6. Addressing Cyber Security Threats with a Human-Centric Approach

In this episode of Cyber Security Inside, Tom Garrison and Camille Morhardt discuss a philosophical question: “Is it safer to open up our system and monitor everything closely in a secured manner, or is it fundamentally safer to lock everything down?” To explore this question, as well as the question of what’s even possible when “people are the new perimeter,” they invited Alan Ross, Fellow and Chief Architect at Forcepoint, to the show. Cyber security from a human-centric view is Alan’s specialty, and in this episode, he talks indicators of behavior, time-series anomaly detection, privacy concerns, insider threats, who’s getting cyber security right, using data to inform models, and even what he’s learning from CrossFit. You don’t want to miss it.   Here are some key take-aways: Cyber security tends to focus on detecting malicious behavior of devices or network connections. But Alan explains that it’s also important to look at what humans are doing with devices. Changes in user routines can be signs of compromise as well. If you have enough data, you can identify and take action on potential risks you might otherwise miss.   In order to understand how devices are compromised by user behaviors, you need to understand user behavior from a human perspective. When you understand users’ intentional or unintentional errors, you can spot anomalies and craft different paths of course corrections.   One approach to establishing human-centric cyber security efforts is to build a long-term series of user behaviors. For example, identify: When does the person log on? How do they log on? What applications do they use? How often do they use them? Gather information, then create Indicators of Behaviors (IoB) by building a long-term behavioral analytic model. Find out how the models are built, how AI plays a role, and the type of companies leading the pack in terms of human-centric cyber security approach in this episode.   Some interesting quotes from today’s episode:  “People are the new perimeter.” “Users love to click.” “All humans have routines.” “There is a lot of gray in high-tech.” “People who are trained to do espionage, they never color outside the lines.” “There are some things that normal users just don’t do.”