Cyberattacks in higher education—How prepared are you?

More and more emphasis is being put on cybersecurity by companies of all sizes. Whether it’s the news headlines of notable IT incidents, greater emphasis on the value of data, or the monetization of certain types of attacks, an increasing amount of energy and money is going towards security. Security has the attention of leadership and the board and it is not going away. One of the biggest risks to and vulnerabilities of any organization’s security continues to be its people. Innovative approaches and new technology can reduce risk but they still don’t prevent the damage that can be inflicted by an employee simply opening an attachment or following a link. This is more likely to happen than you may think.

Technology also doesn’t prepare a management team for how to handle the IT response, communication effort, and workforce management required during and after an event. Technology doesn’t lessen the operational impact that your organization will feel when, not if, you experience an event.

So let’s examine the human and operational side of cybersecurity. Below are three factors you should address to reduce risk and prepare your organization for an event:

1. People: Create and maintain a vigilant workforce
   Ask yourself, “How prepared is our workforce when it comes to security threats and protecting our data? How likely would it be for one of our team members to click on a link or open an attachment that appear to be from our CFO? Would our team members look closely enough at the email address and notice that the organization name is different by one letter?”
    

   According to the 2016 Verizon Data Breach Report, 30% of phishing messages were opened by the target across all campaigns and 12% went on to click on the attachment or link.

   Phishing email attacks directed at your company through your team range from very obvious to extremely believable. Some attempts are sent widely and are looking for just one person to click, while others are extremely targeted and deliberate. In either case, it is vital that each employee takes enough time to realize that the email request is unusual. Perhaps there are strange typos in the request or it is odd the CFO is emailing while on vacation. That moment your employees take to pause and decide whether to click on the link/attachment could mean the difference between experiencing an event or not.
   
   So how do you create and cultivate this type of thought process in your workforce? Lots of education and awareness efforts. This goes beyond just an annual in-service training on HIPAA. It may include education sessions, emails with tips and tricks, posters describing the risk, and also exercises to test your workforce against phishing and security exploits. It also takes leadership embracing security as a strategic imperative and leading the organization to take it seriously. Once you have these efforts in place, you can create culture change to build and maintain an environment where an employee is not embarrassed to check with the CFO’s office to see if they really did send an email from Bora Bora.

2. Plan: Implement a disaster recovery and incident response plan 
   Through the years, disaster recovery plans have been the usual response. Mostly, the emphasis has been on recovering data after a non-security IT event, often discussed in context of a fire, power loss, or hardware failure. Increasingly, cyber-attacks are creeping into the forefront of planning efforts. The challenge with cyber-events is that they are murkier to understand – and harder for leadership – to assist with.
   
   It’s easier to understand the concept of a fire destroying your server room and the plan entailing acquiring new equipment, recovering data from backup, restoring operations, having good downtime procedures, and communicating the restoration efforts along the way. What is much more challenging is if the event begins with a suspicion by employees, customers, or vendors who believe their data has been stolen without any conclusive information that your company is the originating point of the data loss. How do you take action if you know very little about the situation? What do you communicate if you are not sure what to say? It is this level of uncertainty that makes it so difficult. Do you have a plan in place for how to respond to an incident? Here are some questions to consider:
    
   1. How will we communicate internally with our staff about the incident?
   2. How will we communicate with our clients? Our patients? Our community?
   3. When should we call our insurance company? Our attorney?
   4. Is reception prepared to describe what is going on if someone visits our office?
   5. Do we have the technical expertise to diagnose the issue?
   6. Do we have set protocols in place for when to bring our systems off-line and are our downtime procedures ready to use?
   7. When the press gets wind of the situation, who will communicate with them and what will we share?
   8. If our telephone system and network is taken offline, how we will we communicate with our leadership team and workforce?

By starting to ask these questions, you can ascertain how ready you may, or may not be, for a cyber-attack when it comes.

3. Practice: Prepare your team with table top exercises  
   Given the complexity and diversity of the threats people are encountering today, no single written plan can account for all of the possible combinations of cyber-attacks. A plan can give guidance, set communication protocols, and structure your approach to your response. But by conducting exercises against hypothetical situations, you can test your plan, identify weaknesses in the plan, and also provide your leadership team with insight and experience – before it counts.
   
   A table top exercise entails one team member (perhaps from IT or from an outside firm) coming up with a hypothetical situation and a series of facts and clues about the situation that are given to your leadership team over time. Your team then implements the existing plans to respond to the incident and make decisions. There are no right or wrong answers in this scenario. Rather, the goal is to practice the decision-making and response process to determine where improvements are needed.
   
   Maybe you run an exercise and realize that you have not communicated to your staff that no mention of the event should be shared by employees on social media. Maybe the exercise makes you realize that the network administrator who is on vacation at the time is the only one who knows how to log onto the firewall. You might identify specific gaps that are lacking in your cybersecurity coverage. There is much to learn that can help you prepare for the real thing.

As you know, there are many different threats and risks facing organizations. Some are from inside an organization while others come from outside. Simply throwing additional technology at the problem will not sufficiently address the risks. While your people continue to be one of the biggest threats, they can also be one of your biggest assets, in both preventing issues from occurring and then responding quickly and appropriately when they do. Remember focus on your People, Your Plan, and Your Practice.

The late science fiction writer (and college professor) Isaac Asimov once said: “I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.” Had Asimov worked in higher ed IT management, he might have added: “but above all else, I fear the lack of computer staff.”

Indeed, it can be a challenge for higher education institutions to recruit and retain IT professionals. Private companies often pay more in a good economy, and in certain areas of the nation, open IT positions at colleges and universities outnumber available, qualified IT workers. According to one study from 2016, almost half of higher education IT workers are at risk of leaving the institutions they serve, largely for better opportunities and more supportive workplaces. Understandably, IT leadership fears an uncertain future of vacant roles—yet there are simple tactics that can help you improve the chances of filling open positions.

Emphasize the whole package

You need to leverage your institution’s strengths when recruiting IT talent. A focus on innovation, project leadership, and responsibility for supporting the mission of the institution are important attributes to promote when recruiting. Your institution should sell quality of life, which can be much more attractive than corporate culture. Many candidates are attracted to the energy and activity of college campuses, in addition to the numerous social and recreational outlets colleges provide.

Benefit packages are another strong asset for recruiting top talent. Schools need to ensure potential candidates know the amount of paid leave, retirement, and educational assistance for employees and employee family members. These added perks will pique the interest of many candidates who might otherwise have only looked at salary during the process.

Use the right job title

Some current school vacancies have very specific job titles, such as “Portal Administrator” or “Learning Multimedia Developer.” However, this specificity can limit visibility on popular job posting sites, reducing the number of qualified applicants. Job titles, such as “Web Developer” and “Java Developer,” can yield better search results. Furthermore, some current vacancies include a number or level after the job title (e.g., “System Administrator 2”), which also limits visibility on these sites. By removing these indicators, you can significantly increase the applicant pool.

Focus on service, not just technology

Each year, institutions deploy an increasing number of Software as a Service (SaaS) and hosted applications. As higher education institutions invest more in these applications, they need fewer personnel for day-to-day technology maintenance support. In turn, this allows IT organizations to focus limited resources on services that identify and analyze technology solutions, provide guidance to optimize technology investments, and manage vendor relationships. IT staff with soft skills will become even more valuable to your institution as they engage in more people- and process-centric efforts.

Fill in the future

It may seem like science fiction, but by revising your recruiting and retention tactics, your higher education institution can improve its chances of filling IT positions in a competitive job market. In a future blog, I’ll provide ideas for cultivating staff from your institution via student workers and upcoming graduates. If you’d like to discuss additional staffing tactics, send me an email.

A professional sports team is an ever-changing entity. To have a general perspective on the team’s fluctuating strengths and weaknesses, a good coach needs to trust and empower their staff to discover the details. Chapter 5 in BerryDunn’s Cybersecurity Playbook for Management looks at how discovery can help managers understand their organization’s ever-changing IT environment. 

What is discovery, and how does it connect to capacity?
RG: Discovery is the process of mapping your organization’s capacity—people, processes, and tools—so you understand what your organization’s IT environment has. In other words, it’s the auditing of your IT environment.

Of course, the most valuable thing within your IT environment, other than the people who access it, is the “thing” that drives your business. Often this thing is data, but it could be proprietary processes or machinery. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll focus on data. Discovery naturally answer questions such as:

• What in our IT environment is important to our business?
• How is it being used?
• Who has access to it, and how can we better protect it? 

How can managers tackle discovery?
RG: First, you need to understand discovery requires accepting the fact that the environment is always evolving. Discovery is not a one-and-done process—it, never ends. People introduce new things, like updated software, into IT environments all the time. Your IT environment is an always-shifting playing field. Think of Amazon’s Alexa devices. When someone plugs one into your internal wireless network, they’ve just expanded your attack surface for a hacker by introducing a new device with its own set of vulnerabilities.

Second, you have to define the “auditable universe” by establishing manageable boundaries in direct proportion to your discovery team’s capabilities. I often see solicitations for proposals that ask for discovery of all assets in an IT environment. That could include a headquarters building, 20 satellite offices, and remote workers, and is going to take a long time to assess. I recently heard of a hospital discovering 41,000 internet-connected devices on their network—mostly Internet of Things (IoT) resources, such as heart monitors. Originally, the hospital had only been aware of about one-third of these devices. Keeping your boundaries realistic and manageable can prevent your team from being overwhelmed.

Third, your managers should refrain from getting directly involved with discovery because it’s a pretty technical and time-consuming process. You should task a team to conduct discovery, and provide the discovery team with adequate tools. There are a lot of good tools that can help map networks and manage assets; we’ll talk about them later in this blog. Managers should mainly concern themselves with the results of discovery and trust in the team’s ability to competently map out the IT environment. Remember, the IT environment is always evolving, so even as the results roll in, things are changing.

Who should managers select for the discovery team?
RG: Ideally, various groups of people. For instance, it makes sense for HR staff to conduct the people part of discovery. Likewise, it makes sense for data owners—staff responsible for certain data—to conduct the process part of discovery, and for IT staff to conduct the tool part.

However, I should point out that if you have limited internal resources, then the IT staff can conduct all three parts of discovery, working closely with all stakeholders. IT staff will have a pretty good sense of where data is held within the organization’s IT environment, and they will develop an understanding of what is important to the organization.

Could an organization’s security staff conduct discovery?
RG: Interestingly enough, security staff don’t always have day-to-day interactions with data. They are more focused on overall data protection strategies and tactics. Therefore, it makes more sense to leverage other staff, but the results of discovery (e.g., knowing where data resides, understanding the sensitivity of data) need to be shared with security staff. Ultimately, this knowledge will help security staff better protect your data.

What about hiring external resources to conduct discovery?
RG: It depends on what you’re trying to do. If the goal of discovery is to comply with some sort of regulatory standard or framework, then yes, hiring external resources makes sense. These resources could come in and, using the discovery process, conduct a formal assessment. It may also make sense to hire external resources if you’re short-staffed, or if you have a complex environment with undocumented data repositories, processes, and tools. Yet in each of these scenarios, the external resources will only be able to provide a point-in-time baseline. 

