Raspberries and Information Security

Jason Garbis, CEO of Numberline Security, is both an avid gardener and information security expert. Raspberry season is upon us and it got him thinking about how the challenges of harvesting raspberries at just the right time can be analogous to challenges with security processes.

Raspberries are tricky. They have very little shelf life on the vine and when ripe, must be harvested within 24 hours. If you’re away for a week or so at the wrong time, the result is a disappointing mess of rotten, overripe, and some percentage of edible fruit.  

How does this apply to the security world? Frankly, lots of stuff has to happen every day. Identity lifecycle issues pertaining to onboarding and offboarding, validation of user identification, patching systems and more. Overall, it’s important to make sure processes are resilient enough to be kept up, regardless of whether a key individual is on vacation. A lack of process can result in technical and security debt that’s hard to recover from, sometimes taking a week or more to recover from. 

The risks of not applying robust security measures can include exposed and known vulnerabilities, users with too much access or lack thereof.  Ramifications can include an impact on the effectiveness of security teams and their perception within the line of business. 

Think about raspberries and your processes. With processes in place, security can be resilient and withstand key people being on vacation. And the raspberries can be really good!
Don’t incur technical or security debt unnecessarily! 

The original video is available here;