Executive Security: Personal Protection Specialist...

Operational Risk Management (ORM) extends beyond the perimeter with some of your most valuable assets.  The Fortune 500 Chief Executive Officer and their staff team of subject matter experts are continually at risk.  Even if you are the co-founder of a new start-up with that new "Killer App" ready for testing with SOCOM, you may now require several full-time security risk professionals at your side.

In the corporate Protective Security environment, the "Advance Work" being executed by your ORM team will ensure your success or contribute to the embarrassment or injury of your client/principal. Professionals in Protective Security Detail's (PSD) realize that your site or lead advance agent can make or break the entire operational risk strategy, for your proactive and preventive security measures.

Thinking like the DEVGRU attacker and possessing a "Red Cell" mentality, is a valid approach for several aspects of the advance work necessary to ensure an effective "protective envelope". What ends up being the greatest threat to your operation, may be technology itself. Too much reliance on pervasive high tech tools such as "Google Maps" or even the standard-issue Garmin GPS, will create a vulnerability just at the point in time when your principal says, "Let's change the itinerary or the location of the next meeting".  A "15 Minute Map" comprised from a good old fashioned road atlas, can be the low tech tool that saves lives and potential chaos.

21st Century Executive Security and modern day Personal Protection Specialist's (PPS), who understand the value of the "Advance" and apply it effectively, will continue to keep their principal's safe and secure and with a high degree of professional client service. Corporations operating in countries where executives are required to visit critical infrastructure plants, manufacturing facilities or meet with government officials, have been incorporating more protective intelligence and advance work for good reason. The global business environment is increasingly more volatile and subject to rapidly changing political risks and subjective "Rule of Law" in many emerging democracies.

Whether it is weapons in close range or a distance, explosive IED's or kidnapping plots, today's global and mobile executive is ever more at risk.  Effective "Advance Work" is the most important and critical aspect of the security operation.  Site and route surveys, "eyes on" residences, airports and hotels, hospitals, police stations, restaurants and convention centers, are a mandatory component of the advance operations.

Surveillance Detection (SD) remains a vital facet of the advance work, including the ongoing SD as the Protective Security Detail agents run the operation. The Principal is potentially aware of such activity, yet is shielded from any lethal imminent threats as the days agenda unfolds.

What may be more obvious is the PSD's use of "Coopers Colors:":

"By using a well-practiced, concrete, formulaic train of thought, it prevents the hesitation normally experienced when one is under threat of attack or actual attack, and this is the purpose of the code, to prevent unnecessary hesitation, and to apply only that force which is necessary to defend yourself." "The way Jeff Cooper explains it is:"

• White - relaxed and fairly oblivious of your surroundings, you should only be in this condition if you are at home or another secure setting behind locked doors.
• Yellow - the state of not only constant awareness, but the constant recognition of possible threats. In this state, you are observant of your surroundings, allowing you to recognize threats if they present themselves.
• Orange - in this state, you have recognized a potential threat, and are ready to defend yourself against this threat if necessary.
• Red - you are actively defending yourself or others against a threat that has presented itself to you.

It's not just about general awareness, it's about positively identifying potential and actual threats, as you go about your daily life. It is this threat identification and acquisition process that is so valuable, that reduces your response time to those threats, if they present themselves.

Executive Security and the Personal Protection Specialist (PPS) becomes an even more vital asset in the OPS Risk portfolio, where the Board of Director's has authorized significant premiums for an executive's kidnap and ransom (K&R) insurance. Why?

Like many aspects of our society today regarding information privacy, one only wonders how information gets leaked from the confines of the corporate enterprise. Operational Risks involving people in your organization exist everyday.  Insuring against losses and protecting against personnel loss events is imperative. Utilizing the correct strategy, tools and professional human assets to comprise the entire security envelope including the effective use of Protective Security Details, can make all the difference in your organizations resilience factor.

Cyber Domain: International Law of Asymmetric Warfare...

The international laws and human understanding of what crosses a "Red Line" are being defined in cyberspace in real-time.  The operations of the Chief Security Officer (CSO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) are now becoming more adaptive.  The Operational Risk Management (ORM) enterprise architecture, will soon call for three standard mission functions:

• Computer Network Attack (CNA): Includes actions taken via computer networks to disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy the information within computers and computer networks and/or the computers/networks themselves.
• Computer Network Defense (CND): Includes actions taken via computer networks to protect, monitor, analyze, detect, and respond to network attacks, intrusions, disruptions, or other unauthorized actions that would compromise or cripple defense information systems and networks.
• Computer Network Exploitation (CNE): Includes enabling actions and intelligence collection via computer networks that exploit data gathered from target or enemy information systems or networks.

 Computer Network Defense (CND) has been the norm for many organizations and now, that is no longer enough.  Yet before we can determine why we must  add CNA and CNE, we better understand the breadth and depth of the cyber realm.  The "Over-the-Horizon" view, of the reality of that domain, is rapidly developing into a proactive risk management imperative, for Global 500 organizations.  Why?

The non-state actors are organizing and evolving into what could be coined for the laymen, as a modern day "Cyber al-Qaida."  A "Cyber  Taliban."  Or even a "Cyber 1st Amendment or 4th Amendment cadre of affiliated entities.  These digital non-state actors following a set of ideologies, as opposed to a set of true investigative journalists or independent non-partisan watch dogs, are metastasizing at an exponential rate.

This ideology fueled by cyber activism and directed at a particular organization or country, is on a digital battlefield that spans the globe.  It has long been said that the Internet is nothing more than a mirror, of the good and evil in our physical world.  The existence of cyber warriors who are interested in going beyond the goal of financial crimes to kinetic destruction of critical infrastructure, is a well known fact.

Who are these cyber warriors that identify with a movement or cause, that attack the well being of other humans or destroys the property or economic assets of another organization.  They are the same ideologues that have existed long before the Internet.  The difference is that the reach, speed and ubiquitous nature of the digital medium accelerates the threat and the requirement for an effective counter balance.  Putting actual skill sets aside for a moment, the real differentiator has been on a "White Hat" or ethical warrior focus:

Regarding whether there were different rules of armed conflict for cyberwarfare in dealing with states like Iran, versus terror entities like Hamas or al­-Qaida, he first noted that while there is “no consensus,” the “US, Israel, England and others” argue that “self ­defense” principles justify attacks against terror groups, even if they are not states.  --IDF Col. Sharon Afek-- Article by Yonah Jeremy Bob

The CNA, CND and CNE operations in the digital Global 500, will now employ those individuals who have an ideology that is more directly opposed to the worldview of a "Cyber al-Qaida."  In the long war, the cyber "White Hats" will endure.  The asymmetric warfare of the next decade, will encompass operational risk professionals behind the network, who have a different context.  Why? Because they believe in a ideology far more patriotic than their predecessors.  They are the "Quiet Professionals" who have retired from SOCOM active duty and now span the ranks of the corporate private sector.

The international laws of the cyber domain are in play for our prosperity or our peril.

Beware of the Cowboy: Risk Driven by Fear...

Beware of the cowboy.  Operational Risk Management (ORM) spans the hazards on the flight deck on the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) or behind enemy lines or even to employee behavior on the front lines of the private sector on Wall Street:

"The recent conviction of Michael Coscia in the Federal District Court in Chicago in the first prosecution for “spoofing” provides more clarity to high-frequency trading firms about how they can operate. The message is to tread carefully when a strategy depends on using orders that will be quickly canceled because the government may claim they are an effort to manipulate the market by fooling others into trading.

