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Is there any security company that provides decentralized service?

mandevil 2y ago
By "decentralized" I think you mean "doesn't auto-update with new definitions"? I have worked at places which controlled the roll-out of new security updates (and windows updates) for this very reason. If you invest enough in IT is possible. But you have to have a lot of money to invest in IT to have people good enough to manage it. If you can get SwiftOnSecurity to manage your network, you can have that. But can every hospital, doctor's office, pharmacy, scan center, etc. get top tier talent like SwiftOnSecurity?
- ayakang31415 2y ago
  When I say decentralized, I mean security measures and updates taken locally at the facility. For example, MRI machines are local, and they get maintained and updated by specialists dispatched by the vendor (Siemens or GE)
  - mandevil 2y ago
    Siemens or GE or whomever built the MRI machine aren't really experts in operating systems, so they just use one that everyone knows how to work, MS Windiows. It's unfortunate that to do things necessary for modern medicine they need to be networked together with other computers (to feed the EMR's most importantly) but it is important in making things safer. And these machines are supposed to have 10-20 year lifespans (depending on the machine)! So now we have a computer sitting on the corporate network, attached to a 10 year old machine, and that is a major vulnerability if it isn't protected, patched, and updated. So is GE or Siemens going to send out a technician to every machine every month when the new Windows patch rolls out? If not, the computer sitting on the network is vulnerable for how long? Healthcare IT is very important, because computers are good at record-keeping, retrieval and storage, and that's a huge part of healthcare.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  I used to work for a major retailer managing updates to over 6000 stores. We had no auto updates (all linux systems in stores) and every update went through our system. When it came to audit time, the auditors were always impressed that our team had better timely updates than the corporate office side of things. I never really thought we were doing anythin all that special (in fact, there were always many things I wanted to improve anout the process) but reading about this issue makes me think that maybe we really were just that much better than the average IT shop?
- krisoft 2y ago
  > I have worked at places which controlled the roll-out of new security updates (and windows updates) But did they also control the roll-out of virus/threat definition files? Because if not their goose would have been still cooked this time.
  - whatevertrevor 2y ago
    Maybe, maybe not, devil's in the details. If, for example, they were doing slow rollouts for configs in addition to binaries, they could have caught the problem in their canary/test envs and not let it proceed to a full blackout.
akira2501 2y ago
A large hospital takes in power from multiple feeds in case any one provider fails. It's amazing that we're even thinking in terms of "a security company" rather than "multiple security layers." The fact that ransomware is still a concern is an indication that we've failed to update our IT management and design appropriately to account for them. We took the cheap way out and hoped a single vendor could just paper over the issue. Never in history has this ever worked. Also speaking of generators a large enough hospital should be running power failure test events periodically. Why isn't a "massive IT failure test event" ever part of the schedule? Probably because they know they have no reasonable options and any scale of catastrophe would be too disastrous to even think about testing. It's a lesson on the failures of monoculture. We've taken the 1970s design as far as it can ago. We need a more organically inspired and rigorous approach to systems building now.
- ngneer 2y ago
  This. The 1970s design of the operating system and the few companies that deliver us the monoculture are simply not adequate or robust given the world of today.

By "decentralized" I think you mean "doesn't auto-update with new definitions"? I have worked at places which controlled the roll-out of new security updates (and windows updates) for this very reason. If you invest enough in IT is possible. But you have to have a lot of money to invest in IT to have people good enough to manage it. If you can get SwiftOnSecurity to manage your network, you can have that. But can every hospital, doctor's office, pharmacy, scan center, etc. get top tier talent like SwiftOnSecurity?

ayakang31415 2y ago
When I say decentralized, I mean security measures and updates taken locally at the facility. For example, MRI machines are local, and they get maintained and updated by specialists dispatched by the vendor (Siemens or GE)
- mandevil 2y ago
  Siemens or GE or whomever built the MRI machine aren't really experts in operating systems, so they just use one that everyone knows how to work, MS Windiows. It's unfortunate that to do things necessary for modern medicine they need to be networked together with other computers (to feed the EMR's most importantly) but it is important in making things safer. And these machines are supposed to have 10-20 year lifespans (depending on the machine)! So now we have a computer sitting on the corporate network, attached to a 10 year old machine, and that is a major vulnerability if it isn't protected, patched, and updated. So is GE or Siemens going to send out a technician to every machine every month when the new Windows patch rolls out? If not, the computer sitting on the network is vulnerable for how long? Healthcare IT is very important, because computers are good at record-keeping, retrieval and storage, and that's a huge part of healthcare.
ensignavenger 2y ago
I used to work for a major retailer managing updates to over 6000 stores. We had no auto updates (all linux systems in stores) and every update went through our system. When it came to audit time, the auditors were always impressed that our team had better timely updates than the corporate office side of things. I never really thought we were doing anythin all that special (in fact, there were always many things I wanted to improve anout the process) but reading about this issue makes me think that maybe we really were just that much better than the average IT shop?
krisoft 2y ago
> I have worked at places which controlled the roll-out of new security updates (and windows updates) But did they also control the roll-out of virus/threat definition files? Because if not their goose would have been still cooked this time.
- whatevertrevor 2y ago
  Maybe, maybe not, devil's in the details. If, for example, they were doing slow rollouts for configs in addition to binaries, they could have caught the problem in their canary/test envs and not let it proceed to a full blackout.

akira2501 2y ago

A large hospital takes in power from multiple feeds in case any one provider fails. It's amazing that we're even thinking in terms of "a security company" rather than "multiple security layers." The fact that ransomware is still a concern is an indication that we've failed to update our IT management and design appropriately to account for them. We took the cheap way out and hoped a single vendor could just paper over the issue. Never in history has this ever worked. Also speaking of generators a large enough hospital should be running power failure test events periodically. Why isn't a "massive IT failure test event" ever part of the schedule? Probably because they know they have no reasonable options and any scale of catastrophe would be too disastrous to even think about testing. It's a lesson on the failures of monoculture. We've taken the 1970s design as far as it can ago. We need a more organically inspired and rigorous approach to systems building now.

ngneer 2y ago
This. The 1970s design of the operating system and the few companies that deliver us the monoculture are simply not adequate or robust given the world of today.