Technologically, we are in a bizarre dilemma. While on one hand, manifesting security risks are prompting us to constantly tighten our security, pushing us for towards ironclad security postures, on the other hand, it is deepening our dependency on security solutions. As we layer our security in hopes of protecting our systems from being infiltrated, we are somewhere getting caught in our own webs. In extraordinary circumstances, these very strategies can become a prison for us.
It’s not uncommon to be locked out of one’s password vault because a user forgot the password to the vault. What if it’s not just one password, but the whole suite of it that someone ends up losing in some bizarre turn of events? How do they convince the security solution guarding the passwords to let them in?
The bottom line is, in our fight against advanced threats and prodigious attackers, we are giving in to security too much, to the point where it itself becomes the problem. Bruce Schneier, a technologist working in security reminds us of this in his blog titled- “When Security Locks You Out of Everything”. Making it more realistic with a thought experiment, he writes-
Thought experiment story of someone who lost everything in a house fire, and now can’t log into anything.
To read the whole article, check out “When Security Locks You Out of Everything” at Schneier on Security.
