IT Security: This week's Big Picture

A Cyber attack on the largest Fuel Pipeline in America is having a negative effect on the fuel supply in the USA.

The ransomware attack, supposedly launched by the aptly named 'DarkSide', has thrown America into turmoil. The line, which carries fuel across the East Coast has not been running since Friday and these shortages are already beginning to cause queues to form and Airlines to halt certain flights. There could be far more serious implications too. When combined with the increase in fuel costs in America, this does not bode well at all. But we'll leave the implications for America for other's to work out.

We want to look at the Big Picture.

(If you're in a rush stop reading here)

The strength of any organisation is directly comparative to the efficiency of its networks. This is an all encompassing axiom of truth and spans the breadth from Atomic to Organic to Cybernetic and beyond. Regardless of the organism in question; from a single celled bacteria, to an animal in the wild, to a SME Business with 1,000 employees or to a National Government comprised of billions of individual people; it's ability to survive depends on the regularity and efficiency of its networks to provide it's survival functions.

These essential survival functions include many fundamental aspects, such as waste removal, reproduction, or digestion. And critically there is always an Immune system. It is becoming apparent that the IT security function in any Business Body is the cybernetic immune system, and those with weaker immune systems can become targets for threats both large and small.

The Dodo Bird is said to have evolved in isolation from Mankind for such a long time it didn't have any fear of us. Without natural predators to encode a response to threats, when it saw humans capture and kill others of it's kind it simply couldn't didn't detect the danger it was in. Instead of running for cover, it curiously walked towards the sailors that were intent upon eating its kin. This is not to suggest the Dodo didn't have an immune system of course, but more that the 'threat detection' software wasn't up to the task of survival.

Now, in the silicon world it has become the role of IT Security to function as a direct comparison to the 'threat responses' and 'immune systems' of a business. This means that IT Security can find it's self directly in control of whether a business lives or dies. We cannot overstate how important you are!

Rather than allowing your Business Body to go the way of the Dodo, you need to be able to detect threats more accurately before they arise, to deal with them more efficiently when they do arise and help educate the rest of your Business Body to improve overall immune responses.

Shameless plug here: RS22 can help you by giving your Business Body the resources you need, at a cost and scale to suit your organisation.

Call us on 0121 389 9022, or visit the website: www.rs22.co.uk