When you don't know what ya got til' it's gone

Do you ever feel like your partner won’t really appreciate you until you’re gone? Do you have Beyonce’ fever? I know I did when Lemonade came out – and I’m blissfully single - =D. Anyway, grab yourself a glass of wine because I’m getting ready to share with you the importance of one of the 3 Tenets of Cybersecurity CIA Triad – Availability. Lol, so you’re probably like what does CIA have to do with BEYONCE? Nothing. Lemonade is about lack of respect and appreciation from her partner, and ‘If you do that sh*t again, you gone lose your Wife.” How does this relate to Cybersecurity? What happens when I Pen Test myself into your system, disable your ports, and deny you access to the system you built? This is the importance of Availability. 

First and foremost – who is responsible for ensuring that systems are on the up/up? That would be the Network Admin, not the Security Admin. You would be surprised how often we work together yet keep our duties separate. Separation of Duties prevents what? Collusion. Back to the former – (this is literally how I think, one, to the next, back to the initial, and it goes on, lol). So, your Network Administrator is responsible for guaranteeing high availability as well as monitoring network performance. That being said, I too have checked my system’s CPU, Memory, Sessions, etc. I am anal, and I’ll be damned if I am working an extensive troubleshoot and then I get kicked off on the verge of a breakthrough. 

“It’s Always the Firewall.” The Network Security team takes a lot of heat, lol. While it is not true that it is always the firewall, it is true that we are responsible for potentially decreasing the performance in network transmission, and processing power mainly because we got a lot going on. I mean, a single Next-Gen Firewall unit can do a lot more now than simply processing an access control list (ACL). They can filter on content, detect intrusions (IDS), prevent intrusions (IPS), detect anomalies, etc. So, I mean yeah we (an our equipment) are high-maintenance, but with good intentions. 

One of my recent articles was on the Importance of Backups. You can see it tie in here as we move on to the next topic related to Availability. Make sure you have a great engineer and/or administrator on your Security team who understands and implements effective redundant (HA) systems as well as backup systems. This way, if and when something happens (COVID-19 much?), the productivity of your users will not be significantly affected. You don’t know what ya got til’ it’s gone. Protect yourself and your system. Reach out if you have any further questions on whether or not your current system architecture is HA capable, how to ensure availability, how to ensure your employees are upholding the standards of Availability, etc.

If you are interested in further reading, and want to know How to Get a Job& Kickstart a Career in the Field of Cybersecurity, click here. Disclaimer – not click bait – nothing erks me more than click bate. Serious inquiries only. =)

Cyber Prospects - Don't overthink HA - if Shon Harris were here I bet she would be telling me the same thing, about everything. I overthink, and overanalyze enough as it is (I used to deploy redundant Cisco Switches in a single-layered architecture for an Aerospace Corporation, I really liked HSRP to ensure redundancy, thus availability ensues). See my Technical Blog for more in-depth discussion on technical, protocols, policy, architecture, topology, encryption methods, API, and more. 

About the Author - Ashley Oliver is an experienced Cybersecurity Consultant, Engineer, Mentor and Teacher based in the Central New York area. Ashley has over 10 years of experience. Ashley is a SME in several areas of security including Network Security Engineering, Architecture, Policy, Standards, and Compliance. Ashley's rare and unique experience is based on her love for the Shell, and perfect design. Ashley has knowledge of NIST, and is very proficient in Cybersecurity, Network Security, Next-Gen Firewalls, Layered Security, DLP, Encryption, IPSec, and more, and she is always more than willing to share and to teach. Contact Ashley