Otherwise, I recommend leveraging your internal staff. An internal discovery team should be able to handle the task if adequately staffed and resourced, and team members will learn a lot in the process. And as discovery never really ends, do you want to have to perpetually hire external resources?

People make up a big part of capacity. Should the discovery team focus on people and their roles in this process?
RG: Yes! It sounds odd that people and their roles are included in discovery, but it is important to know who is using and touching your data. At a minimum, the discovery team needs to conduct background checks. (This is one example of where HR staff need to be part of the discovery process.)

How can the discovery team best map processes?
RG: The discovery team has to review each process with the respective data owner. Now, if you are asking the data owners themselves to conduct discovery, then you should have them illustrate their own workflows. There are various process mapping tools, such as Microsoft Visio, that data owners can use for this.

The discovery team needs to acknowledge that data owners often perform their processes correctly through repetition—the problems or potential vulnerabilities stem from an inherently flawed or insecure process, or having one person in charge of too many processes. Managers should watch out for this. I’ll give you a perfect example of the latter sort of situation. I once helped a client walk through the process of system recovery.

During the process we discovered that the individual responsible for system recovery also had the ability to manipulate database records and to print checks. In theory, that person could have been able to cut themselves a check and then erase its history from the system. That’s a big problem!

Other times, data owners perform their processes correctly, but inadvertently use compromised or corrupted tools, such as free software downloaded from the internet. The discovery team has to identify needed policy and procedure changes to prevent these situations from happening.

Your mention of vulnerable software segues nicely to the topic of tools. How can the discovery team best map the technologies the organization uses?
RG: Technology is inherently flawed. You can’t go a week without hearing about a new vulnerability in a widely used system or application. I suggest researching network scanning tools for identifying hosts within your network; vulnerability testing tools for identifying technological weaknesses or gaps; and penetration testing tools for simulating cyber-attacks to assess cybersecurity defenses.

Let’s assume a manager has tasked a team to conduct discovery. What’s the next step?
RG: If you recall, in the previous blog I discussed the value of adopting a cybersecurity risk register, which is a document used to list the organization’s cybersecurity risks, record required risk mitigation actions, and identify who “owns” the risk. The next step is for your discovery team to start completing the risk register. The manager uses this risk register, and subsequent discussions with the team, to make corresponding business decisions to improve cybersecurity, such as purchasing new tools—and to measure the progress of mitigating any vulnerabilities identified in the discovery process. A risk register can become an invaluable resource planning tool for managers.

For discovery purposes, what’s the best format for a cybersecurity risk register?
RG: There are very expensive programs an organization can use to create a risk register. Some extremely large banking companies use the RSA Archer GRC platform. However, you can build a very simple risk register in Excel. An Excel spreadsheet would work well for small and some mid-sized organizations, but there are other relatively inexpensive solutions available. I say this because managers should aim for simplicity. You don’t want the discovery team getting bogged down by a complex risk register.

Finally, what are some discovery resources and reference guides that managers should become familiar with and utilize?
RG: I recommend the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication series. They outline very specific and detailed discovery methodologies you can use to improve your discovery process.

So what’s next?
RG: Chapter 6 will focus on synthesizing maturity, capacity, and discovery to create a resilient organization from a cybersecurity point of view.

Read The workflow: Cybersecurity playbook for management #6 here.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, most malware programs are starting to think together. Fortinet recently released a report that highlights some terms we need to start paying attention to:

Bot
A “bot” is an automated program that, in this case, runs against IP addresses to find specific vulnerabilities and exploit them. Once it finds the vulnerability, it has the ability to insert malware such as ransomware or Trojans (a type of malware disguised as legitimate software) into the vulnerable device. These programs adapt to what they find in order to infect a system and then make themselves invisible.

Swarmbot
Now, think about thousands of different bots, attacking one target at the same time. That’s a swarm, or in the latest lingo, a swarmbot. Imagine a swarmbot attacking any available access into your network. This is a bot on steroids.

Hivenet
A “hivenet” is a self-learning cluster of compromised devices that share information and customize attacks. Hivenets direct swarmbots based on what they learn during an attack. They represent a significant advance in malware development, and are now considered by some to be a kind of artificial intelligence. The danger lies is in a hivenet’s ability to think during an attack.

Where do they run? Everywhere.
Bots and hives can run on any compromised internet-connected devices. This includes webcams, baby cams, DVRs, home routers, refrigerators, drones, “smart” TVs, and, very, very soon, (if not already) mobile phones and tablets. Anything that has an IP address and is not secured is vulnerable.

With some 2.9 billion botnet communications per quarter that we know of, attacks aren’t just theory anymore — they’re inevitable.

Organizations have heating and cooling systems, physical security systems, security cameras and multiple types of devices now accessible from the internet. Even community water, electric and telecommunications systems are vulnerable to attack — if they are accessible.

What can you do? Take care of your business—at home and at work.
At home, how many devices do you own with an IP address? In the era of smart homes, it can add up quickly. Vendors are fast to jump on the “connect from anywhere” bandwagon, but not so fast to secure their devices. How many offered updates to the device’s software in the last year? How would you know? Do any of the products address communications security? If the answer is “none,” you are at risk.

When assessing security at work, all organizations need to consider smart devices and industrial control systems that are Internet accessible, including phone systems, web conferencing devices, heating and cooling systems, fire systems, even elevators. What has an IP address? Vulnerable areas have expanded exponentially in the name of convenience and cost saving. Those devices may turn out to be far more expensive than their original price tag — remember the Target data breach? A firewall will not be sufficient protection if a compromised vendor has access.

