🗣 Rob Rosenberger Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
"Cybersecurity Winter Is Coming"

Let's begin with an oversimplified view of the 2008 housing market crash:

Hedge fund manager John Paulson made a fortune betting against Wall Street's insane belief for an INFINITE annual +14% housing climb
Cybersecurity has enjoyed non-stop growth since the #antivirus industry coalesced in 1988. The Internet bubble's burst didn't even slow us down; in fact, the #antivirus industry saw it as a golden opportunity to prop up then-fledgling trade magazines!
Cybersecurity barely flinched when global markets collapsed in 2008. "The only survivors," we told our bosses, "will be the ones who keep up their cyber guard during their recovery." And they bought it! Hook, line, and sinker!
The 9/11 U.S. attack, and the 7/7 Britian attack, and the 2007 Estonia cyber attack, and the 2016 U.S. elections, and the 2020 U.S. elections, and etc. have assured us we'll see INFINITE annual growth in cybersecurity

Right?

RIGHT?!?
"Infinite" SEEMS right, doesn't it? Our trade rags run headlines wailing of "a million unfilled jobs" in #cybersecurity. We tell college students about unending growth in our field. Pundits brag about the militarization of cyberspace...
We fantasize about hackers remotely crashing cars on busy streets. We fantasize @US_CYBERCOM will give us officer commissions and high security clearances: one weekend a month, two weeks a year, and poof you're part of the "in" crowd!
Decades of unstunted growth in #cybersecurity has turned our incessant fantasies into a terrifying belief: that our growth is INFINITE. That we will climb in revenue & jobs FOREVER.
And yet ... history over the millenia tells us ALL spending waxes & wanes for all sorts of reasons. Plagues alone stymied any number of military conflicts & conquests from the ancient Peloponnesian War up to World War I.
Global economic depressions have plauged us throughout history and gutted whole industries in their wake. We've no *real* reason to think #cybersecurity is fundamentally different. And yet we do! "Cybersecurity is immortal, Rob!"
Even with global industries RIGHT NOW scared for their futures post-COVID, no one honestly believes #cybersecurity will feel a pinch of pain. Hell, many folks now revel in the notion that #WFH may open up more job opportunities for us!
And that's why we view #cybersecurity as sacrosanct: "Rob, the janitors and all of HR will be laid off before anyone comes for the lowliest member on my #DFIR team..."

But at some point we WILL face an industry-wide gutting.
All industries — I repeat, ALL industries — wax & wane. And when ours DOES wane, you'll find me there on the sidelines

standing with John Paulson

saying "oh, you thought #cybersecurity's climb was INFINITE?"

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More from @vmyths

Apr 11
The Pentagon's @DAF_CDAO office should have long ago prioritized its dissection of current AND PAST Air Force #cyberwar doctrine to see where it would have gotten U.S. airmen killed in Ukraine's land war.

But HAF/A6 has a problem: 🤦

They don't ponder doctrine like HAF/A3 does.
"Wait a minute, Rob. It's not @DAF_CDAO's job to ponder doctrine. The DAF has an air staff dedicated to that task!"

NO, THEY DON'T.

The office you're thinking of will LISTEN to anyone who believes doctrine must [to use the correct term] "evolve" in some way. This is why… Image
…Air Force Enlisted Historians (AFSC 3H0x1) were required to write annual analyses and strongly encouraged to write triennial monographs over every topic they regarded as vital to DOCTRINE.

I, personally, set the ball in motion to change Air Force doctrine that insisted…
Read 12 tweets
Mar 8
Sooooo… Let's begin with a quick assessment.

The book's index highlights Dr. Fred Cohen, whose thesis underpins the concept of a computer virus; Robert T. Morris, whose computer worm almost very nearly destroyed his father's NSA career; and Victor Zhora, who has refused to…
…provide a death toll from all the horrifying[ly mysterious] "cyber war crimes" he insists must be prosecuted in a new "cyber court" in The Hague that can pronounce death penalties.

Yet there's no mention of Vmyths[.]com nor Attrition[.]org nor Snopes[.]com nor folks' names…
…The root word "critic" appears numerous times in "critical infrastructure[s]," yet only appears once in the context of a #critique. "Criticism" appears once on p.168 re: CrowdStrike's undocumentable claim that Ukrainian artillerymen got blown to smithereens and sent home in…
Read 9 tweets
Dec 4, 2023
I want to revisit this supposedly rhetorical question.

Historically, we in #cybersecurity labeled traditional events "cyber" simply because the players were computer experts, e.g. Robert Hanssen was the world's first "cyber spy" because he identified a local computer vuln and…
…installed a password cracker on his work computer and used a Palm PDA.

Now we believe *every* spy is a #cyber spy because they all use computers in some way.

So, we've gone back to the lazy way of calling them just "spies" — but NOT for the right reasons.
We did what the cable & satellite industries did: they ✌️adjectivized✌️ themselves for adding channels to our TVs.

Cyber has improved all sorts of things, but in all honesty we're like @BASF. We don't make the things people use in their daily lives; we just make them better.
Read 12 tweets
Sep 15, 2023
1/21
Wow! I'm high on life after a follow-up physical at a Navy clinic where I got tossed onto an exam table with my blood pressure checked 3 times, after which they did 2 EKGs, then took my blood, etc. etc.

So let's talk cybersecurity #management. It's late 1996 and I've...
2/21
...just transferred @robtlee off MY ops floor, 😈 making me DoD's first Enlisted Information Warfare Crew Commander and setting Rob on his amazing career path -- a fact he learned at the meeting below where our mutual mentor confirmed it. So, ...
3/21
...immediately after the Stan/Eval guy said "<yawn> you're now a crew commander, good night," I called a meeting with my tiny little ops floor crew.

"NEW RULE," I declared. "From now on, YOU make the decisions and I'll write it down in the Master Station Log." This...
Read 21 tweets
Jul 26, 2023
1/7
It pains me to agree.

Historically, a new "infosec" office found its authority by teaming up w/ the HR office (holding the authority to test & fire employees) and the firm's webmaster (holding the authority to set password security policies for employees & customers alike)
2/7
Historically, a newfound infosec office couldn't send emails to "all" because the IT staff controlled that -- coincidently to stop #hoax computer virus alerts that once rampaged email servers worldwide.

IT *ignored* the new infosec manager's ✌️assumed✌️ authority, saying…
3/7
"we need HR's permission to do what you're asking."

Which was too often true:

THE IT OFFICE needed HR's permission because #ironically it was an IT admin who first got #duped by a #hoax computer virus alert and fired an email to "all" that ultimately pummeled the firm…
Read 7 tweets
Jul 15, 2023
1/18
Monday would be #NickoSilar's birthday. Our industry spouts an #UrbanLegend that she died in a hospital #ransomware attack … yet the truth is a bit complicated for our collective reductionist beliefs.

Let's study the facts surrounding this baby's tragic death, shall we? https://t.co/TVbwbQ7wTJ
Image
2/18
First, I need to caveat my role in this sad affair. I've offered my expertise pro bono to the law firm representing the attending physician who delivered #NickoSilar on that fateful day. My specific goal is to protect Dr. Parnell from Springhill Medical Center's legal team.
3/18
I must admit it proved no easy task to pick Dr. Parnell over Nicko Silar's mother who, in truth, needs no expertise I can offer.

Maybe help Springhill Medical Center's CISO?

Nope: SMC has already thrown Dr. Parnell under the bus to protect themselves & their CISO.
Read 18 tweets

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