BSidesLV 2016

30 years ago, the United States suffered a pivotal moment within our space program when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. This incident forever changed the way risk was handled by that program, with hard lessons learned at the cost of human lives.

Information security failure is plagued by flawed decision making, communication breakdowns, and lack of involvement in critical discussions, to name just a few. And it gets worse: managers think technology solves security problems, and staff can’t communicate problems effectively up the chain. Unrelenting pressure to meet the demands of business can result in loss of effectiveness of a security program.

The root causes that led to the shuttle’s O-ring failure were process and communications breakdowns revealing wide disconnects between management and the engineers. This talk will focus on analyzing those breakdowns and disconnects, and what lessons NASA learned from them that can be put to use today to improve your information security program and posture.

The lessons of our past have much to teach us about our future – but only if we are paying attention. Come learn how the information security programs we are charged with building and maintaining today can learn from the failures of our past.

This talk is intended for all audiences from analysts to executives. Audience members are welcome to share their views during the presentation to provide a greater depth to the takeaways we can all benefit from.