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Pennsylvania CISO Fired Over Talk At RSA Conference
An anonymous reader writes "Pennsylvania's chief information security officer Robert Maley has been fired for publicly talking about a security incident involving the Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system. He apparently did not get the required approval for talking about the incident from appropriate authorities."
What's the story here? He blabbed on a security issue without approval, and got his ass roasted.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Firing the guy will absolutely convince the public that you've fixed your security problems.
(had to make sure I hit the "Post Anonymously" button...)
I'm one of many server administrators for LUTX, the (US) Federal Government IT "swat team" that was put in place during the Clinton Administration. One day I was working on a code-blue 456 system using the X-K-Red-27 technique and suddenly a bunch of drunken Canadian's broke in and try to SSH the HTTPS server. Well, as you can imagine, all hell broke loose and we had to double-slot the uranium deuteride fast on the flip-flop before the Russkies could notice.
I hope I don't get fired for sharing this amazing story with Slashdot
Seeing as careless talk can lead to image problems and/or lawsuits (or harming your case if prosecuting them). If you're in a senior position and you talk publicly in a work-related context, you talk on behalf of the organisation whether you intend to or not. OTOH if you are "blowing the whistle" on wrongdoing, there is a specific procedure for that which offers protection.
Who fired him? Sounds like he made the wrong people look bad. Rules are rules, I suppose, but if the problem has been fixed, isn't talking about security and attack vectors generally a good thing?
Now all your remaining security issues will fix themselves. But, don't worry, I'm sure Robert Maley will be happy to help you out - at 5 times what you were paying him.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The important paragraph in TFA:
"Maley's dismissal comes amid ongoing budget and staff cuts at Pennsylvania's IT security organization, the source said. Over the past 18 months to two years, the administration has cut information security budgets by close to 38%, and staff by 40%. They also put a "lockdown" on talking about cybersecurity, the source claimed."
Now there's a good plan: If you don't talk about it, no one will know you have a problem, and you can save all that money you were spending on those annoying security types.
From TFA: Over the past 18 months to two years, the administration has cut information security budgets by close to 38%, and staff by 40%. They also put a "lockdown" on talking about cybersecurity, the source claimed.
So instead of paying people to fix our security holes, we're just not allowed to talk about them?
If I were him, I'd start spilling all the info I ever had on security for the state. No amount of money or threats would stop me.
I mean any and every item. I'd expose every stupid supervisory move that compromised security and my ability to protect the network. EVERYTHING would be exposed.
Nothing worse than people getting their panties all in a wad over a "talk" about a well publicized incident, of which all the bad guys already knew about.
There is only one thing these people understand, and that is how to look good. Ruin it for them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I'm simply rehashing the same thing I wrote over at SC Magazine's site:
We do not know all the facts behind the termination, but if was based primarly on his RSA appearance, that's a shame. There are so many variants of qualitative and quantitative risk assessment, that regular meetings with your peers seems to be just as critical with regards to understanding the important controls which need to be put in place. The days of leading with FUD appears to be in our rear view mirror, and building up a positive outlook in security by learning from the past and attempting to stay ahead of the curve is imperative to our support of the business or the public entity. What was the common theme with all the CISO's at RSA? Information sharing is critical and we're way behind. We don't share information, we put ourselves on "lockdown" and don't get invited to the table anymore as security professionals. We're seen as roadblocks, as negative drags on the bottom line. Something has to change or else we're going to lose ground as a country. In fact we already have.
Sharing information with other professionals is now critical to any InfoSec career. We do need to account for privacy, so a balance must be achived. Maley may have violated a confidentiality component of his employment, but that doesn't make the spirit of what he did wrong in any way. If anything, some clear guidance on what types of information is shared behind closed doors at peer review and group meetings at RSA should be discussed. You can't vette everyone who attends the meetings, but openness is a good thing, not a bad thing. More transparency is needed across the public and private sectors. More openness is needed among security professionals. The state of PA has it wrong. Lockdown is not a way to progress forward out of this losing battle with regards to properly securing the infrastructure while allowing the inevitable growth of technology and information.
If this were a private company I'd be of the opinion that their internal security is their concern but this is a government office and the people who pay the bills have a right to know what's going on.
If the internal security failure lead to your private information being leaked and the possibility of financial loss to you, I think that you might be of the opinion that there should be legislation which deals with disclosure. Actually, there is such legislation in many jurisdictions. And you also have Sarbanes–Oxley stuff which is supposed to encourage whistleblowing.
Some "internal" things are more internal than others....
Who fired him?
According to public records having to do with reporting structure, he would have been fired by Brenda Orth, CIO (Chief Information Officer) in the OA (Office of Administration, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania). The reporting chain is easily verifiable using either the Google cached copy of their page, or the Internet Way Back Machine.
She basically reports to the state Governors staff, so there's no telling how far up hill you'd have to go to find the source of the firing, but as his immediate supervisor, whe would have been the one to pull the trigger.
-- Terry
Didn't he know that you're only supposed to talk at conferences when A) you have something to sell, or B) you're being paid in a round-about way to promote a product while appearing to have no conflicting interest?
No one does a post-mortem of ACTUAL issues that matter to ACTUAL people, anymore.
The first rule of Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system is: You don't talk about Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system.
#DeleteChrome
A whistleblower reveals secret information to right a wrong. Perhaps there's a safety issue that is going uncorrected, or an unfair pay gap, or workplace racism, or where the bodies are buried. Those are kept secret to keep costs down at the expense of human health, or to protect the criminally negligent or guilty.
The GP said:
If I were him, I'd start spilling all the info I ever had on security for the state. No amount of money or threats would stop me. I mean any and every item.
There are plenty of legitimate secrets a CISO is expected to keep. Plans for upgrades that reveal current deficiencies but can't be implemented yet due to budget constraints. Ongoing operational security tasks. Or command and control structures: a list of the three key people without whom an emergency response would fail would provide a juicy target list for a serious attack. The identities of sting or honeypot operations. Those are all perfectly legitimate security items that should be kept secret.
A whistleblower is trying to correct an inequity. A traitor provides secret information only to damage an organization. See the difference?
John