The ONE Question NO ONE knows the Answer to at RSA Conference 2020

Hello,

On Monday, the RSA Conference 2020 will begin, where almost a thousand cyber security companies will showcase their greatest cyber security solutions to thousands of attendees, and where supposedly "The World Talks Security!"

If that's the case, let's talk security -  I'd like to ask the entire RSA Conference just 1 simple cyber security question -

Question: Do the companies whose CISOs and cyber security personnel are attending the RSA Conference '20 have any idea exactly who has what privileged access in their foundational Active Directory deployments today?

If they don't, then perhaps instead of making the time to attend cyber security conferences, they should first focus on making this paramount determination, because without it, not ONE thing, let alone their entire organization, can be adequately secured.



Unequivocal Clarity

If this one simple question posed above isn't clear, here are 5 simple specific cyber security 101 questions to help gain clarity:

    Does our organization know exactly -

• Q 1.  Who can run Mimikatz DCSync against our Active Directory to instantly compromise everyone's credentials?
• Q 2.  Who can change the Domain Admins group's membership to instantly gain privileged access company wide?
• Q 3.  Who can reset passwords of /disable use of Smartcards on all Domain Admin equivalent privileged accounts?
• Q 4.  Who can link a malicious GPO to an(y) OU in Active Directory to instantly unleash ransomware system-wide?
• Q 5.  Who can change or control who has what privileged access in our Active Directory?

If an organization does not have exact answers to these 5 simple questions today, it has absolutely no idea as to exactly who has what privileged access in its foundational Active Directory, and thus, it has absolutely no control over cyber security.




This is Paramount

If you don't think that having exact answers to these questions is paramount, then you don't know a thing about cyber security.

Just ask the world famous and globally trusted $10 Billion cyber security company CrowdStrike, and here's a quote from them - "A secure Active Directory environment can mitigate most attacks."




Zero out of 1000

There are almost 1000 cyber security companies exhibiting at the RSA Conference 2020, but guess how many of those 1000 companies could help you accurately determine the answers to 5 simple questions asked above? The answer is 0.

Not Microsoft, not EMC, not CrowdStrike, not FireEye, not Cisco, not IBM, not Symantec, not McAfee, not Palantir, not Tanium, not CyberArk, not Centrify, not Quest, not ZScaler, not BeyondTrust, not Thycotic, not Varonis, not Netwrix, not even HP, in fact no company exhibiting at RSA Conference 2020 has any solution that could help accurately answer these simple questions.

That's right - not a single cyber security company in the world (barring one), let alone the entirety of all cyber security companies exhibiting at or sponsoring the RSA Conference 2020 can help organizations accurately answer these simple questions.




The Key

The key to being able to answer the leading question above, as well as the five simple cyber security questions posed above lies in having just 1 simple, fundamental cyber security capability - Active Directory Effective Permissions.

There's only 1 company on planet Earth that possesses this key, and its not going to be at the RSA Conference 2020 - this one.



Thanks,
Sanjay.

A Simple Trillion$ Cyber Security Question for the Entire RSA Conference

Folks,

This week, the famous RSA Conference 2019 is underway, where supposedly "The World Talks Security" -

If that's the case, let's talk -  I'd like to respectfully ask the entire RSA Conference just 1 simple cyber security question -

Question: What lies at the very foundation of cyber security and privileged access of not just the RSAs, EMCs, Dells, CyberArks, Gartners, Googles, Amazons, Facebooks and Microsofts of the world, but also at the foundation of virtually all cyber security and cloud companies and at the foundation of over 85% of organizations worldwide?

For those who may not know the answer to this ONE simple cyber security question, the answer's in line 1 here.

For those who may know the answer, and I sincerely hope that most of the world's CIOs, CISOs, Domain Admins, Cyber Security Analysts, Penetration Testers and Ethical Hackers know the answer, here are 4 simple follow-up questions -

• Q 1.  Should your organization's foundational Active Directory be compromised, what could be its impact?
• Q 2.  Would you agree that the (unintentional, intentional or coerced) compromise of a single Active Directory privileged user could result in the compromise of your organization's entire foundational Active Directory?
• Q 3.  If so, then do you know that there is only one correct way to accurately identify/audit privileged users in your organization's foundational Active Directory, and do you possess the capability to correctly be able to do so?
• Q 4.  If you don't, then how could you possibly know exactly how many privileged users there are in your organization's foundational Active Directory deployment today, and if you don't know so, ...OMG... ?!

You see, if even the world's top cyber security and cloud computing companies themselves don't know the answers to such simple, fundamental Kindergarten-level cyber security questions, how can we expect 85% of the world's organizations to know the answer, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, what's the point of all this fancy peripheral cyber security talk at such conferences when organizations don't even know how many (hundreds if not thousands of) people have the Keys to their Kingdom(s) ?!

Today Active Directory is at the very heart of Cyber Security and Privileged Access at over 85% of organizations worldwide, and if you can find me even ONE company at the prestigious RSA Conference 2019 that can help organizations accurately identify privileged users/access in 1000s of foundational Active Directory deployments worldwide, you'll have impressed me.


Those who truly understand Windows Security know that organizations can neither adequately secure their foundational Active Directory deployments nor accomplish any of these recent buzzword initiatives like Privileged Access Management, Privileged Account Discovery, Zero-Trust etc. without first being able to accurately identify privileged users in Active Directory.

Best wishes,
Sanjay


PS: Pardon the delay. I've been busy and haven't much time to blog since my last post on Cyber Security 101 for the C-Suite.

PS2: Microsoft, when were you planning to start educating the world about what's actually paramount to their cyber security?