Evaluate the Risks of Internet Accessibility
It may be great if you can see who is ringing your doorbell at home from your office, but only if you are sure you are the only one who can do that. Right now, my home is very “stupid,” and I like it that way. I worry about my wireless garage door opener, but at least someone has to be at my house to compromise it. My home firewall is commercial grade because most small office/home office routers are abysmally insecure, and are easily hacked. Good security costs money.

It may be more convenient for third-party vendors to access your internal equipment from their offices, but how secure are their offices? (There is really no way to know, except by sending someone like me in). Is your organization monitoring outgoing traffic from your network through your firewall? That’s how you discover a compromised device. Someone needs to pay attention to that traffic. You may not host valuable information, but if you have 300 unsecured devices, you can easily become part of a swarm.

Be Part of the Solution
Each one of us needs to eliminate or upgrade the devices that can become bots. At home, check your devices and install better security, in the same way you would upgrade locks on doors and windows to deter burglars. Turn off your computers when they are not in use. Ensure your anti-virus software is current on every device that has an operating system. Being small is no longer safe. Every device will matter.

Just as sports teams need to bring in outside resources — a new starting pitcher, for example, or a free agent QB — in order to get better and win more games, most organizations need to bring in outside resources to win the cybersecurity game. Chapter 4 in our Cybersecurity Playbook for Management looks at how managers can best identify and leverage these outside resources, known as external capacity.

In your last blog, you mentioned that external capacity refers to outside resources — people, processes, and tools — you hire or purchase to improve maturity. So let’s start with people. What advice would you give managers for hiring new staff?
RG: I would tell them to search for new staff within their communities of interest. For instance, if you’re in financial services, use the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) as a resource. If you’re in government, look to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). Perhaps more importantly, I would tell managers what NOT to do.

First, don’t get caught up in the certification trap. There are a lot of people out there who are highly qualified on paper, but who don’t have a lot of the real-world experience. Make sure you find people with relevant experience.

Second, don’t blindly hire fresh talent. If you need to hire a security strategist, don’t hire someone right out of college just getting started. While they might know security theories, they’re not going to know much about business realities.

Third, vet your prospective hires. Run national background checks on them, and contact their references. While there is a natural tendency to trust people, especially cybersecurity professionals, you need to be smart, as there are lots of horror stories out there. I once worked for a bank in Europe that had hired new security and IT staff. The bank noticed a pattern: these workers would work for six or seven months, and then just disappear. Eventually, it became clear that this was an act of espionage. The bank was ripe for acquisition, and a second bank used these workers to gather intelligence so it could make a takeover attempt. Every organization needs to be extremely cautious.

Finally, don’t try to hire catchall staff. People in management often think: “I want someone to come in and rewrite all of our security policies and procedures, and oversee strategic planning, and I also want them to work on the firewall.” It doesn’t work that way. A security strategist is very different from a firewall technician — and come with two completely different areas of focus. Security strategists focus on the high-level relationship between business processes and outside threats, not technical operations. Another point to consider: if you really need someone to work on your firewall, look at your internal capacity first. You probably already have staff who can handle that. Save your budget for other resources.

You have previously touched upon the idea that security and IT are two separate areas.
RG: Yes. And managers need to understand that. Ideally, an organization should have a Security Department and an IT Department. Obviously, IT and Security work hand-in-glove, but there is a natural friction between the two, and that is for good reason. IT is focused on running operations, while security is focused on protecting them. Sometimes, protection mechanisms can disrupt operations or impede access to critical resources.

For example, two-factor authentication slows down the time to access data. This friction often upsets both end users and IT staff alike; people want to work unimpeded, so a balance has to be struck between resource availability and safeguarding the system itself. Simply put, IT sometimes cares less about security and more about keeping end users happy — and while that it is important, security is equally important.

What’s your view on hiring consultants instead of staff?
RG: There are plenty of good security consultants out there. Just be smart. Vet them. Again, run national background checks, and contact their references. Confirm the consultant is bonded and insured. And don’t give them the keys to the kingdom. Be judicious when providing them with administrative passwords, and distinguish them in the network so you can keep an eye on their activity. Tell the consultant that everything they do has to be auditable. Unfortunately, there are consultants who will set up shop and pursue malicious activities. It happens — particularly when organizations hire consultants through a third-party hiring agency. Sometimes, these agencies don’t conduct background checks on consultants, and instead expect the client to.

The consultant also needs to understand your business, and you need to know what to expect for your money. Let’s say you want to hire a consultant to implement a new firewall. Firewalls are expensive and challenging to implement. Will the consultant simply implement the firewall and walk away? Or will the consultant not only implement the firewall, but also teach and train your team in using and modify the firewall? You need to know this up front. Ask questions and agree, in writing, the scope of the engagement — before the engagement begins.

What should managers be aware of when they hire consultants to implement new processes?
RG: Make sure that the consultant understands the perspectives of IT, security, and management, because the end result of a new process is always a business result, and new processes have to make financial sense.

Managers need to leverage the expertise of consultants to help make process decisions. I’ll give you an example. In striving to improve their cybersecurity maturity, many organizations adopt a cybersecurity risk register, which is a document used to list the organization’s cybersecurity risks, record actions required to mitigate those risks, and identify who “owns” the risk. However, organizations usually don’t know best practices for using a risk register. This sort of tool can easily become complex and unruly, and people lose interest when extracting data from a register becomes difficult or consumes a lot of time reading.

