C3L Security

The text of this post has also appeared, with minor differences, in the ETSI Newsletter "The Standard". The post asserts that standards are good and also that ETSI is good at making them. ETSI has a long and illustrious history of developing effective standards, something that all ETSI members hold as true. Whilst many of the successes of ETSI lie in radio and networks, through GSM and its successors, DECT and TETRA, underpinning those successes is a commitment to providing security capabilities. Effective provision of security in a standard is backed up by consideration of risk and here ETSI has over a number of years led the world with its TVRA method. It is now extending this foundation work with TC CYBER moving towards publication of standards that address "Secure by Default" and "Privacy by Design" alongside the structural elements of successful security in refining the Critical Security Controls (CSC) originally published by the SANS Insti...

I've seen a lot of press recently about the actions of a Nation State attempting to interfere in the outcome of an election in another Nation State. My immediate thought is so what? Any Nation State should be concerned with the politics of other Nation States and ought to be sufficiently concerned to make the result as favourable as possible to them. This will not be done overtly - you will not find a Nation State saying we want Bob to win and not Alice. Rather I'd expect every Nation State would have discussions at government level on how they would work with any other Nation State in the event of change of government or even in the event of change of a senior minister. So in the age of widespread social media, of global media, of global business supply chains, of interlinked economies, the nature of influence can be very nuanced. So lets put some names here: Would Russia be expected to want to influence the votes in either the US Presidential election, or the Brexit referen...