make existing tools rational and effective, is met with an intense mechanism of paperwork, meetings, “socialization” and bureaucratic approvals.
While many organizations decry “change management” and “security maturity” as being at the core of these processes, the truth is, more often than not, complexity for the sake of bureaucracy. Here’s the sad part, attackers don’t face these issues. They have a direct value proposition: steal more, get better at stealing and make more money. The loop is fast and tight. It is self correcting, rapid and efficient.
So, go ahead and hold that meeting. Fill out that paperwork. Force your technical security people into more and more bureaucracy. Build on complexity. Feed the beast.
Just know, that out there in the world, the bad guys don’t have the same constraints.
I’m not against change controls, responsibility or accountability, at all. However, what I see more and more of today, are those principals gone wild. Feedback loops to the extreme. Layers and layers of mechanisms for “no”. All of that complexity and bureaucracy comes at a cost. I fear, that in the future, even more so than today, that cost will be even more damage to our data-centric systems and processes. The bad guys know how to be agile. They WILL use that agility to their advantage. Mark my words…