A consultant can help train staff in processes that maximize a risk register’s utility. Furthermore, there’s often debate about who owns certain risks. A consultant can objectively arbitrate who owns each risk. They can identify who needs to do X, and who needs to do Y, ultimately saving time, improving staff efficiency, and greatly improving your chances of project success.

Your mention of a cybersecurity risk register naturally leads us to the topic of tools. What should managers know about purchasing or implementing new technology?
RG: As I mentioned in the last blog, organizations often buy tools, yet rarely maximize their potential. So before managers give the green light to purchase new tools, they should consider ways of leveraging existing tools to perform more, and more effective, processes.

If a manager does purchase a new tool, they should purchase one that is easy to use. Long learning curves can be problematic, especially for smaller organizations. I recommend managers seek out tools that automate cybersecurity processes, making the processes more efficient.

For example, you may want to consider tools that perform continuous vulnerability scans or that automatically analyze data logs for anomalies. These tools may look expensive at first glance, but you have to consider how much it would cost to hire multiple staff members to look for vulnerabilities or anomalies.

And, of course, managers should make sure that a new tool will truly improve their organization’s safeguards against cyber-attack. Ask yourself and your staff: Will this tool really reduce our risk?

Finally, managers need to consider eliminating tools that aren’t working or being used. I once worked with an organization that had expensive cybersecurity tools that simply didn’t function well. When I asked why it kept them, I was told that the person responsible for them was afraid that a breach would occur if they were removed. Meanwhile, these tools were costing the organization around $60,000 a month. That’s real money. The lesson: let business goals, and not fear, dictate your technology decisions.

So, what’s next?
RG: So far in this series we have covered the concepts of maturity and capacity. Next, we’re going to look at the concept of discovery. Chapter 5 will focus on internal audit strategies that you can use to determine, or discover, whether or not your organization is using tools and processes effectively.

Read Discovery: Cybersecurity playbook for management #5 now.

As a leader in a higher education institution, you'll be familiar with this paradox: Every solution can lead to more problems, and every answer can lead to more questions. It’s like navigating an endless maze. When it comes to mobile apps, the same holds true. So, the question: Should your institution have a mobile app? The Answer? Absolutely.

Devices, not computers, are how millenials communicate, gather, inform, and engage. Millennials, on average, spend 90 hours per month on mobile apps, not including web searches and website visits.

Students are no exception. A 2016 Nielsen study showed that 98% of millennials aged 18 – 24, and 97% of millennials aged 25 – 34, owned a smartphone, while a 2017 comScore report stated that one out of five millennials no longer use desktop devices, including laptops. Mobile apps have quickly filled the desktop void, and as students grow more reliant on mobile technology, colleges and universities are in the mix, creating apps to bolster student engagement.

So should you create an app? Here are some questions you should answer before creating a mobile app. Welcome to the labyrinth! But don’t be frustrated—answer these questions to help you avoid dead ends and overspending.

1. Is a mobile app part of your IT Strategy? Including a mobile app in your IT strategy minimizes confusion at all levels about the objectives of mobile app implementation. It also helps dictate whether an institution needs multiple mobile apps for various functions, or a primary app that connects users with other functionality. If an institution has multiple campuses, should you align all campuses with a single app, or if will each campus develop their own?

2. What will the app do? Mobile apps can perform a multitude of functions, but for the initial implementation, select a few key functions in one main area, such as academics or student life. Institutions can then add functionality in the future as mobile adoption grows, and demand for more functions increases.

3. Who will use the app? Mobile apps certainly improve engagement throughout the student life cycle—from prospect to student to alumni—but they also present opportunities for increased faculty, staff, and community engagement. And while institutions should identify the immediate audience of the app, they should also identify future users, based upon functionality.

4. Who will manage the app? Institutions should determine who is going to manage the mobile app, and how. The discussion should focus on access, content, and functionality. Is the institution going to manage everything in house, from development to release to support, or will a mobile app vendor provide this support under contract? Depending on your institution, these discussions will vary.

5. What data will the app use? Like any new software system, an app is only as good as its supporting data. It’s important to assess the systems to integrate with the mobile app, and determine if the systems’ data is up-to-date and ready for integration. Consider the use of application program interfaces, or APIs. APIs allow apps and platforms to interact with one another. They can enable social media, news, weather, and entertainment apps to connect with your institution’s app, enhancing the user experience with more content for users.

6. How much data security does your app need? Depending on the functionality of the app you create, you will need varying degrees of security, including user authentication safeguards and other protections to keep information safe.

7. How much can you spend for the app? Your institution should decide how much you will spend on initial app development, with an eye toward including maintenance and development costs for future functionality. Complexity increases costs, so you will need to  budget accordingly. Include budget planning for updates and functionality improvements after launch.

You will also need to establish a timeline for the project and roll out. And note that apps deployed toward the end of the academic year experience less adoption than apps deployed at the beginning of the academic year.

Once your institution answers these questions, you will be off to a good start. And as I stated earlier, every answer to a question can lead to more questions. If your institution needs help navigating the mobile app labyrinth, please reach out to me. 

It may be hard to believe some seasons, but every professional sports team currently has the necessary resources — talent, plays, and equipment — to win. The challenge is to identify and leverage them for maximum benefit. And every organization has the necessary resources to improve its cybersecurity. Chapter 3 in BerryDunn’s Cybersecurity Playbook for Management looks at how managers can best identify and leverage these resources, known collectively as internal capacity.