Spoofing was made illegal in the Dodd-Frank Act, which prohibits “bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution.”

Believe it when we say that people who try to be cowboys in your organization are operating without regard to risk. Now multiply the number of cowboys by the number of people that they surround on their team, who think that this is the way to operate. It doesn't take long to find out that these are the root causes of many of the operational risks in your organization. And it starts out with the basics even in the vast private sector beyond Wall Street:

• Revenue is not booked according to the rules. Products sit in the warehouse yet revenue ends up on the sales reps commission report because (s)he had a signed order.
• Assets are not valued correctly. Bank accounts are not validated to make sure they actually exist and accounts receivables are inflated.

These are just two of the many facets of occupational fraud that starts with a few cowboys who have little regard for managing risk and all the incentives to line their pockets with new found cash or bonuses.

From Leadership Lessons of the Navy SEALS

The Cowboy

"Neither of us knows if such a thing has ever been tolerated in modern commando teams. Yes, sometimes you need to charge forward. But, there are simply too many potential casualties and too much political currency resting on commando missions to entrust one to a cowboy. Authorization for an operation depends on the accurate calculation of operational risk. This requires an assessment of proven forces ability to perform a task. All this is contrary to the cowboy philosophy of depending on experimentation, pluck, and luck in order to succeed."

"The problem with being a cowboy is that your bosses won't employ you if they can't trust you, and they can't trust you if they don't know what you'll do. And then you're stuck with the reputation."
        --LT. CMDR. Jon Cannon

You might think that the reason is ego or just plain greed. However, the real motive may not be so clear. More than likely, the motive is fear. And that fear is something that grows until it gets to the point of creating harm, loss and destruction. You have to find the cowboys in your organization and you have to follow the mantra of quality gurus from years past, "Drive out Fear".

InTP: Quality of Design in a New Age of Terror...

Executive Management and the Board of Directors are waking up today, with a key thought on their minds.  As a result of the horrific act of terrorism in San Bernadino, CA USA this week, how effective are the "Insider Threat" Programs (InTP) that are now being tasked:

The FBI said Friday that it is investigating the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre as an act of terrorism, with officials revealing that the Pakistani woman who teamed with her husband in the slaughter went on Facebook afterward to pledge her allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State.

The husband terrorist was employed by a county government agency in California.  Just as your place of employment has a "Duty of Care" for the safety and security of it's employees, any nexus with home grown violent extremism or terrorism on a government or private sector ecosystem requires a strategic focus.

( U.S. Code Title 22 Chapter 38, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as: “Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”^[18])

The Board of Directors or Under Secretary, in concert with Operational Risk Management (ORM) professionals within the enterprise have a fiduciary responsibility that now has a new spotlight.

The husband terrorist was a U.S. citizen working as an environmental health specialist in San Bernardino County.  He was a devout Sunni Muslim.  He had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for two weeks, home of the 9/11 hijackers.  When he returned, he was growing a beard and married to a devout Sunni Muslim woman he met online.  Witnesses have stated that his new wife had substantial influence on his religious beliefs.  Was some or all of this a potential "Red Flag" by family members or co-workers?   Could she have been a clandestine agent?

The presence of an "Insider Threat" Program (InTP) is evident in hundreds of top tier Fortune 500 organizations and almost 100% of government contractors who may have "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities" (SCIF).  U.S. Executive Order 13587 requires that an organization have an InTP in place.

This still leaves thousands of vulnerable businesses and governments agencies at the state and local levels without the resources, expertise and policy-based programs to effectively administer a lawful and effective InTP or hybrid "Insider Threat" strategy.  It is imperative to assist in the continuous protection of physical and digital organizational assets, including the precious lives of all employees:

As a result, many organizations will be asking senior management about the initial implementation of an InTP or to review the effectiveness of a current InTP that is already in progress, at a Defense Industrial Base (DIB) contractor.  So what?

What does the current InTP in your organization, have to do with the adverse consequences that may occur?  Why could those potential consequences of an InTP that has been designed incorrectly or implemented without control metrics, create substantial risk and liability to the enterprise?  How can you address the Operational Risks associated with an "Insider Threat" Program?

Here are several key design areas, to mitigate the potential likelihood of unintended consequences of a failed InTP design:

• Staff or employees who utilize the InTP incorrectly with intent or by accident
• Top management loss of reputation by supporting an aggressive InTP Progam
• Collision course with formal EEOC Whistle blower protections and processes
• Friction with internal Human Resources relationships

These are just a few examples of the many areas that should be addressed in the initial design of a high performing InTP.  The problematic cases as a result of low quality design, are building bad PR and new employee lawsuits are gaining attention.  The aggressive actions by management may create a high rate of "False-Positives," that alienates employees, increases privacy violation claims and impacts corporate culture.

The integrity and the credibility of the InTP is paramount, if we are to continue to utilize it as an effective tool in the Operational Risk Management (ORM) strategic plan.  Managing risk on vital enterprise assets requires dedicated people, tested processes and robust systems that will not erode support.

Where are the vital process, training and systems areas that need focus or have the ability to be designed correctly from the start:

1. Relationships with Management & Employees
2. Investigation of Incidents and Reports
3. Management Behavior after an Employee Red Flag
4. Implications of the Culture of Trust

Organizational behaviors and the "Duty of Care" are in the spotlight again, as a result of the San Bernadino terrorist attack.  The quick reaction by hundreds of companies to implement InTP that have not done so already, will spawn thousands of new litigation examples that have a nexus with security and privacy in the workplace.

In essence, you need to have a specific executive management intervention, that does not over react.  You should have a independent facilitated off-site meeting to better understand what can go wrong, why it happens and what to keep an eye on.  Finally, what you can do about it.

The opportunity now is for you to strategically implement or adjust the InTP within your organization.  Why you do this and how you proceed, is vital to the enterprise risk management of the company.  How you and your employees behave from this point forward, will forever impact the culture of trust in your organization.

Our thoughts and prayers to all of the victims and the families impacted by this act of terrorism in the U.S. Homeland...

Trustworthiness: Accelerating into our Digital Future...

As the moon descends into the Western horizon this morning, there is growing uncertainty across the globe.  We are heading into the last month of 2015 when much of the world gathers family and friends to celebrate.  Our trustworthiness as people, businesses and countries is continuously in question.

The Operational Risk Management ORM) professionals are working 24 x 7 to continue to do what is humanly possible, to make our communities, businesses, religious and educational institutions and governments more safe and secure.

At the root of many of the disputes, conflicts, suits, feuds or wars is the subject of "Trust".  On a wide spectrum in each relationship, domain or system, the decision to trust is something that many never even think about.  At the most fundamental level, the spectrum could be represented like this:

Zero Trust  >>>>>>  Trust Exists  >>>>>>  Implicit Trust

On this spectrum of trust, the rules, conditions, environment, interactions and experience move our human emotions across and back and forth on the scale from zero trust to implicit.  In the human relations scenario our words, behaviors and actions continuously move our level of trust back and forth on this "Trust Spectrum".

What about computing machines?  How often do you think about the "Spectrum of Trust" when it comes to one computer trusting another computer?  If you are a programmer, data scientist, forensics engineer or even an attorney or doctor, this is something you think about all the time.

