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I am writing this after my third cup of coffee today — forgive me if I get a little more rambly than usual. The thing is, I’ve been in networking and cybersecurity for nearly three decades at this point… and sure as hell some of it ain’t textbook theory.
I began my career way back in ’93 as a network admin. Have all of that old crap using multiplexers moving voice and data over public switched telephone network lines, where the God awful modem handshakes were like music to your ear — at least I seem to remember it. A lot has changed, but some core principles just refuse to do so.
Consider the Slammer worm from the early 2000s. It zipped across networks like an STD at a teenagers’ party. I remember watching full systems freeze over night, users wanting to know if the Internet had been broken (Hint: no, but close enough). It was a stark reminder of how tenuous network security is, even when you think everything is locked up tight.
Finally, I run my cyber security consultancy — P J Networks Pvt Ltd and have been bustling lately helping 3 different banks to upgrade their security infrastructure with Zero-Trust architectures. If you are not already fully aware of it, and I mean this with emphasis: nothing; absolutely nothing in your environment — inside or outside the network perimeter — is trusted by default. And honestly? It’s not just buzzword bingo. It is the only sane response to the modern threats.
Am fresh in from DefCon — yeah, the Vegas one. I am still in hype, especially for the hardware hacking village. And when they were, it became utter playground for hackers everywhere—folks breaking down everything from ancient routers to how you can mess with IoT device till your smart toaster frightens even you. That leads me to my larger point: if you believe that software is your sole security worry, you are seriously illusional. Also keep in mind that sometimes, vulnerability means physical openness.
But hey — security is not only technology, it is also people and processes. I have seen companies spend millions on new firewalls and fancy SIEMs while their users are publicly displaying bad qwerty passwords. (and don’t get me started on how long these companies keep reusing the same ridiculous password policies — if you currently rotate your password every 90 days without any other improvements, you’re just wasting your time). Here is a bit of a rant for ya: no more “complex” passwords that nobody can remember; train your users, or better yet, use multi-factor.
Zero-trust? More than just blocking access. That means strong identification check of each step, restricted network segmentation as well as monitoring; who is doing what — always? And I helped those banks in rolling it out by —
This is actually an analogy I use all the time: your network is like a car. You would not only lock your doors but leave the engine running with keys in the ignition, yes? Even then, there are many who trust those users once they get inside the perimeter. Think of zero-trust as requiring a password to enter your car every time you start it. Annoying? Maybe. Safer? Absolutely.
Spoiler Alert: zero-trust is not plug-and-play. It is time (and cost, frankly, and a sense of patience; acquirable but perhaps the hardest for many to get). Security consultants who will promise overnight transformations. I learned pretty quickly to explain to clients: put it all together wholesomely, or you may well be actually opening in regard to bigger outages and possibly security holes.
Something else that surprised me at DefCon was the sheer inventiveness in hardware hacking — side-channel, shenanigans or the like. These aren’t just academic exercises. The banks I work with? So then, they ask: and the routers, switches, servers? Is this a physical rogue device that someone actually plugged in? Of course they can! The blind spot here is that often companies/individuals underestimate hardware risks — by far the biggest issue!
Some industry folks snort at this — Hardware hacking is niche. But I disagree. Each day, the attack surface continues to expand. Your defenses better be just as flexible…
At this point, many might be curious about automation in security — AI and ML are all the rage no? I’m cautious. To be clear, the automated alerting/ anomaly detection is critical. When the security is powered by AI — this is also almost always pure marketing hype. You could very easily be deceived into supporting a fancy signature-based tool by its label, but without really knowing what is under the hood.
So there you have it; I survived the shift to cloud-native infrastructures and dial-up networking, saw malware evolve from pranks to sophisticated threats, and worked for thousands of hours with businesses (including banks) in ensuring their data stayed secure. Here’s my advice, distilled:
Consulting on my own has been amazing but it’s also been difficult. I swear I eenm ac recording one of these Senten — Enjoy the rant and gaff on me down in comments, some days is like Im stillo chasing threats that dodged me back in 03. Sorry, past me.
Finally, cybersecurity is not a place — it’s a never-ending tug of war. It’s like adjusting the carburetor on a vintage car — you modify this, replace that to keep it running down the highway. This is your whole business, of course, except car.
Stay safe out there.
Sanjay Seth
Founder, P J Networks Pvt Ltd
