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The challenge
This client, like most utilities, possesses a strong culture of safety and a similar commitment to security. As a utility, it also operates in one of the 16 sectors designated by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as part of the United States’ critical infrastructure. This means that the organization faces a specific set of requirements, which include disciplined cybersecurity practices.
Traditional cybersecurity has focused mainly on the internal environment and on data layers within the organization. For that reason, the organization sought a solution that expanded the purview and practice of cybersecurity beyond its walls. Management felt the need to identify and address vulnerabilities in the data “out there,” where more than 90% of cyberattacks now originate.
They also wanted an external perspective to support an outside-in approach to security. They wanted to know how malicious actors could gather information about users to mount an attack on the company. What could those actors find on social media profiles and what messages could they use to launch socially engineered attacks? What could they learn about the organization’s hardware and software and its methods of authentication? What could they learn about its supply chain: What products does it buy? From whom does it buy these products? How does it pay its vendors? What could attackers learn about the leadership team, the Board, employees, investors, and other stakeholders that would make the organization vulnerable to attacks?
Another goal was to broaden the conversation about cybersecurity within the organization. Given the exposures that can be unwittingly created by users with legitimate access to the organization’s systems, leaders had come to see that cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility. They also wanted to go beyond simply training and coaching people on how to “be careful” when using their laptops and devices; they wanted easy-to-use tools to support users’ efforts to keep systems secure.
Before learning about Picnic, the security team had worked to understand which publicly available data could create vulnerabilities and, to address reputational risk, what people were saying about the company. Yet these efforts were ad hoc, such as monitoring social media feeds, and they employed few tools, such as customized scripts and open-source tools. They wanted to harness data science to see across the internet and to identify the controls they really needed to have in place.
In sum, the security team realized that their environment lacked a defined perimeter, which meant that firewalls, endpoint protection tools, and role-based access controls could no longer provide the needed level of security.
The solution
Picnic provided both ease of enrollment for employees and tools that enabled employees to easily remove publicly available data on themselves.
Picnic’s capabilities let a user simply agree to be deleted from multiple sources of public data gathering, which Picnic handled for both the user and the organization.
The Picnic Command Center enabled analysts from the security operations team to seek out types of data that expose the organization to risk. That, in turn, positioned the team to educate employees about ways in which an attacker could use a particular type of information against themselves or the company. This created a clear division of responsibility: The organization flagged the risks while the employees controlled the data they deleted or left up.
The organization presented Picnic as a benefit to employees, which it is. Although other identity protection tools are presented that way, they are primarily geared to post-event remediation. In contrast, Picnic enables each employee to identify and deal with their publicly available data in private, so they can lower their individual risk, and by extension risk to the organization. Each employee gets to make changes dictated by their own preferences rather than their employer’s. With information from Picnic, they were able to, for example, adjust the privacy settings on their social media accounts so that only specific family members and friends can view them. Whatever steps they took reduced their exposure to attack—a benefit to them and to the organization.
Clear and consistent communications during rollout clarified both the rationale and use of the tools. Integration with the organization’s existing technology was straightforward, with Picnic tools fitting readily into existing solutions. The client/Picnic team took an agile approach to both the development methodology and operational implementation.
The impact
Picnic has assisted the security staff in identifying vulnerabilities and assisted employees in monitoring and limiting their risk exposures. The tools have provided protective controls for employees while minimizing extra steps and added work on their part. It has also helped the security staff to more effectively identify where potential threats might originate and the various forms that attacks could take.
Yet the impact of Picnic extends beyond what the platform itself does. It has enabled the security staff to launch a broader and deeper conversation about cybersecurity at the organization. This has created the opportunity to better understand, explain, and contribute to the organization’s culture of security. The security staff does not usually use the term “culture of security” with employees but the leadership team discusses it and works to create that culture. Picnic has accelerated that effort.
Picnic has also reduced burdens on the security team. It has helped to establish that everybody needs to maintain high awareness of how their social media settings or internet presence create risks. By their nature, the tools dramatically increase employee engagement in cybersecurity in ways that training sessions or video tutorials cannot.
The Picnic toolset has delivered capabilities that allow security staff to see risks outside of their corporate walls and to mitigate them. The security team can now not only alert users to the risks they face; they have also initiated new controls, such as multi-factor authentication on items that could be of use to an attacker. They have added new controls over remote access and other attack vectors where an attacker could access personal information from a data log or a compromised website. The organization is also using password reset tools that make users’ lives easier, while increasing their efficiency and effectiveness.
While no single solution can eliminate every data security issue, Picnic has broadened the organization’s view of its threat landscape and positioned it to better address risks. It has also reduced its attack surface, broadened the conversation about cyber risk and security, and delivered increased security to employees and the organization. This has occurred in the context of Picnic’s sound and sustainable methodology, process, and program for identifying and addressing social engineering threats.
1 https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors