D4210

Break glass and backdoor accounts, even though both bypass normal access, they are inherently different. One is a fire extinguisher; the other is a trapdoor. Break glass accounts: The fire extinguisher 🧯 Break glass accounts are legitimate emergency access accounts. we may think of them as the “in case of emergency, break glass” option when your identity provider is down, MFA is locked out, or ransomware has frozen your administration console. They’re: Pre-authorized and documented Highly privileged, often with domain admin or root access Rarely used, and ideally stored offline or in a secure vault Audited and monitored They’re not inherently dangerous, but if mismanaged or overused, they become a liability. A stale password, a forgotten vault entry, or a lack of logging can turn our safety net into an attacker’s open gate. Backdoor accounts: The trapdoor 🚪 Backdoor accounts are unauthorized or hidden access paths, often created by attackers or sometimes by developers who think they ...

Protecting our digital assets has a cost, and the cost must be lower than the cost of losing our digital assets. Who must pay for this cost? Information security is no longer an IT centric responsibility. Even though the leadership may fall in IT realms (CIOs) or outside of IT (CISOs), individual responsibility and accountability is the way to go in organizations that aim for a digital trust inside and outside of the company. Once we identify the System, Process and Control Owners, we may assign the cost of cybersecurity controls according to the value of the information.  Traditionally, the cost of implementing and operating information security related controls has been assigned to the technical department that knows how to operate them. That is like charging electrical costs to the facilities area instead of charging the cost to each department according to their use of this resource. Distributing the cost of information security proportionally to the value of information used a...