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It’s a little past the middle of the morning here, and I’m sitting in my chair at my desk, out back, my third cup of coffee resting on my deskstand (which I’m using now), strong enough to keep me buzzing but not strong enough to shake the caffeine, as I sort through the morning writing and such.
I’ve been in this game a while. I cut my teeth as a network admin in 1993, the era in which dialing into your office network was equal parts patience and technical knowledge. PSTN muxes (those multiplexers that combined voice and data over the telephone lines of old—they date from the early 1990s) were my bread and butter. And let me tell you, those were some resilience-inducing days, because each byte you sent had to be whispered oh-so-carefully across some of the most brittle pipes you could possibly imagine.
And let’s jump ahead to now, having personally lived through storms like Slammer worm (yes that worm from 2003 from which we couldn’t recover for HEAVY minutes worldwide – crazy times but wow) Now, I have my own security agency, P J Networks Pvt Ltd. We manage everything from network operations centers to firewall, server, and router security—all part of that whole security pie businesses require in a world that has new risks appearing faster than your average car coming down the highway.
Writing about cybersecurity is like looking for a criminal and knowing the suspect.
Here’s the thing: it can be tempting to become distracted (and even to believe) in buzzwords like zero-trust or AI-powered solutions (don’t even get me started on that last one — I’m, in general, a non-believer in the snake-oil sales of solutions that are pushing AI as a silver bullet; it’s NOT magic). In my opinion, real-life cases are the best consultation and solutions, not a presentation or marketing brochure.
Three banks recently hired my team and me to develop their zero-trust architecture. Zero trust, let me tell you, is really not just a new sexy buzzword. It is a fundamentally new mindset. It’s the equivalent of going from a classic gasoline car to an electric car. Oh sure –– both may get you from Point A to Point B, however your fuelling, your maintenance, heck even the experience behind the wheel is different.
So if your security framework doesn’t reflect these, you’re effectively leaving the backdoor open with a welcome mat.
I just returned from DefCon and am on a bit of buzz – and no, not just that jetlag effect. I saw the hardware hacking village and it was mind blowing watching people tear into the stuff you use everyday and demonstrate how an innocent IoT device can become an espionage device in your living room or office without you even knowing it.
Here’s a stark reminder that software patches are only half the battle. I have seen companies spend a king’s ransom on software defenses only to find themselves blindsided because their hardware was not designed with security in mind.
A favorite sample I remember: a router I tested that, when turned on, had a debug port wide open right out of the box. This is not supposed to happen, but it does, because in the world of manufacturing they rush things. That means someone with physical access could just ignore the lot of it and go to town.
It’s not just a matter of software for your infrastructure anymore. Treat your hardware as akin to the foundation of a house. And if it is weak, everything else crumbles. And when I am consulting and trying to get really comfortable with companies’ problems, I will push for:
And I say that fully knowing that some organizations still see physical security as a “nice to have.” Not anymore. It’s mission-critical.
It was the first few years of my life that taught me more than text books ever could. PSTN multiplexers were my first introduction to operational patience and troubleshooting, and how small things can lead to big outages (and how it taught me some humility). “I would mis-remember passwords, lock folks out, mess up routing tables. But you learn. You pivot.
Once, during a large core network refresh we missed updating firmware on a relatively unimportant core switch. It caused sporadic outages that took hours to troubleshoot. Painful—but invaluable experience.
You can havethe fancy tools, but if your team isn’t rehearsing, testing and learning from REAL incidents, you’re just playing with toys.
Build a security culture — not just policies on paper
Most importantly—invest in regular audits. And not just checklists of compliance, but full, hands-on security assessments.
Each decade has had its ‘big thing’ in cyber security — from worms, such as Slammer, to ransomware today. The basic principle is still the same, though: Trust no one, verify everything, and always be prepared for the unexpected.
And hey, if this post steered you away from even one little slipup, my day is complete.
Here’s to secure networks (and maybe an extra cup of coffee). Cheers!
Sanjay Seth
Cybersecurity Consultant
P J Networks Pvt Ltd
