Groundhog day in the Swedish winter
Feb 7th, 2022 by Jesper Kråkhede
February in Sweden. Cold, wet and grey. The snow can´t decide if it wants to be snow or rain, and every morning feels exactly like the one before.
Security can feel the same way. Another phishing campaign, another critical patch, another incident with an admin account that logged on everywhere. We fix it, write the report and next week it happens again somewhere else. Groundhog day.
I have come to the conclusion that the only way out of this winter is to stop fixing one thing at a time and handle everything within Zero Trust. Not as a product, but as a way of building.
Verify explicitly: every access, every time, user and device. Use least privilege: no standing admin rights, just in time and just enough. Assume breach: segment, monitor and make sure that one stolen account can´t take the whole company.
When you work like that, each fix stops being a single patch on a single hole. It becomes part of a model where the next attack hits a wall that is already there. The phishing mail gets through, but the stolen password doesn´t work from the attacker´s device. The admin account is stolen, but it has no rights until someone activates them.
It doesn´t happen overnight. But every step brings you a little closer to spring.
And spring always comes. Even in Sweden.