Apr 25
Another tidbit from Josh Corman’s excellent talk on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) in the information security industry… the following comes from Frank Herbert’s Dune series of scifi novels:
LITANY AGAINST FEAR
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Josh asked an important question during his talk – is there any place for fear in information security?
My two cents: Humans (and animals) fear for a good reason; responding to perceived threats in a timely fashion is very handy if your goal in life is to survive. In the info sec world, I think that fear has some use, as an indicator and a call to action. However, once the threat causing the fear reaction is identified and evaluated, we need to discard the fear and replace it with a heightened sense of awareness and a sense of the true nature and proportion of the threat. The fears we face in info sec are not typically existential in nature; once we know and understand our enemy, we need to devote our mental and physical energy to meeting the challenge – fear just gets in the way.
So, we must not fear (for more than a couple of minutes).
I think this is going on my wall…
Except…
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