Roadmap to Securing Your Infrastructure
If you look around, you’ll see we’re not fighting off human replicas as Harrison Ford did in the 1982 film Blade Runner, which was set in the futuristic time period of 2019. However, we are continuously fighting off “cyber” attacks. I know, I know — I used the “C” word, but it fits. “Cyber” encompasses all things computer-based, including the internet, phones, and even our refrigerators and coffee pots. Honestly, when you were growing up, did you think you’d be able to look at the contents of your refrigerator from a wireless phone you can use almost anywhere? The problem is, with technology evolving as fast as it is, so are the skills of the evildoers in the cyber realm.
What can I do to make my company safe from cyber threats?
As an information security professional, I’m often asked, “What can I do to make my company safe from cyber threats?” Unfortunately, there is no pixie dust to sprinkle around and make everything secure. However, there are many steps you can take to secure your environment, putting you at an elevated security posture. Roadmap to Securing Your Infrastructure is a year-long, weekly blog series that will discuss many of the ways you can secure your infrastructure. Each month, we’ll begin by outlining the topics we’ll be covering in the upcoming weeks — sort of a warm-up, if you will. Then, we’ll dive into each of the topics in depth, and I’ll include a short video related to one of the monthly topics to help elevate that week’s topic to epic proportions! Well, it sounded better in my head, but you get the point.
Alright, it’s time to get down to brass tacks. I understand those of you reading this are at different levels of security posture today. Some are in a large corporate environment with a CISO and a security department, while others may be the only technical person in their small organization, who has become the “IT guy” (or gal) by default. We’ll start off with some basics that are easy to implement and provide a great return for the time spent on them.
For the month of February, we’ll be covering the first three topics:
- Security awareness training
- Vulnerability scans
- Patching
Hopefully, these are all things you’re already doing in order to better secure your environment. If not, you’ll want to check in each week to gain some additional understanding of each topic and how you can use this information to your advantage. If you are already using these topics, I still encourage you to stop by and review the information. I’ve been in IT for over 20 years and have seen quite a bit, so I may bring a new view to the table and introduce something you hadn’t yet thought of.
It’s the start of a new year, so let’s set a goal together: to better secure our infrastructures and become InfoSec heroes, with capes and everything! (No, really, I dig capes.)
Are you with me?