The previous two chapters focused on using maturity models to improve an organization’s cybersecurity. The next two are about capacity. What is the difference, and connection, between maturity and capacity, and why is it important? 
RG: Maturity refers to the “as is” state of an organization’s cybersecurity program compared to its desired “to be” state. Capacity refers to the resources an organization can use to reach the “to be” state. There are two categories of capacity: external and internal. External capacity refers to outside resources — people, processes, and tools — you can hire or purchase to improve maturity. (We’ll discuss external capacity more in our next installment.) Internal capacity refers to in-house people, processes, and tools you can leverage to improve maturity. 

Managers often have an unclear picture of how to use resources to improve cybersecurity. This is mainly because of the many demands found in today's business environments. I recommend managers conduct internal capacity planning. In other words, they need to assess the internal capacity needed to increase cybersecurity maturity. Internal capacity planning can answer three important questions:

1. What are the capabilities of our people?
2. What processes do we need to improve?
3. What tools do we have that can help improve processes and strengthen staff capability?

What does the internal capacity planning process look like?
RG: Internal capacity planning is pretty easy to conduct, but there’s no standard model. It’s not a noun, like a formal report. It’s a verb — an act of reflection. It’s a subjective assessment of your team members’ abilities and their capacity to perform a set of required tasks to mature the cybersecurity program. These are not easy questions to ask, and the answers can be equally difficult to obtain. This is why you should be honest in your assessment and urge your people to be honest with themselves as well. Without this candor, your organization will spin its wheels reaching its desired “to be” state.

Let’s start with the “people” part of internal capacity. How can managers assess staff?RG: It’s all about communication. Talk to your staff, listen to them, and get a sense of who has the ability and desire for improving cybersecurity maturity in certain subject areas or domains, like Risk Management or Event and Incident Response. If you work at a small organization,  start by talking to your IT manager or director. This person may not have a lot of cybersecurity experience, but he or she will have a lot of operational risk experience. IT managers and directors tend to gravitate toward security because it’s a part of their overall responsibilities. It also ensures they have a voice in the maturing process.

In the end, you need to match staff expertise and skillsets to the maturity subject areas or domains you want to improve. While an effective manager already has a sense of staff expertise and skillsets, you can add a SWOT analysis to clarify staff strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The good news: In my experience, most organizations have staff who will take to new maturity tasks pretty quickly, so you don’t need to hire a bunch of new people.

What’s the best way to assess processes?
RG: Again, it’s all about communication. Talk to the people currently performing the processes, listen to them, and confirm they are giving you honest feedback. You can have all the talent in the world, and all the tools in the world — but if your processes are terrible, your talent and tools won’t connect. I’ve seen organizations with millions of dollars’ worth of tools without the right people to use the tools, and vice versa. In both situations, processes suffer. They are the connective tissue between people and tools. And keep in mind, even if your current ones are good, most  tend to grow stale. Once you assess, you probably need to develop some new processes or improve the ones in place.

How should managers and staff develop new processes?
RG: Developing new ones can be difficult — we’re talking change, right? As a manager, you have to make sure the staff tasked with developing them are savvy enough to make sure the processes improve your organization’s maturity. Just developing a new one, with little or no connection to maturity, is a waste of time and money. Just because measuring maturity is iterative, doesn’t mean your approach to maturing cybersecurity has to be. You need to take a holistic approach across a wide range of cybersecurity domains or subject areas. Avoid any quick, one-and-done processes. New ones should be functional, repeatable, and sustainable; if not, you’ll overburden your team. And remember, it takes time to develop new ones. If you have an IT staff that’s already struggling to keep up with their operational responsibilities, and you ask them to develop a new process, you’re going to get a lot of pushback. You and the IT staff may need to get creative — or look toward outside resources, which we’ll discuss in chapter 4.

What’s the best way to assess tools?
RG: Many organizations buy many tools, rarely maximize their potential. And on occasion, organizations buy tools but never install them. The best way to assess tools is to select staff to first measure the organization’s inventory of tools, and then analyze them to see how they can help improve maturity for a certain domain or subject area. Ask questions: Are we really getting the maximum outputs those tools offer? Are they being used as intended?

I’ll give you an example. There’s a company called SolarWinds that creates excellent IT management tools. I have found many organizations use SolarWinds tools in very specific, but narrow, ways. If your organization has SolarWinds tools, I suggest reaching out to your IT staff to see if the organization is leveraging the tools to the greatest extent possible. SolarWinds can do so much that many organizations rarely leverage all its valuable feature.

What are some pitfalls to avoid when conducting internal capacity planning?
RG: Don’t assign maturity tasks to people who have been with the organization for a really long time and are very set in their ways, because they may be reluctant to change. As improving maturity is a disruptive process, you want to assign tasks to staff eager to implement change. If you are delegating the supervision of the maturity project, don’t delegate it to a technology-oriented person. Instead, use a business-oriented person. This person doesn’t need to know a lot about cybersecurity — but they need to know, from a business perspective, why you need to implement the changes. Otherwise, your changes will be more technical in nature than strategic. Finally, don’t delegate the project to someone who is already fully engaged on other projects. You want to make sure this person has time to supervise the project.

Is there ever a danger of receiving incorrect information about resource capacity?
RG: Yes, but you’ll know really quickly if a certain resource doesn’t help improve your maturity. It will be obvious, especially when you run the maturity model again. Additionally, there is a danger of staff advocating for the purchase of expensive tools your organization may not really need to manage the maturity process. Managers should insist that staff strongly and clearly make the case for such tools, illustrating how they will close specific maturity gaps.

