Marty, the Maestro and the Crown Jewels

Vulnerability.  Threats. Defense.  For those of you in ‘the risk industry’, these words roll off your tongue with the practiced agility and grace of a seasoned ballet principal.   We use these words as a carpenter operates a saw and hammer, like a musician manipulates an instrument, like a writer brandishes a pen and paper.  They are part of our craft.  We know these words.  They are old friends.  They are always with us.  They complete us…

I have a theory.  It might be the rant of a madman.  It might be the harbinger of the future.  But it is mine nonetheless.  I believe that today’s security and risk challenges are not necessarily ours to solve.  We just need to keep the ball moving forward until the next generation of security and risk professionals – those that cannot perceive a world before the massive, intricate, complexities of technology – take the mantle and truly rebuild this cyberworld that we have wrought.  It isn’t that our attempts today are in vain.  We must continue to strive to secure our technology.  We must continue to promote trust in a digital world. We must not let the dreams of what technology can bring us die a death due to suspicion, doubt, uncertainty or over caution.  And that is why we do what we do – manage risk, secure our data and wait for the decisive solution to unfold.

I am about to embark on a journey and I hope you join me.  The journey involves an intrepid security admin named Marty, a mysterious villain known as The Maestro and an enchanting Kingdom.  The Defend the Kingdom blog series being launched next week is my attempt to engage in a conversation about risk and security that isn’t bounded by buffer overflows and Monte Carlo simulations.  I am looking to speak to that next generation that may just be entering the security and risk world, or those poised on the brink of a technology profession, or those even mildly interested in what makes security and technology tick.  But the story is not just for the young.  It is for anyone that is looking to understand what it means to take on the enormous challenge of defending a modern organization against today’s threats without digging into the deep technical bits and bytes.  For those of you already neck deep in this fight, I hope you find entertainment and inspiration.

The series which will be published in six episodes broken down into weekly blogs.  It has been an ambitious project resulting in 30 weeks of content.  The story unfolds as Marty uncovers some suspicious traffic and his alter ego in the Kingdom, the Hunter, begins investigating a cadre of mysterious men surveying the Kingdom.  Each episode will be accompanied with a technical dialogue which will address some of the parallelisms between the two worlds.   I hope the experience doesn’t end there though.  If I can spark a conversation, a debate, a discourse, then all the better.  My desire is, through an engaging plot, open the door to share and discuss today’s risk and security universe.

If you want some information about the backstory of the series, check out “What is the Defend the Kingdom series?” or the Video.  Follow me on twitter @steveschlarman to engage and let’s explore (and defend) the Kingdom together.