Now there is a data revolution, that has been evolving for just a short 20 years since the commercial launch of the Internet.  The birth of the iPhone about five years ago, has now accelerated the small light weight radio transmitters for wireless communications into powerful handheld data computers.

Has your level of trust increased on the spectrum when it comes to what you read or see on your iPhone?  The ubiquitous utilization of tools and sensors such as GPS has transformed the way humans can navigate across our planet, sailing, flying, driving or on foot.  The sensors we trust and the computers that are trusting other computers, is something that we rarely even question.

The computing machines have become a way of life now for those children who are learning how to read, do mathematics and solve puzzles even before their first days in a traditional school.  Their trust in the rules, the sensors and the words and pictures they see, shall forever influence their perceptions of trust.

In the early days of trusted computing there were peer-to-peer services such as Napster and Skype. Today there are emerging new technologies gaining momentum such as blockchain.  In essence, a shared trusted ledger that everyone can inspect.  Even "Open Source" software has gained attention because of the transparency issue.

Your decision to trust and computers making "Trust Decisions" are a series of mathematical calculations.  The formula includes rules, information and is happening at light speed.  They are also happening in our brains and the brain is processing all of what it knows about the rules, data and our contextual understanding.

Computers making "Trust Decisions" are the result of humans inventing the languages and algorithms for the computers to understand each other.  We now must transition our thinking from the simplicity of just risk management, to the formality and trustworthiness of "Trust Decisions".  The discipline of engineering and mathematics is making its way towards those places that were once deemed too "Soft" for pure logic or formality.

Perhaps sometime in the near future, our digital identities, travel history, conversations, messaging, patterns of life and activity-based intelligence, will all be merged into a single digital "persona".  What then?

Will this then be transformed into a new 21st century version of the "FICO Score"?  Will our thinking be forever changed about our spectrum of trust?  What if the new "Trustworthiness Score" was on a scale from zero to 100?  What if the rules, information and calculations of the future determined where you stand at any point in time, in terms of your trustworthiness as a human being?

The time has come for our "Trust Decisions" to accelerate, by the use of trusted computers to assist humans, make more informed decisions, human-to-human and machine-to-machine.

Velocity: Integrity of Enterprise Architecture...

Operational Risk Management (ORM) is a discipline that requires several elements to remain effective.  Whether you are working on the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) or analyzing data from the corporate Security Operations Center (SOC), your tasks continuously rely on achieving "Trust".

At the core of these decision-making roles, are the processing of rapidly changing data on a split second basis.  The sensors or tools we use day-by-day to assist our quest for greater levels of safety and security, are interdependent minute-by-minute, second-by-second, on the trust of data.  It is imperative at the early stages of process and product development, to effectively test and improve these tools and sensors.  Why?

The "Quality Assurance" phase of any process whether in design, assembly, manufacturing or implementation is based upon a foundation of the quality of trust.  You are reading this now on a device connected to an Internetwork, that has layers of business rules and technology rules that are executed according to industry standards.  The process and the rules have been implemented utilizing QFD and Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF).

There are three vital components of building digital trust in this scenario, for the systems in play and the requirements of end users:

• Authentication
• Data Integrity
• Encryption

All three must be present to provide you with the highest level of assurance, that you are working with a trusted system:

1. How can you be sure that the party you are communicating with, on the other end of the line, is who they claim to be?
2. How can you be sure that the data has not been altered, deleted or changed in transit?
3. How can you be sure that no one can intercept and understand the information being transferred?

All three of these vital components must be present all the time, in order to build integrity and assure your level of trust.  They must be consistent and persistent from end-to-end.  In essence, we are protecting against our adversaries from listening in, tampering with the data and impersonating the destination.

Are you operating any vital component of your business operation, where any of these three components are absent?  Are any of the three not persistent, 100% of the time?  If so, then you are in jeopardy of an erosion of trust with your stakeholders and the increased likelihood of an adverse event.  With your customers, your reputation and probably both.

So what?  How does this translate to your role and the work that you are in charge of, within the operations of your enterprise?  The short answer is, "Velocity and Wealth".  You see, the business rules, technology rules and the legal rules are all connected.  Your job, is to make sure that you understand, your organizations unique "Operational Risk Enterprise Architecture" (OREA).

The velocity at which your business process can execute transactions with integrity, versus your competition or adversary, can mean the difference between victory or defeat.  The margin or profit that you are able to gain by successfully executing millions of your transactions, can mean the difference between prosperity or disadvantage.

Is your organization advertising on Internet web sites?  Is the business model for your company, based upon revenue from advertising?  The trustworthiness of your systems operating with the goal of generating ad revenue, are now at stake.  Informationweek DarkReading explains:

'Xindi' Online Ad Fraud Botnet ExposedBillions of dollars in ad revenue overall could be lost to botnet that exploits 'Amnesia' bug.

Online fraudsters have amassed a botnet of millions of infected machines that exploits a security flaw in a digital advertising technology in order to execute phony online ad impressions.

The so-called Xindi botnet was designed to exploit a known vulnerability called Amnesia (CVE-2015-7266) in implementations of the Open RTB Internet advertising protocol. Unlike most online ad fraud attacks, it doesn't use clickjacking-based click fraud, but rather, generates large numbers of phony ad impressions. According to researchers at Pixalate, which published a report today on the botnet, some 6- to 8 million machines at more than 5,000 enterprises are at risk of being used as bots in Xindi.

Jalal Nasir, CEO of Pixalate, says his firm has spotted traffic from the IP addresses of major Fortune 500 firms, government agencies, and universities, associated with Xindi. While it's unclear if the IP addresses are spoofed or legitimate, he says the IP addresses used by Xindi are owned by those organizations, which include Citigroup; General Motors; Lowe's; Marriott; Wells Fargo; California State University's Office of the Chancellor; Columbia University; the University of Maryland; and many other big-name corporations and colleges. 

The Quality Assurance of the Online Advertising enterprise is in jeopardy.  The trustworthiness of e-commerce and the digital business models executing the rules for producing revenue, are now in question.  How effective is your enterprise in understanding the true business problem and then solving it?

"Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA, whose membership includes more than 640 companies with 10,000 different brands that spend more than $250 billion in marketing and advertising, says the more than $6 billion of losses to advertisers is actually on the low end of estimates. He estimates the number may be closer to $10 billion."

"Achieving Digital Trust" and the "Trust Decisions" to create wealth require that we begin with a sound architecture.  It continues with the widely adopted information governance processes and three factors.  Authentication, Data Integrity and Encryption.  The "Advertising Industry" is not the only business segment at risk.  The next time you open that piece of mail with a new credit card that utilizes the EMV chip, you will begin to understand the true business problem.

You are in control of the velocity of the process of change with your current state. The opportunity for the future state of "Trust Decisions" is now coming into the light.  In your country, industry, company and DevOps team.

Mass Movements: Adapting to the Threat...

As if the act of bombing a Russian Airliner Flight 9268 with 224 crew and tourists returning from a Red Sea vacation is not a clear indicator of ISIS as a mass movement, perhaps this attack on Paris will be:

1.  Stade De France - 9:20PM - Suicide Bomber - 1 Killed
2.  Rue Alibert - 9:25PM - 2 Gunmen by car - 15 Killed
3.  Casa Nostra - Moments Later - Same 2 Gunmen - 5 Killed
4.  La Belle Equipe - 9:36PM - Same 2 Gunmen - 19 Killed
5.  Bataclan - 9:40PM - 3 Gunmen - 2 hours later - Suicide Bombers - 89 Killed
6.  Cafe Comptoir Voltaire - 9:40PM - Suicide Bomber - 1 critically injured

As we say our continued prayers for those lost and consider the consequences of just these two single recent terrorist events, you can try to ask yourself, what now?  How will we address this kind of continuous threat and evil going forward?  Why did this happen?