When purchasing tools a good rule of thumb is: are you going to get three times the return on investment? Will it decrease cost or time by three times, or quantifiably reduce risk by three times? This ties in to the larger idea that cybersecurity is ultimately a function of business, not a function of IT. It also conveniently ties in with external capacity, the topic for chapter four.

Read our next cybersecurity playbook article, External capacity: Cybersecurity playbook for management #4, here.

It’s one thing for coaching staff to see the need for a new quarterback or pitcher. Selecting and onboarding this talent is a whole new ballgame. Various questions have to be answered before moving forward: How much can we afford? Are they a right fit for the team and its playing style? Do the owners approve?

Management has to answer similar questions when selecting and implementing a cybersecurity maturity model, and form the basis of this blog – chapter 2 in BerryDunn’s Cybersecurity Playbook for Management.

What are the main factors a manager should consider when selecting a maturity model?
RG: All stakeholders, including managment, should be able to easily understand the model. It should be affordable for your organization to implement, and its outcomes achievable. It has to be flexible. And it has to match your industry. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have an IT-centric maturity model if you’re not an extremely high-tech organization. What are you and your organization trying to accomplish by implementing maturity modeling? If you are trying to improve the confidentiality of data in your organization’s systems, then the maturity model you select should have a data confidentiality domain or subject area.

Managers should reach out to their peer groups to see which maturity models industry partners and associates use successfully. For example, Municipality A might look at what Municipality B is doing, and think: “How is Municipality B effectively managing cybersecurity for less money than we are?” Hint: there’s a good chance they’re using an effective maturity model. Therefore, Municipality A should probably select and implement that model. But you also have to be realistic, and know certain other factors—such as location and the ability to acquire talent—play a role in effective and affordable cybersecurity. If you’re a small town, you can’t compare yourself to a state capital.

There’s also the option of simply using the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2), correct?
RG: Right. C2M2, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, is easily scalable and can be tailored to meet specific needs. It also has a Risk Management domain to help ensure that an organization’s cybersecurity strategy supports its enterprise risk management strategy.

Once a manager has identified a maturity model that best fits their business or organization, how do they implement it?
RG: STEP ONE: get executive-level buy-in. It’s critical that executive management understands why maturity modeling is crucial to an organization's security. Explain to them how maturity modeling will help ensure the organization is spending money correctly and appropriately on cybersecurity. By sponsoring the effort, providing adequate resources, and accepting the final results, executive management plays a critical role in the process. In turn, you need to listen to executive management to know their priorities, issues, and resource constraints. When facilitating maturity modeling, don’t drive toward a predefined outcome. Understand what executive management is comfortable implementing—and what the business or organization can afford.

STEP TWO: Identify leads who are responsible for each domain or subject area of the maturity model. Explain to these leads why the organization is implementing maturity modeling, expected outcomes, and how their input is invaluable to the effort’s success. Generally speaking, the leads responsible for subject areas are very receptive to maturity modeling, because—unlike an audit—a maturity model is a resource that allows staff to advocate their needs and to say: “These are the resources I need to achieve effective cybersecurity.”

Third, have either management or these subject area leads communicate the project details to the lower levels of the organization, and solicit feedback, because staff at these levels often have unique insight on how best to manage the details.

The fourth step is to just get to work. This work will look a little different from one organization to another, because every organization has its own processes, but overall you need to run the maturity model—that is, use the model to assess the organization and discover where it measures up for each subject area or domain. Afterwards, conduct work sessions, collect suggestions and recommendations for reaching specific maturity levels, determine what it’s going to cost to increase maturity, get approval from executive management to spend the money to make the necessary changes, and create a Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M). Then move forward and tick off each milestone.

Do you suggest selecting an executive sponsor or an executive steering committee to oversee the implementation?
RG: Absolutely. You just want to make sure the executive sponsors or steering committee members have both the ability and the authority to implement changes necessary for the modeling effort.

Should management consider hiring vendors to help implement their cybersecurity maturity models?
RG: Sure. Most organizations can implement a maturity model on their own, but the good thing about hiring a vendor is that a vendor brings objectivity to the process. Within your organization, you’re probably going to find erroneous assumptions, differing opinions about what needs to be improved, and bias regarding who is responsible for the improvements. An objective third party can help navigate these assumptions, opinions, and biases. Just be aware some vendors will push their own maturity models, because their models require or suggest organizations buy the vendors’ software. While most vendor software is excellent for improving maturity, you want to make sure the model you’re using fits your business objectives and is affordable. Don’t lose sight of that.

How long does it normally take to implement a maturity model?

RG: It depends on a variety of factors and is different for every organization. Keep in mind some maturity levels are fairly easy to reach, while others are harder and more expensive. It goes without saying that well-managed organizations implement maturity models more rapidly than poorly managed organizations.

What should management do after implementation?
RG: Run the maturity model again, and see where the organization currently measures up for each subject area or domain. Do you need to conduct a maturity model assessment every year? No, but you want to make sure you’re tracking the results year over year in order to make sure improvements are occurring. My suggestion is to conduct a maturity model assessment every three years.

One final note: make sure to maintain the effort. If you’re going to spend time and money implementing a maturity model, then make the changes, and continue to reassess maturity levels. Make sure the process becomes part of your organizations’ overall strategic plan. Document and institutionalize maturity modeling. Otherwise, the organization is in danger of losing this knowledge when the people who spearheaded the effort retire or pursue new opportunities elsewhere.

What’s next?
RG: Over the next couple of blogs, we’ll move away from talking about maturity modeling and begin talking about the role capacity plays in cybersecurity. Blog #3 will instruct managers on how to conduct an internal assessment to determine if their organizations have the people, processes, and technologies they need for effective cybersecurity.

