Dr. Cunningham focuses on integrating security into operations; leveraging advanced security solutions; empowering operations through artificial intelligence and machine learning; and planning for future growth within secure systems.
This video is the Keynote speaker’s presentation for the Raleigh chapter of the Information Systems Security Association for their 2021 fundraising event called InfoSeCon. I used to be a chapter member before I moved here to Massachusetts and I try to keep up with some of their announcements and events from time to time.
Dr. Cunningham was a previous Keynote speaker and to see him return this week on their Youtube channel was exciting. He’s known for being the creator of the Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) framework which is a framework of network security protocols that prioritize network isolation and continuous monitoring and validation.
This keynote presentation primarily focuses on network security and serves as a reminder of best practices for operating a corporate network while utilizing a zero-trust framework. He uses horror movies as a theme to tie everything together and make it engaging for his audience and I really appreciate the consideration. InfoSeCon took place back in October so it was topical and showed that it wasn’t some canned presentation that he had been giving all year. It really goes to show that one of the largest hurdles to Network Security is just communicating the importance of simple practices and getting your audience, whether it be clients that hire you on to improve their company’s practices or systems or if they’re users already in your network to follow them.
That’s really one of the main appeals of a Zero-Trust framework. Traditionally, network security is treated as an Us vs Them scenario where it’s always something that is being inflicted upon the company rather than the natural conclusions of risky behaviors. ZTX operates differently; it assumes that you can’t trust the end users to know everything you know about what they should or should not do. It encourages the security professionals to segment everything and isolate as much as possible so that when one person unknowingly invites the vampire into the house, we can shut another door in its face and not have to worry about evacuating everybody.
Specifically, he stresses the importance of maintenance within your systems so that older vulnerabilities aren’t taken advantage of and make life harder in the future, to listen to your users, that moving to the cloud is likely the best solution for people dealing with a “haunted” infrastructure, as well as a lot of other really great advice.
While a lot of the best practices are simple and seem like common sense, I always appreciate a reminder so that I don’t make bone-headed mistakes that can cost either me or my employer great sums of money. It’s important as I learn more and more about Software design and architecture that I keep in mind how I could be unknowingly creating vulnerabilities that could be exploited if ever someone decided to try hard enough to find them.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Jeremy Studley's CS Blog by jstudley95 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.