To begin your understanding as a true Operational Risk Management (ORM) professional, you must start here.  In 1951 a migratory worker and longshoreman, Eric Hoffer wrote a book, The True Believer:  Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements:

"The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. He who is free to draw conclusions from his individual experience and observation is not usually hospitable to the idea of martyrdom... All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth or certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ."

 There are some who know, that Hoffer understood some things about mass movements that pertain to our current state in 2015.  This set of traits and characteristics is essential understanding by all, if we are to begin to develop a strategy for the future.  To quote Hoffer again:  "However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing."

Our future state requires a strategy that we agree on the correct taxonomy.  Whether the battle is being waged on a nation state having sovereign authority or the private enterprises of non-state actors in Cyberspace, without taxonomy, we will continue to struggle with our strategy.  What is terrorism and what is a crime?

CRIME noun 1. an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited.

TERRORISM noun 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

First, the actions that you take and the resources that are necessary to address the evil of terrorism vs. an organized crime wave, are clearly different.

Second, you must understand the source of the elements of a "mass movement."

STRATEGY noun, plural strategies. 1. Also, strategics. the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations
Are you working on a strategy right now to address cybercrime? Are you working on a strategy right now to work on cyberterrorism? Is either of these strategies tied to defeating a mass movement?

You see, the tools, tactics and resources that you are using to implement your strategy, may be all wrong. The future outcomes you seek, may not be possible with the strategy you have in place. Once you have come to this realization, there is an opportunity to adapt. However, you must adapt quickly and you must provide the resources instantly to enable the change.

How would you adapt, if you came to the realization that your quest was with adversaries who have actions such as:

• Steal / Modify / Delete
• Read / Copy
• Bypass / Spoof
• Authenticate
• Flood
• Probe / Scan

How would you adapt, if you came to the realization that your quest was with adversaries who have objectives such as:

• Challenge, Status, Thrill
• Political Gain
• Financial Gain
• Damage

How would you adapt, if you came to the realization that your quest was with a Mass Movement?

You now realize that you may have the same problem, that many of our world leaders have today.  It could be time to finally admit, that you must now adapt and it is time to change your strategy.

GODSPEED noun 1. good fortune; success (used as a wish to a person starting on a journey, a new venture, etc.).

November 11: Serving the United States by the Other 99%...

“As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words,
but to live by them”
-John F. Kennedy-

The United States Veterans Day National Ceremony is held each year on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery . The ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by veterans' organizations and remarks from dignitaries. The ceremony is intended to honor and thank all who served in the United States Armed Forces. This represents less than 1% of Americans.

How many Soldiers will be on active duty around the globe on Wednesday, November 11 working in their current role, task or assignment, to keep America safe and secure?  So those of us who call the United States their home, may exercise their freedoms and the citizens rights that our nations architects designed for us.

How may Airman will be walking the streets in parades remembering their flights over the Pacific, Vietnam, the Atlantic, Europe, South America, North Africa or the Middle East?  What about all those pilots that have flown at such a high altitude; never to be detected over Russia, North Korea or China?

How many Sailors and Marines will be cruising on, over or under our vast oceans to be present and ready, for our next mission to help others?  How many Submariners will never be detected on their 24 x 7 watch; or with SOF waiting patiently below deck for their next clandestine operation, anywhere in the world?

So on Wednesday, November 11 what will you be doing, John or Mary Citizen, in Anytown U.S.A.?

For some Veterans who experience this day of recognition, it is not easy.  It could be a day that is simultaneously bitter sweet.  There is certainly great pride, yet some within the 1% who are Veterans, look around the country and wonder why the other 99% are not serving their nation, in their full capacity as a U.S. citizen.

Service to your nation doesn't begin or end with a job in the military.  Service to your nation begins for everybody who becomes an American.  What does that mean?

It means that we stand up and believe in the U.S. Constitution.  We defend and negotiate all that it says and what it enables for us to accomplish for ourselves, our families and our fellow believers.  You see, the freedoms and the opportunity to prosper in the United States is there for anybody to grasp.  For anybody to achieve.

To honor and thank those who have served in the Military on Veterans Day, requires so much more:

• Will you "sleep in" on your day off or volunteer with the local church or non-profit to teach Veterans how to be more effective in the transition to a civilian private sector job?
• Will you design and code the next iPhone App to locate other Vets in your local town or city to assist each other and your community?
• Will you meet with local business owners to plan, raise funds and deploy vital programs for families of Veterans?
• Will you vote to fund and allocate adequate resources for the operations necessary and requested, by those forward deployed on the front lines, in uniform and also in the shadows?

The opportunities to serve our country and all of our Veterans November 11, requires a continuous cycle of thinking beyond just the Soldier, Airman, Sailor or Marine.  It also requires more proof, that a majority of the other 99%, are also serving their country and all that the United States stands for in the world.

So this November 11, 2017 listen to John F. Kennedy...

Trust Decisions: The Extinction of Risk Management...

Most people believe in some form of risk management and the truth is, that it doesn’t work all the time.  It doesn’t work because the human being is incapable of processing all of the possible rules of the moment, the game, in any specific scenario, fast enough.  Therefore, failures of people, processes, systems and external events seem to occur randomly.

Is it possible to achieve a state of zero surprise?  Where all risks are mitigated and humans can achieve an environment of trust that is sustainable.  We think it is.  In the right environment and in a specific scenario, surprise is now “impossible”.

“Trust Decisions” occur today at the speed of light and with an accuracy of 99.999%.  Risk Management is our current state and it is destined for extinction.  Trust Decisions as we will now apply them, becomes our future state.  With zero surprise.  The truth is, that risk management is obsolete and a new digital invention is ready for mankind.

Operational Risk Management (ORM) professionals can better understand the adversaries they Deter, Detect, Defend and Document each hour, of each day.  The metrics have created new thinking on what is required to increase the odds of achieving the specific mission.  That definition of each "Mission" is now the focus of so many, who are charged with the protection of our nations most critical assets.

You have been reading and hearing all about the Internet of Things (IoT) and the exponential math on the number of devices and the data storage requirements, that will be achieved by the year 2020.  The trust decisions that are being made now in nanoseconds from machine-to-machine, system-to-system, are based upon several levels of programmatic rules.  These rules are unknown to many and in some cases only known to a few.

The wealth being created on a daily basis relies on these "Trust Decisions" to execute and carry-out the rule-sets that we have bestowed upon them.  The question remains for the end user, the organization, the company, the government, the nation state.  What are the rules based exercise that encompasses understanding and knowing the rules, fueled by vast collections of unstructured information and then performing mathematical functions?  At light speed.

Here are the qualities of our future "Trust Decisions:"

• Rules-based
• Fueled by Information
• Mathematical

 So what?  To ask this question at this point is imperative.  So what does this have to do with the future of the Internet?  How will this impact my way of life or my job?  Why is speed, a component of true innovation?

