Design Phase of Security Architecture: The Idea of a Defendable Architecture Driven by Threat Intelligence

Hey, there! Welcome back to our San Francisco Bay Area chat. You know that place full of dreamers, tech gurus and amazing seafood. We’re back, and today, we’re going to have a chat about cyber threats, from harmless explorers to serious nation state actors, and how we can deal with these risk in our organizations, particularly in healthcare and cybersecurity. Yup, we’re diving straight into the heart of the matter.

Remember those kids who try hacking just for fun, without causing real harm? We can call them Tier 1 security risks – no real expertise, just playing around with tools and techniques they grab from online sources. Then there’s Tier 2, a bit more of a concern. These are the individuals, often working alone, who have a clear intention to cause harm leveraging well-known exploits.

Watch out for Tier 3 folks, they up the ante a bit. They’re often politically motivated groups or hacktivists using previously unknown vulnerabilities. These groups have a propensity to create chaos like messing with service availability or defacing websites. And let’s not forget their penchant for leaking damaging information.

Now we’ve got the people who’ve stepped into professional cybercrime – Tier 4. These cyber mafias are all about making money, dealing with anything from ransomware attacks to outright theft of financial data. Then comes Tier 5, major players in the cyber world. These groups are often funded by nation-states and are relentless in their pursuit of strategic targets.

And finally, Tier 6. These guys are essentially the military intelligence of the cyber world and can command seemingly endless resources. Their motivations vary and can include everything from espionage to tapping into the channels of foreign governments.

Knowing what we’re up against, the challenge becomes developing a security strategy that can handle these threats on different fronts. Combining an understanding of each threat levels with a knowledge of our own organization’s critical assets, we can better predict who’s most likely to target us and how they’ll do it.

One tool available to us is the MITRE ATT&CK framework. It’s a shared repository of threat actor techniques. What makes it really cool is that it doesn’t strictly focus on tools or malware, but rather how these bad boys interact with systems. Using this information, we can pinpoint potential weak spots in our defense and develop our own measures to detect attacks early on.

So, folks, the big takeaway from this is this: understanding the types of threat actors we’re up against helps us develop more effective defenses. Remember, the best offense is a good defense, and that’s especially true in tech. The same tactics that have worked in traditional warfare can be applied in the world of cyber warfare. And ultimately, it’s all about having the right tools and the right people to handle security threats, ensuring the protection of your data while you’re busy creating and innovating.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. Remember to stay secure out there! Next time, we’re going to chat about how to plan and build a defendable architecture. Until then, keep pushing the boundaries, and let’s keep the conversation going. ‘Til next time…

by Morgan Phisher | HEAL Security