Effective training: Wombat's USBGuru
Many times when computers are compromised, the compromise is stealthy. Take a moment to compare that to being attacked by a lion. There, the failure to notice the lion is right there, in your face. Assuming you survive, you’re going to relive that experience, and think about what you can learn from it. But in security, you don’t have that experience to re-live. That means that your ability to form good models of the world is inhibited. Another way of saying that is that our natural learning processes are inhibited.
Wombat Security makes a set of products that are designed to help with those natural learning processes. I like these folks for a variety of reasons, including their use of games, and their data-driven approach to the world. I’d like to be clear that I have no commercial connection to Wombat, I just like what they’re doing.
Their latest product, USBGuru, is a service that allows you to quickly create learning loops for the USB in the parking lot problem. It includes a way to create a USB stick with a small program on it. That program checks the username, and reports it to Wombaat. This allows you to deliver training when the stick is inserted, or when the end user is tricked into running code. It also allows you to track when people fall for the attack, and (over time) measure if the training is having an effect.
So there’s a “teachable moment”, training, and measurement. I think that’s a really cool combination, and want to encourage folks to both check out what Wombat’s USBGuru does, and compare it to other training programs they may have in place.