All of these questions and more are answered in the book by Jeffrey Ritter, Achieving Digital Trust- The New Rules for Business at the Speed of Light.  "Achieving Digital Trust delivers to business executives, IT strategists, and innovation leaders something remarkable-a complete tool-kit of new strategies and resources that will change how they make decisions that matter, and how to build digital assets that can be trusted."

The planet Earth has historically provided us early signals of change.  Our scientists are measuring the temperature of oceans and the impact of weather on the ecosystems that sustain life.  No different than the measurements being assessed environmentally, data science is already making forecasts.  The facts and the math don't lie.  IPv6 is now a reality.  The "Cyber Domain" has been recognized across the world as an addition to the other domains to be defended including Air, Land, Sea and Space.  USCYBERCOM has now been established and for vital reasons.

As each human carries that digital device in our pockets, to perhaps utilize to navigate our way to our next destination, we are judging the trustworthiness of the App of choice.  Is Google Maps more trustworthy than another?  As we sit on the train using another App to order that new addition for our home or digital library, the transaction enables logistics, financial and air/ground transportation systems.  Is Amazon more trustworthy than another?

You see, the future domain for dominance in the business and commerce of the globe, is about "Digital Trust".  The innovation and startup ecosystems are all built on the number of people who trust your tool on a daily basis, as the model for success, not always just the quarterly profit.  Trustworthiness is now the new currency for how the valuation of "Enterprise X" will be interpreted by the markets vs. "Enterprise Y".  Think about it.

 The truth is, that risk management is obsolete and a new digital invention is ready for mankind.

4GW: An Act of Valor in the Private Sector...

Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) is a stark reality in 2015 and beyond. Are American business interests as prepared as they could be, for the growing Operational Risks in the 21st century?  How many employees do you now have working outside the Homeland?

4GW involves the following key elements:

• Are complex and long term 
• Terrorism (tactic) 
• A non-national or transnational base—highly decentralized 
• A direct attack on the enemy's culture 
• Highly sophisticated psychological warfare, especially through media manipulation and lawfare
• All available pressures are used - political, economic, social and military 
• Occurs in low intensity conflict, involving actors from all networks 
• Non-combatants are tactical dilemmas 
• Lack of hierarchy 
• Small in size, spread out network of communication and financial support 
• Use of Insurgency and guerrilla tactics

There are a number of methods that a private sector company can utilize to exercise its own "Business Continuity Plan" in concert with the public sector here in the United States.  Operational Risk Management (ORM) associated with people, process, systems and other potential external events can be shared with local first responders, to establish awareness or alert protocols with your particular organizations incidents. As a private sector business, you should be asking yourself how often your internal incident commanders visit your local fire station or police precinct, to share mutually relevant information. Do you invite these vital community preparedness and response professionals to engage in your own company "Continuity of Operations" and crisis planning and exercises, even if it is just a table top review?

Through public-private collaboration, government and the private sector can:

• Enhance situational awareness 
• Improve decision-making 
• Access more resources and capabilities 
• Expand reach and access for disaster preparedness and relief communications 
• Improve coordination 
• Increase the effectiveness of emergency management efforts 
• Maintain strong relationships, built on mutual understanding 
• Create more resilient communities and increase jurisdictional capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from major incidents 

Around the country there are certain metro areas that have annual readiness and preparedness exercises because of where they are located. In some cases there are federal laws that mandate these exercises such as seaports. Norfolk, VA, Houston, TX or even the only deep water port between Los Angeles and San Francisco; Port Hueneme, CA have annual tests of their readiness and resources. Each of these seaports are significant assets to our continuous economic well being. They are surrounded by the private sector businesses who supply them with fuel, electric utilities and other critical infrastructure components that play their vital role in these regions.

Beyond the ability for these private sector organizations to engage with local first responders to exercise their continuity planning, is the ability to test new technologies, methods and even research possible ways to improve overall resilience, on a spectrum of new found asymmetric threats. These tests determine our ability to adapt or to utilize new tools in our current 4GW environment. We must remain adaptive during irregular operations by small insurgent groups such as those that have occurred in Mexico, Mumbai, India or the growing real possibility of devastating cyber attacks to our energy and telecommunication sectors.

Why are we encountering these threats on a higher frequency around the globe? You only have to look as far as the foreign published press to find the answer to this question. Or if you haven't got the time to read and translate to your native language what is being said, then make sure you see the movie "Act of Valor" to better understand what lies before us. What follows is from a foreign press article:

"The inability of the majority of the world's countries in the current circumstances to fight globalization's most powerful military machine (primarily the United States) on equal terms has led in recent years to an increase in the number of terrorist acts, armed conflicts, and local wars. Their coalescence into a single antagonistic system is giving rise to a phenomenon designated asymmetric operations by military-political theoreticians (asymmetrical conflicts and even asymmetric wars)."

As a result, we must adapt. The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has several educational, training and research centers that are dedicated to the readiness of the military and to the public private partnership mechanism in the United States. The one center that stands out to help us become more adaptive on small conflicts and irregular activities is "The Center for Asymmetric Warfare (NPSCAW)."

The Center for Asymmetric Warfare, or CAW, was established in 1999 as a part of the Naval Air Systems Command to support U.S. military forces, as well as local, state, and federal organizations, in identifying, countering, and controlling the effects of asymmetric warfare in the nation’s Global War on Terrorism. CAW’s initial focus was the development and conduct of multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional homeland security and homeland defense exercise and training programs, in addition to test and evaluation programs for developmental first response technologies. 

Since its inception, CAW has matured into a recognized leader in its field, by providing comprehensive education, training, and exercise programs; technology integration, test, and evaluation programs; and capability assessment and improvement programs to partners across a wide spectrum of jurisdictions. These programs include participation by Department of Defense; local, state, and federal government agencies; private sector and non-governmental organizations; academia; and international government agencies. 

In 2008, CAW was realigned as a satellite division of the Naval Postgraduate School’s National Security Institute, headquartered at Naval Base Ventura County, in Point Mugu, California. Harnessing the capabilities of the four institutes and four schools that comprise NPS, CAW can capitalize on the expertise and experience of a continuously expanding number of alumni, faculty, and students.

The U.S. private sectors proximity to high value targets are many times overlooked. Where on the West coast of the U.S., is the largest concentration of undersea telecom cables coming ashore? You might guess San Francisco or Seattle. Think again. This map will give you an idea what areas of the coastline could be more important to protect and to continuously prepare for, a future attack on these assets. The answer is San Luis Obispo.

As an Operational Risk professional in your private sector organization, make it a priority to get engaged with your local community. Visit your local first responders soon. Reach out to the Regional Fusion Center and other entities designed to facilitate a smooth information sharing process.

This should occur with government and the most valuable assets owned and operated by our private sector constituents. It all comes down to two words. Continuous Vigilance.

Cyber Allies: A Whole Community Strategy...

The "New Normal" for American business is now apparent.   Operational Risk Management (ORM) is at the center of Board of Directors meetings, due to new laws and the latest attribution reports on nations state cyber hacking.  Disclosure to corporate shareholders of significant data breach or intellectual property theft incidents requires a more laser-focused industry strategy.  A private sector "Whole Community" approach to sharing vital intelligence on threat actors and new malware variants, but also developing trusted allies in industry itself.

As a concept, Cyber "Whole Community" is a means by which business, emergency management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. By doing so, a more effective path to societal security and resilience is built. In a sense, Whole Community is a philosophical approach on how to think about conducting cyber emergency management. 

