(a customer walks in the door of the Japanese Ministry of Cybersecurity.)
Customer: Good Morning.
Owner/Minister: Good morning, Sir. Welcome to the Japanese National Cybersecurity Emporium, uh, Ministry.
Customer: Ah, thank you, my good man.
Owner/Minister: What can I do for you, Sir?
C: Well, I was, uh, sitting in the public library on Meiji dori just now, skimming through 'Secrets and Lies', by Bruce Schneier, and I suddenly came over all peckish.
O: Peckish, sir?
C: Esuriant.
O: Eh?
C: 'Ee I were all 'ungry-like!
O: Ah, hungry!
C: In a nutshell. And I thought to myself, 'a little dose of InfoSec will do the trick', so, I curtailed my Schneier-ing activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some security comestibles!
O: Come again?
C: I want some Cybersecurity.
O: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bouzouki player!
C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!
O: Sorry?
C: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tune, 'yer forced to!
O: So he can go on playing, can he?
C: Most certainly! Now then, some Cybersecurity please, my good man.
O: (lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?
C: Well, eh, how about a little AI?
O: I'm, a-fraid we're fresh out of AI, sir.
C: Oh, never mind, how are you on Multifactor Authentication?
O: I'm afraid we never have that at the end of the week, sir, we get it fresh on Monday.
C: Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, facial biometrics, if you please.
O: Ah! It's beeeen on order, sir, for two weeks. Was expecting it this morning.
C: 'T's Not my lucky day, is it? Aah, DDoS protection?
O: Sorry, sir.
C: User Behavioral Analytics?
O: Normally, sir, yes. Today the van broke down.
C: Ah. Forensics?
O: Sorry.
C: Access management? Monitoring?
O: No.
C: Any SIEM, per chance?
O: No.
C: Endpont Detection and Response?
O: No.
C: Encryption?
O: No.
C: IP Blacklist?
O: No.
C: Threat intelligence?
O: No.
C: Threat hunting?
O: (pause) No.
C: Social engineering?
O: No.
C: Penetration testing?
O: No.
C: Firewalls, ACLs, WAF, Proxies, IDS, IDP, A.V., Anti-Malware, file integrity checking, SSL?
O: No.
C: Incident response, perhaps?
O: Ah! We have IR, yessir.
C: (suprised) You do! Excellent.
O: Yessir. It's ah… it's a bit runny.
C: Oh, I like it runny.
O: Well,.. It's very runny, actually, sir.
C: No matter. Fetch hither the fromage de la IR! Mmmwah!
O: I…think it's a bit runnier than you'll like it, sir.
C: I don't care how f-ing runny it is. Hand it over with all speed.
O: Oooooooooohhh……..! (pause)
C: What now?
O: The cat's eaten it.
C: (pause) Has he?
O: She, sir.
(pause)
C: MD5 hash checking?
O: No.
C: User accounts?
O: No.
C: Deep inspection?
O: No.
C: IR badges?
O: No.
C: Japanese robotic sentry?
O: No sir.
C: You… do have some Cybersecurity, don't you?
O: (brightly) Of course, sir. It's a Cybersecurity shop, sir. We've got-
C: No no… don't tell me. I'm keen to guess.
O: Fair enough.
C: Uuuuuh, Indicators Of Compromise.
O: Yes?
C: Ah, well, I'll have some of that!
O: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mister Indicature de Comprimize, that's my name.
(pause)
C: Pin?
O: Uh, not as such.
C: Uuh, passcode?
O: No
C: Pass phrase?
O: No
C: Fingerprint biometrics?
O: No
C: Mobile device management?
O: No
C: Phishing?
O: No
C: Hardware hacking?
O: No
C: Lock picking?
O: Not -today-, sir, no.
(pause)
C: Aah, how about passwords?
O: Well, we don't get much call for it around here, sir.
C: Not much ca-It's the single most popular bit of Cybersecurity in the world!
O: Not 'round here, sir.
C: (slight pause) and what, prey tell, IS the most popular bit of Cybersecurity 'round hyah?
O: NFC, sir.
C: Is it?
O: Oh, yes! It's staggeringly popular in this country, squire.
C: Is it?
O: It's our number one best seller, sir!
C: I see. Uuh… NFC, eh?
O: Right, sir.
C: All right. Okay. 'Have you got any?' He asked, expecting the answer 'no'.
O: I'll have a look, sir.. nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.
C: It's not much of a Cybersecurity shop, is it?
O: Finest in the country sir!
C: (annoyed) Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.
O: Well, it's so clean, sir!
C: It's certainly uncontaminated by Cybersecurity.
O: (brightly) You haven't asked me about palm biometrics, sir.
C: Would it be worth it?
O: Could be.
C: Have you -SHUT THAT BLOODY BOUZOUKI UP!
O: Told you sir…
C: (slowly) Have you got any palm biometrics?
O: No.
C: Figures. Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place……. Tell me:
O: Yessir?
C: (deliberately) Have you in fact got any Cybersecurity here at all?
O: Yes,sir.
C: Really?
(pause)
O: No. Not really, sir.
C: You haven't.
O: Nosir. Not a scrap. I was deliberately wasting your time,sir. I've never actually worked a computer.
C: Well I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to (verbally reprimanded) you.
O: Right-0, sir.
C: What a senseless waste of human life.
Thanks and apologies to Monty Python.
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