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THE POWER OF THE PURSE: HOW TO ENSURE SECURITY BY DESIGNTHE POWER OF THE PURSE:
HOW TO ENSURE SECURITY BY DESIGN

CISA should make its recommended goals mandatory and perform audits to ensure
compliance.

Gary Barlet, Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Illumio

November 12, 2024

5 Min Read
Source: Zoonar GmbH via Alamy Stock Photo


COMMENTARY
Companies across the country are lining up to join the latest cybersecurity
trend: the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Secure by
Design pledge, a commitment aimed at software manufacturers that compels them to
keep up with fundamental cybersecurity strategies. Companies such as Lenovo,
Google, AWS, Cloudflare, and Microsoft have already signed on. 

On the face of it, the Secure by Design pledge is a good thing. Its seven goals
each encourage manufacturers to adopt or increase the usage of a key
cybersecurity strategy within one year. The goals, such as "implement
multifactor authentication (MFA)" are worthy, if basic, and CISA encourages
companies to document their progress. If they fall short, they are also
encouraged to report that failure to CISA. 

The problem is that this pledge is entirely voluntary. Companies are free to
sign it — or not — as they wish. And there's no regulatory compliance factored
in. This means that if a company does sign the pledge and falls short of one or
more goals, no one may ever know and no action will be taken. It will be as if
the pledge never existed in the first place.   

Without teeth, the pledge is essentially worthless. Outside of highlighting the
low-bar steps major companies should take to ensure their infrastructure is
secured from the most common attacks (which, admittedly, is a good thing), it
takes no steps to ensure that companies will actually do so. And it provides no
repercussions if they fail.    


IS THE HONOR SYSTEM GOOD ENOUGH?

With data breaches up 72% in 2023 and the average cost of a breach estimated at
$4.88 million, can we afford for our nation's technological infrastructure to be
governed by the honor system? What happens when the next big cyberattack takes
down a pillar of our society because the company responsible failed to implement
MFA?  

I'd argue for a much more aggressive approach from our federal government. Given
the potential for widespread disruptions inherent with any cybersecurity
failure, we can't afford to take such a lax attitude toward securing our
systems. The sanctity of our nation's airlines, power grids, and other critical
infrastructure relies on stringent cybersecurity measures. Merely "suggesting"
that companies institute basic protocols is not enough. We need to mandate it —
and punish those who fail. 


THE EU'S HIGHER STANDARD

I look at the European Union's approach to setting standards for its electronic
devices. In 2022,  the EU passed a law mandating electronics manufacturers move
to a standardized charging port for their mobile devices. The EU's stance toward
Apple, which famously used a proprietary Lightning charging port for its
iPhones, was simply: Adapt or die. Apple adapted. As a result, iPhones in Europe
are now sold with the standardized USB-C charging port, alongside every other
mobile device. 

The EU did not fool around with vague suggestions or pledges. It saw the value
to consumers of a standardized charging port and demanded that manufacturers
make the change. Those that failed to comply were not allowed to sell their
devices in Europe. Simple. Effective. 

You can also look closer to home, to California, for an example of this kind of
confident action by the government. The government of California adopted the
Zero Emissions Vehicle requirements in 1990, and has adjusted the rules over the
ensuing decades as technology has evolved. The purpose was to protect the
state's air from automotive pollution. The result has been a near industrywide
reduction in auto emissions for the past 30 years. 

For vehicle manufacturers that want to sell cars in California, the largest
economy in the United States, the equation was the same one facing Apple in the
EU: Adapt or die. They could either engineer their vehicles to produce fewer
emissions or simply not sell them in California. Most elected for the former
option, and, as a result, automotive emission control technology has advanced
further in the past 30 years than at any point since the automobile was
introduced. 


ADOPTING A SIMILAR APPROACH

To protect our cyber infrastructure, we need to adopt a similar approach.
Instead of simply making recommendations, our nation's cybersecurity agency
should be empowered to make regulations.  

CISA should begin by making its recommended goals mandatory, forcing software
companies to do the following: 

●      Increase the use of MFA 

●      Reduce default passwords 

●      Enable a significant measurable reduction in the prevalence of one or
more vulnerability classes 

●      Increase the installation of security patches by customers 

●      Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy 

●      Demonstrate transparency in vulnerability reporting. 

●      Increase the ability for customers to gather evidence of cybersecurity
intrusions 

Next, CISA should perform audits to ensure compliance. Relying on companies to
self-report is no different from giving them permission not to report. Look
closely at CISA's list of pledgees and come back in a year to see how many of
these vaunted companies will have willingly admitted they aren't taking the most
basic steps toward protecting their users' data. 

Finally, CISA should be empowered to make a simple statement to software
manufacturers that want to sell products in the US similar to what the EU said
to electronics manufacturers and what California said to automobile
manufacturers: Adapt or die. 

If you want to sell software in the US, you should have to follow basic
principles that will ensure your software is safe. This should not be a "nice to
have." It should be mandatory. The stakes are as high if not higher than with
charging ports and automobile emissions. As we witnessed with the recent failure
of cybersecurity software, the impact was felt across entire industries and
resulted in billions of dollars in lost productivity. This is not a realm for
timidity.    

Hi all -- please add this to all of your content at the bottom between now and
Thursday -- I'm adding it to this week's news items now.
Rashid, Fahmida Donahue, Jim Bracken, Becky Spiegelman, Karen Beek, Kristina

 

Don't miss the upcoming free Dark Reading Virtual Event, "Know Your Enemy:
Understanding Cybercriminals and Nation-State Threat Actors," Nov. 14 at 11 a.m.
ET. Don't miss sessions on understanding MITRE ATT&CK, using proactive security
as a weapon, and a masterclass in incident response; and a host of top speakers
like Larry Larsen from the Navy Credit Federal Union, former Kaspersky Lab
analyst Costin Raiu, Ben Read of Mandiant Intelligence, Rob Lee from SANS, and
Elvia Finalle from Omdia. Register now!




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Barlet

Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Illumio

Gary Barlet has nearly three decades of cloud, cybersecurity, and network
experience in the US federal government leading security and IT teams in both
civilian agencies and the Department of Defense (DoD). At Illumio, Gary works
with government agencies, contractors, and the broader ecosystem to build in
zero-trust segmentation as a strategic component of the government’s zero-trust
architecture. Before joining Illumio, Gary served as the chief information
officer at the Office of the Inspector General for the US Postal Service and
served in the Air Force in several technology leadership capacities, retiring
from his role as cyber operations officer.

See more from Gary Barlet
Keep up with the latest cybersecurity threats, newly discovered vulnerabilities,
data breach information, and emerging trends. Delivered daily or weekly right to
your email inbox.

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