For the past decade or more the private sector has toiled at the task of creating public-private-partnerships in the Banking, Energy, Telecom, Retail, Defense and numerous other Critical Infrastructure sectors.  These organizations have focused on the challenge of sharing information that is relevant to the industry group at such a high level, the real value of the intelligence on threats or malware is often just a look in the rear view mirror.  By the time it gets to the report and into the hands of the organizational portal or is pushed via listserve to the member constituents it is stale or not relevant.

What if your corporate headquarters was located in an office park in AnyTown, USA along with several dozen other large, medium and small businesses.  What if those businesses were all tied to the same critical infrastructure for the business park.  Such as electrical power, water, and telecommunications.  In most cases, the energy provider and water supplier will be the same for all businesses in the office park.  Unlike these utilities, the telecommunications providers may be much more diverse.  There could be three or more providers of high capacity voice, data and wireless services to choose from by each of the businesses.

What if these businesses now adopted a Cyber "Whole Community" mind-set.  They would begin the process of cooperation, coordination and collaboration.  They would embark on a bold new strategy to:

 Understand community complexity.

 Recognize community capabilities and needs.

 Foster relationships with community leaders.

 Build and maintain partnerships.

 Empower local action.

 Leverage and strengthen social infrastructure, networks, and assets.
You see, national industry-based organizations are not enough to build the long term resilience your headquarters requires, and your shareholders demand.  The Chief Risk Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Information Officer need to begin to reach out to your business neighbors now. The initiative will be well received by the CEO as they report at the next Board of Directors meeting.

The process for developing a more robust Operational Risk Program and sustainable services for your business enterprise, could just be a stones throw from your corporate front door.  Here is the bottom-line.  You need to develop trusted allies in your own neighborhood and community:

Benefits include: 

• Shared understanding of community needs and capabilities.
• Greater empowerment and integration of resources from across the community.
• Stronger social infrastructure.
• Establishment of relationships that facilitate more effective prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery activities.
• Increased individual and collective preparedness.
• Greater resiliency at both the community and national levels.

Just think of the kinds of information or assets you might share with a "Trusted Ally" who is next door to your business or down the street.  What new strategies could you develop together to make yourself even more impervious, to the latest incidents caused by "Anonymous" or "Flame" and even China?

WASHINGTON – For three straight years, a group of Chinese hackers waged a cyber war against a family-owned, eight-person software firm in California, according to court records. Hackers broke into the company's system, shut down its email and web servers, spied on employees using their own webcams and gained access to sensitive company files, according to court records.

Whether you are a small-to-medium-enterprise (SME) or a Fortune Global 1000 company you can develop new trusted allies in your Cyber "Whole Community".  What are you waiting for?

Culture Risk: Charting a Course for Achieving the Mission...

"It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy" - Steve Jobs

Think about the culture your organization has created, from inception to present day.  What is it about the current state, that draws the kind of new people to want to get on board?  Do you have people lining up behind the recruiting table, to join the Navy or to be a Pirate?

Competition for new talent and fresh perspectives, requires the continuous pursuit of new people to join the firm, company or government agency.  It's already a historical fact, on how many applications Apple or Google receives for every job opening.  Yet other companies are struggling to find anyone to fill the ranks of the new project teams they seek.

As these new recruits come through the doors of the organization, are they ready to work within the rules of the pirate ship or learn a more proven, consistent environment of certainty and longevity? Certainly you can sense what kind of ship you are on right now.  Will your company be around in 2 years or 5 years?  How will you sustain the mission and vision you set out to accomplish?

As you embark on your next voyage with an organization, you can bet that what you see early on, is what you will get for months and years to come.  What is it about the cultural environment and the way people behave within the enterprise that is so appealing to you?  Is it the product, the service or the purpose that gets you out of bed each day, to do the job and accomplish your tasks for the greater benefit of the team?

Enthusiasm is contagious and people who are "Waving the Flag" for their group, team or organization has a tendency to get others attention and it becomes viral.  They start to wonder why there is so much energy and so many people trying to join up and participate.  The "Crowd Effect" is a known marketing strategy that has worked in advertising for decades.

And then there is another strategy that might be counter intuitive and for good reason.  The opposite might be found in slogans such as "Only a Few Good Men" or an "elite community of professionals". Many may want to join, but only the best and the most resilient will achieve the goal of becoming part of the team.

What is it, that is the same about these two kinds of organizations?  Analyze the elements of what makes them both similar and how they are able to persist over time and you will begin to see, what really matters in effectiveness of organizational design and cultural development.  You will begin to understand the essential factors to enhance in order to achieve a long lasting and perpetual enterprise. Here are a few words that would describe and define both environments:

• Trust
• Innovation
• Adaptive
• Continuous Learning
• Empathy
• Belief

The factors you search for with your next organization, company or project team might have some or all of these attributes.  It is up to you to determine what is in your best interest long term, whether to be a pirate or join the Navy.  Once you have made the decision, it will forever define you and shape the way you think, act and behave for much of the rest of your life.

As an Operational Risk Management (ORM) professional, first it is your job to figure out what kind of ship you are on.  Second, it is your job to make sure that the Captain achieves their destination, today, tomorrow or next week.  Finally, you must decide if the ship you are on and the Captain both, will help you fulfill your life long goals and aspirations.

Now, think about your current cultural environment.  What is your organizational course?  Who is commanding the ship?  Are you ready for the next mission with your team?  Why?

Now you are well on your way to having a more clear picture of your destiny and contributing to achieving success of your next mission...

OPS Risk: Everyday is a Training Day...

When the front lines of privacy and security converge on the digital front, the decisions to trust become more vital.  The questions about what tools and what methods are appropriate to address the 21st century domains for advertising, media and entertainment, news, weather, and thousands of other human interests become more complex.

Operational Risk Management (ORM) is evolving as the dynamic mobile digital environments adapt and continuously change the rules of the game.  Now that Edward Snowden has finally set up his Twitter account, the world can engage with him on a more direct basis.  On the metro, sitting in an industry conference watching him via Skype or your own back yard.

Here's his first tweet -- an apparent Verizon Wireless joke and subtle dig at the spy agency:

Can you hear me now?

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015

The world is becoming a more dangerous place, as millions of new IP devices become more connected and human behavior is influenced ever more rapidly.  That favorite App that you encounter tomorrow, may be feeding you interesting content that you believe is being customized according to your requests.  More likely, it has also been modified to fit your history of clicks, location, comments and other online behavior.  Everyday becomes a "Training Day"...

You see, the ICT-based machines are storing and learning your behavior, each second and each minute you are connected to the Internet.  The massive analytics engines are consuming Yottabytes across multiple hard drives and data centers, preparing and adapting to your particular behavior.  The unique "Trust Decisions" that are being made according to the rules coded by humans, are now being executed in nanoseconds.

Where is the future of Operational Risk, destined to arrive in the years ahead and just Over-the-Horizon (OTH)?  Think about how we forecast the weather risks associated with the planet Earth.  Soon we will be utilizing the same kind of forecasting for the ecosystem of digital environments.  Using science and sophisticated engineering sensor data will provide us with early warning of Internet thunderstorms, hurricanes and snow storms.  Soon thereafter even the Cyber Insurance and Cyber Legal domains will become even more robust.  Why?

