Book Image

Practical Cybersecurity Architecture

By : Ed Moyle, Diana Kelley
Book Image

Practical Cybersecurity Architecture

By: Ed Moyle, Diana Kelley

Overview of this book

Cybersecurity architects work with others to develop a comprehensive understanding of the business' requirements. They work with stakeholders to plan designs that are implementable, goal-based, and in keeping with the governance strategy of the organization. With this book, you'll explore the fundamentals of cybersecurity architecture: addressing and mitigating risks, designing secure solutions, and communicating with others about security designs. The book outlines strategies that will help you work with execution teams to make your vision a concrete reality, along with covering ways to keep designs relevant over time through ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and continuous improvement. As you progress, you'll also learn about recognized frameworks for building robust designs as well as strategies that you can adopt to create your own designs. By the end of this book, you will have the skills you need to be able to architect solutions with robust security components for your organization, whether they are infrastructure solutions, application solutions, or others.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
1
Section 1:Security Architecture
4
Section 2: Building an Architecture
9
Section 3:Execution

Understanding goals

"The most important piece of architecture is to understand the why: why it is that you are doing what it is that you are doing. Understanding the why leads you to the how. Understand it in the context of the broader business and organization goals context and let that be the guide to when and how you implement security."

– Ted Ipsen, president and COO of Positroniq, LLC

It is a truism that the work of the architect must start and end with enabling the organization to accomplish its goals. Security is not an end in and of itself – it doesn't operate in a vacuum. This means it is only useful in the furtherance of some other goal that an organization or individual has.

You can prove this is the case by considering what security controls you'd use if there no threats to defend against. For example, would you use antivirus software if malware didn't exist? Would you hire armed guards to protect an empty room? Of course...