Confidence Predicts Accuracy and Other Lies About Cloud Security
While achieving perfect cloud configuration is a laudable goal, it's often a Sisyphean task. So why has the industry predominantly defined Cloud Security success through the narrow lens of posture perfection?
Drawing from Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning work, we’ll explore how 'System 1' (fast, intuitive thinking) makes 'posture perfect' feel right, yet traps us on a hamster wheel, consuming resources and distracting from addressing cloud environments holistically. We'll examine why shifting to 'System 2' (slow, systematic thinking) is so challenging.
To further understand why the industry is fixated on configuration perfection, we’ll look at how it's reinforced: examining the role of misleading metrics that bolster our cognitive biases (as highlighted by Kahneman), and how vendor offerings can prioritize easily measured 'endorphin hits' over genuine risk reduction.
The session concludes with strategies for codifying slow and effortful thinking into reusable frameworks, short-cuting the effort of systematic thinking to move the Cloud Security industry beyond configuration management. We’ll learn to be skeptical of any single-pronged approach, utilize well-established frameworks, and distribute the responsibility for security in the cloud across the Security Organization.