Uncertainty in Internet weather patterns, will create new products and services in order to find more certainty.  The current state of the Cyber Insurance industry, is in it's infancy as a result of the few documented historical events and actuarial knowledge on data breaches.  Yet as insurance corporations and the legal frameworks grow towards enterprise risk, so too will the ability to more effectively hedge the cyber risk.  The likelihood that a Fortune 50 company will now file a claim is at 50% and growing, as each company becomes insured by the modern Cyber Insurance policy product.

The assumption of data breach is now becoming the new normal.  Boards of Directors are preparing for the organizations inevitable need to file a claim, with one of the myriad of insurance companies that are now operating in the Cyber Domain.  The Cyber Reinsurance business, is now starting up.

High Risk / High Frequency events, become insured and the mitigation tools for dealing with the potential for high levels of capital being paid out for remediation, introduces exposure to the bottom line.  Cyber Insurance is a risk mitigation tool to the enterprise, just as any substantial class action law suits trend and other litigation exposure.  So what?

Where are the professional Operations Risk Officers going to focus, after these kinds of events?

We shall make our way to the next major area that could bring down the entire organization.  It is in another Quadrant of High Risk / Low Frequency.  Why?  This is where your organization is now most vulnerable.  This is where the next risk exposure becomes so great, that you may not survive the next major loss event.  Think about the environment you operate in and the stakeholders you answer to, on a daily and quarterly basis.  The stakeholders have little understanding of where you are actually concentrating your thinking, expertise and resources.  You are focused on the next unknown:  High Risk x Low Frequency = Next Target Zone.

Where is the emerging target zone within your enterprise today?  What are you working on to address this, in the time frame that it takes, for the rest of the risk mitigation products and industry to mature.  Will you catch-up to the reality of the actual threat and the potential loss to the enterprise?

So what and where is the mindset of the most highly trained and capable Operational Risk experts concentrating today:

• Operations that use tried-and-true technologies
• Operations that rely only on general knowledge and that attackers can obtain easily
• Operations that require clandestine activities

Your adversaries are using these three, to ensure their success.  It makes the possibility go up in their favor, that they will achieve their goal.  Their target.  Their mission.

As you convene your next meeting on the digital privacy and security issues that will occur in the next few months, where will you be focused?  How will you allocate resources?  Will your enterprise be ready and waiting in that Target Zone of High Risk and Low Frequency?

Your Operational Risk strategy shall evolve.  The elements may include both looking through an Internal and External environment.  Intentional Misconduct and Negligent Conduct are major factors.  It is time to increase the RPM's.  Recognizing, Prioritizing and Mobilizing (RPM).  Now Execute.

Everyday is a "Training Day"....

Safe Harbor: Achieving a Defensible Standard of Care...

"Achieving a Defensible Standard of Care" within the enterprise requires an astute and proactive legal framework.  Operational Risk Management becomes a key component of the legal framework in multiple junctions of technology, data science and privacy law.

U.S. National Security continues to be in the center of the legal jousting between the European Union and the United States.  Underlying the debate is the data flowing through the Internet from data centers in Europe owned by U.S. companies.

What are the implications of a change in the Rule of Law and the rules associated with the collection, storage and analysis of data by companies such as Facebook?  How will the future of Operational Risk decisions impact the safety and security of nation states?  Is "Safe Harbour" ready for legal reengineering and a new updated global data privacy architecture for the Internet of Things (IoT).

III –  Conclusion 237. In the light of the foregoing, I propose that the Court should answer the questions referred by the High Court as follows:

Article 28 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, read in the light of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as meaning that the existence of a decision adopted by the European Commission on the basis of Article 25(6) of Directive 95/46 does not have the effect of preventing a national supervisory authority from investigating a complaint alleging that a third country does not ensure an adequate level of protection of the personal data transferred and, where appropriate, from suspending the transfer of that data.

Commission Decision 2000/520/EC of 26 July 2000 pursuant to Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the adequacy of the protection provided by the safe harbour privacy principles and related frequently asked questions issued by the Department of Commerce of the United States of America is invalid.

  Chief Privacy Officers and General Counsel within the ranks of Amazon, Google and Facebook are on a proactive mission quest.  How to keep business models fueled by advertising from erosion of data flows from outside the U.S. if precluded and if, all data from the EU must stay within the EU.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will be tracking the data privacy legal frameworks across the globe and the continuous changes that will be necessary to stay in compliance with U.S. laws.  Henry Farrell sums this up nicely in his WP analysis:

Thus, if the court rules as expected, the U.S. has to choose between two unattractive options. The first is to refuse to make any concessions on surveillance, hence endangering the business models of big and influential U.S. e-commerce firms, and making life much harder for other big corporations that e.g. have to transfer personnel files across borders. The second is to make real concessions to the EU on spying, moving away from indiscriminate surveillance to a system that would provide real protections for European citizens.

We are on the edge of many years of new business process reengineering (BPR), but this time it is not about the demise of proprietary client / server architectures and the addition of Internet Protocols.  The new data privacy BPR is now just underway and it has all to do with creating the sound contractual negotiations of digital devices across borders.  More importantly, the trusted business assurance questions being asked by Operational Risk Officers and the building of digital trust as data and rules are executed at the speed of light.

Achieving Digital Trust delivers to business executives, IT strategists, and innovation leaders something remarkable-a complete tool-kit of new strategies and resources that will change how they make decisions that matter, and how to build digital assets that can be trusted. 

As you pick up your mobile device to access Messenger, or Wickr, the rule of law is being put in motion in nanoseconds.  When you type the message to your colleague in Ireland or Germany from Detroit, your data is being processed across data centers in multiple countries.  Machines executing business rules with other machines.  Are the rules correct?  Are they all legal?

"Achieving a Defensible Standard of Care" in the next decade will be one of our most interesting challenges.  The Safe Harbor of our way of life may go beyond the simple integrity and assurance that the message simply gets delivered.

9/11 2015: Never Forget This Anniversary...

On this anniversary of the four terrorist attacks on the United States, September 11, 2001, we pause and remember.  We reflect on where we were at 8:46, 9:03, 9:37 and 10:07AM on that horrific morning, as the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City, followed by the Pentagon in Washington, DC and a field near Stonycreek Township outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The Islamic State fight continues 14 years later in an arena of global asymmetric warfare.  This includes YouTube videos, Twitter, Special Operators from USSOCOM and  other "Quiet Professionals" on the Internet or in the shadows of Istanbul and Cairo, that you will never read about.

When any moral person watches the replay of the video news reporting on 9/11, emotions are evident. Telling the story to those who were not born or are too young to remember is imperative.  No different than the importance of other historic events of evil during two World Wars, Vietnam or the continued wars across Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Over the past 14 years our lives have been forever impacted in the midst of conflict over religion, real estate and resources.  This is nothing new from a historical perspective until you add the technology components.  The Internet and mobile phone technologies have brought the reporting, intelligence and dissemination of real-time information to us in seconds or minutes.  No longer days or hours.

On this 9/11 anniversary, we can only pray that our humanity endures the kinetic evil and the light speed of digital information that will continue to evolve in the decades and milliseconds ahead of us...

Rule of Law: The Privacy vs. Security Paradox...

Chief Privacy Officers and Operational Risk Officers are watching with anticipation as Microsoft argues it's case with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, USA on September, 9, 2015.