Read our next cybersecurity playbook article, Tapping your internal capacity for better results: Cybersecurity playbook for management #3, here.

For professional baseball players who get paid millions to swing a bat, going through a slump is daunting. The mere thought of a slump conjures up frustration, anxiety and humiliation, and in extreme cases, the possibility of job loss.

The concept of a slump transcends sports. Just glance at the recent headlines about Yahoo, Equifax, Deloitte, and the Democratic National Committee. Data breaches occur on a regular basis. Like a baseball team experiencing a downswing, these organizations need to make adjustments, tough decisions, and major changes. Most importantly, they need to realize that cybersecurity is no longer the exclusive domain of Chief Information Security Officers and IT departments. Cybersecurity is the responsibility of all employees and managers: it takes a team.

When a cybersecurity breach occurs, people tend to focus on what goes wrong at the technical level. They often fail to see that cybersecurity begins at the strategic level. With this in mind, I am writing a blog series to outline the activities managers need to take to properly oversee cybersecurity, and remind readers that good cybersecurity takes a top-down approach. Consider the series a cybersecurity playbook for management. This Q&A blog — chapter 1 — highlights a basic concept of maturity modeling.

Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is a maturity model?
RG: A maturity model is a framework that assesses certain elements in an organization, and provides direction to improve these elements. There are project management, quality management, and cybersecurity maturity models.

Cybersecurity maturity modeling is used to set a cybersecurity target for management. It’s like creating and following an individual development program. It provides definitive steps to take to reach a maturity level that you’re comfortable with — both from a staffing perspective, and from a financial perspective. It’s a logical road map to make a business or organization more secure.

What are some well-known maturity models that agencies and companies use?
RG: One of the first, and most popular is the Program Review for Information Security Management Assistance (PRISMA), still in use today. Another is the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) model, which focuses on technology. Then there are some commercial maturity models, such as the Gartner Maturity Model, that organizations can pay to use.

The model I prefer is the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2), developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. I like C2M2 because it directly maps to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) compliance, which is a prominent industry standard. C2M2 is easily understandable and digestible, it scales to the size of the organization, and it is constantly updated to reflect the most recent U.S. government standards. So, it’s relevant to today’s operational environment.

Communication is one of C2M2’s strengths. Because there is a mechanism in the model requiring management to engage and support the technical staff, it facilitates communication and feedback at not just the operational level, but at the tactical level, and more significantly, the management level, where well-designed security programs start.

What’s the difference between processed-based and capability-based models?
RG: Processed-based models focus on performance or technical aspects — for example, how mature are processes for access controls? Capability-based models focus on management aspects — is management adequately training people to manage access controls?

C2M2 combines the two approaches. It provides practical steps your organization can take, both operationally and strategically. Not only does it provide the technical team with direction on what to do on a daily basis to help ensure cybersecurity, it also provides management with direction to help ensure that strategic goals are achieved.

Looking at the bigger picture, what does an organization look like from a managerial point of view?
RG: First, a mature organization communicates effectively. Management knows what is going on in their environment.

Most of them have very competent staff. However, staff members don’t always coordinate with others. I once did some security work for a company that had an insider threat. The insider threat was detected and dismissed from the company, but management didn’t know the details of why or how the situation occurred. Had there been an incident response plan in place (one of the dimensions C2M2 measures) — or even some degree of cybersecurity maturity in the company, they would’ve had clearly defined steps to take to handle the insider threat, and management would have been aware from an early stage. When management did find out about the insider threat, it became a much bigger issue than it had to be, and wasted time and resources. At the same time, the insider threat exposed the company to a high degree of risk. Because upper management was unaware, they were unable to make a strategic decision on how to act or react to the threat.

That’s the beauty of C2M2. It takes into account the responsibilities of both technical staff and management, and has a built-in communication plan that enables the team to work proactively instead of reactively, and shares cybersecurity initiatives between both management and technical staff.

Second, management in a mature organization knows they can’t protect everything in the environment — but they have a keen awareness of what is really important. Maturity modeling forces management to look at operations and identify what is critical and what really needs to be protected. Once management knows what is important, they can better align resources to meet particular challenges.

Third, in a mature organization, management knows they have a vital role to play in supporting the staff who address the day-to-day operational and technical tasks that ultimately support the organization’s cybersecurity strategy.

What types of businesses, not-for-profits, and government agencies should practice maturity modeling?
RG: All of them. I’ve been in this industry a long time, and I always hear people say: “We’re too small; no one would take any interest in us.”

I conducted some work for a four-person firm that had been hired by the U.S. military. My company discovered that the firm had a breach and the four of them couldn’t believe it because they thought they were too small to be breached. It doesn’t matter what the size of your company is: if you have something someone finds very valuable, they’re going to try to steal it. Even very small companies should use cybersecurity models to reduce risk and help focus their limited resources on what is truly important. That’s maturity modeling: reducing risk by using approaches that make the most sense for your organization.

What’s management’s big takeaway?
RG: Cybersecurity maturity modeling aligns your assets with your funding and resources. One of the most difficult challenges for every organization is finding and retaining experienced security talent. Because maturity modeling outlines what expertise is needed where, it can help match the right talent to roles that meet the established goals.

So what’s next?
RG: In our next installment, we’ll analyze what a successful maturity modeling effort looks like. We’ll discuss the approach, what the outcome should be, and who should be involved in the process. We’ll discuss internal and external cybersecurity assessments, and incident response and recovery.

You can read our next chapter, Selecting and implementing a maturity model: Cybersecurity playbook for management #2, here.