The trustworthiness of data and the future of "Achieving Digital Trust" for companies and countries is a priority.  The wealth created from the management, storage and processing of data across global borders is at stake.  The "Rule of Law" that intersects with that data and the legal disclosure to government authorities, has been accelerating in countries such as Ireland, Belgium and Brazil.

The company hasn’t always been so eager to comply. A year earlier, it rebuffed a request from the Department of Justice for a suspected drug trafficker’s e-mails. Those were in a data center in Dublin -- and according to Microsoft, the arm of American law enforcement doesn’t extend to Ireland. That set in motion a legal challenge putting Microsoft and its general counsel, Brad Smith, in the lead of a charged battle between the U.S. technology industry and the U.S. government.
More than two dozen companies, including Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc., have filed briefs on Microsoft’s behalf in the case, which is about due process and the right to privacy, and money. Internet service providers may be hard-pressed to sell Web-based products if they can’t promise that digital records stowed in foreign countries will be protected by those countries’ laws -- and from unilateral U.S. search-and-seizure missions.

The privacy vs. security business is apparent and a defensible standard of care remains vital.  Several companies in the data privacy industry have made the decision to establish their legal business entity in Switzerland.  Silent Circle, Proton Mail and Golden Frog are a few examples.  Why?

It is because the business of privacy is becoming a big business.  It is creating wealth.  Data privacy and the use of cloud-based products and services is now so pervasive across borders, that the collision of private companies and governments was inevitable.  Nation states are making it easier for global companies to locate, manage and operate in their data privacy friendly countries.

Digital Trust is at the center of the dialogue.  Operational Risk Management (ORM) surrounds the core conversations as you analyze the implications of building a data-centric business with the ability to comply with all of the regulatory and legal requirements.  The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 is being interpreted in Microsoft v. United States of America:

The Government’s brief confirms this much: Nowhere did Congress say that ECPA should reach private emails stored on providers’ computers in foreign countries. Small surprise for a statute written in 1986, before the creation of the global internet, when the notion of storing emails halfway across the globe was barely imaginable.

Congress can and should grapple with the question whether, and when, law enforcement should be able to compel providers like Microsoft to help it seize customer emails stored in foreign countries. Microsoft has outlined many reasons why Congress would be wary of granting that power: It would establish a norm that would allow foreign governments to reach into computers in the United States to seize U.S. citizens’ private correspondence, so long as those governments may assert personal jurisdiction over whatever company operates those computers. It would offend foreign sovereigns.

Business and Government across the globe are working diligently to create a balanced, legally sound and vital information sharing environment.  Consumers will continue to have a choice, on what vendor, device or data hosting company they utilize for their communications.  The features, functions and benefits will be carefully thought out, by the marketing and business executives.  Yet the question will be asked by each companies respective stakeholders:  What is the value of trustworthiness in the markets we operate in and how will we decide to create "Digital Trust"?

The consumer must also understand how these tools are being utilized by the dark and evil components of our human society.  Citizens must better understand the motivations for government to protect consumers and those organizations who choose to use certain tools on the Internet.  Those who have a fear of government also like the idea of law enforcement protecting their neighborhoods.  There are two sides to the private enterprise:

They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism. However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us. If they are to meet this challenge, it means coming up with better arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation by security and law enforcement agencies than we have now.

As private companies and nation states collaborate to attract new business commerce and tax revenues, your privacy and your company will be at the center of the negotiation.  The consumers preference of where you want your data stored and the legal environment where you want your data to be subjected to legal jurisdictions will continue.  For the good guys and the bad guys.  "Achieving Digital Trust" will be with all of us for some time to come.  As mankind evolves and the most valuable assets of our world become virtual, we can only hope "Trust Decisions" and the "Rule of Law" will stand the test of time.

CAG 20: Red Team Exercises...

The Consensus Audit Guidelines (CAG) have been public for years and the 20 controls are vital to our enterprise business resilience. One stands out however that is not automated and requires a specific advance Operational Risk Management (ORM) strategy. CAG: Critical Control 20: Red Team Exercises:

Attackers penetrate networks and systems through social engineering and by exploiting vulnerable software and hardware. Once they get access, they burrow deep and expand the number of systems over which they have control. Most organizations do not exercise their defenses so they are uncertain about its capabilities and unprepared for identifying and responding to attack. 

This control goes beyond traditional penetration testing, which typically has the goal of identifying vulnerabilities and showing their business risks. Red Team Exercises are exercise in the traditional sense of military exercises where the three goals are improved readiness of the organization, better training for defensive practitioners, as well as inspection of current performance levels. Independent red teams can provide valuable objectivity regarding both the existence of vulnerabilities and the efficacy of defenses and mitigating controls already in place and even those planned for future implementation.

We would like to emphasize the importance of this strategy execution beyond the IT and Information Systems within the organization. In any significant business disruption or "incident", whether it be the breach and theft of a database full of "Personal Identity Information" (PII) or the breach of a rear window of a corporate executives residence to initiate a kidnapping plot; the goal remains the same:

"Attackers use tools to exploit a vulnerability; to create an action on a target, that produces an unauthorized result to obtain their objective."

Think about it for a minute. Whether it be the online digital world or the offline physical environment your organization is operating in today; someone is probing and testing your vulnerabilities. The only possible way for you to discover them before your adversary is to continuously attack your own business and it's assets. And possibly most importantly, it must be done on a clandestine basis:

clandestine from L. clandestinus "secret, hidden," from clam "secretly," from base of celare "to hide"

What value can be gained from exercises or testing that is conducted with advance warning to your staff or team? Very little. To execute the "Red Cell" approach to effectively improve and to increase the resilience of your organization, the strategy execution must remain secret. Yes of course there will be people placed throughout the organization, in key areas that know that the exercise or attack on the organization is a planned exercise. However, it is only for the safety and liability purposes, along with the potential injection of simulations that increase the effectiveness of the vulnerability testing.

The CAG has 20 controls that are focused on Cyber Defense and many of these will require manual intervention, planning and effective oversight. Automated tools can only go so far, to address the real goal of understanding human behavior during and after a "Real Incident" actually unfolds. In the context of using a Red Team exercise, you must include the use of Gavin De Becker's "Elements of Prediction" with your employees and stakeholders:

1. Measurability - How measurable is the outcome you seek to predict?
2. Vantage - Is the person making the prediction in a position to observe the pre-incident indicators and context?
3. Imminence - Are you predicting an outcome that might occur soon, as opposed to some remote time in the future?
4. Context - Is the context of the situation clear to the person making the prediction?
5. Pre-Incident Indicators - Are there detectable pre-incident indicators that will reliably occur before the outcome being predicted?
6. Experience - Does the person making the prediction have experience with the specific topic involved?
7. Comparable Events - Can you study or consider outcomes that are comparable- though not necessarily identical- to the one being predicted?
8. Objectivity - Is the person making the prediction objective enough to believe that either outcome is possible?
9. Investment - To what degree is the person making the prediction invested in the outcome?
10. Replicability - Is it practical to test the exact issue being predicted by trying it first elsewhere?
11. Knowledge - Does the person making the prediction have accurate knowledge about the topic?

This is how and where you extend your physical controls to the actual people, who will make the difference before and during a critical incident in your enterprise.  Revisit the Consensus Audit Guidelines (CAG) for your enterprise.  It just might help you find that one place where the continuity of the business is at risk after a significant disruption or the one threat that still is hiding in the shadows.