The new guy stood up and moved to the white-wall at the side of the meeting table.
Hi everyone. So, for those of you who I haven't met, let me introduce myself. My name is Cline and I'm the new Security Consultant.
Cline beamed confidently at us.
Which was probably his first mistake as we were a bunch of raddled, long in the tooth ICT folk who had seen a myriad of consultants fly through the place.
Nngh.
Muttered the room. There were only five of us and it was hump day so we couldn't be arsed.
Cline grinned even wider at our collective grunt of acknowledgement as if we had all got our boabies out and were entwining them with each other into an elaborate cats cradle that he could turn and fall back onto in the way of that classic team building exercise.
He pulled a White board marker out and waved it at us as if he were a silent movie Zorro.
I am relatively new here but I would like to talk you through what we call an 'attack tree session.'
There were some ums and ahs. Patently no-one had any idea what the fuck he was talking about.
Including me.
Yes...
Attack tree... Right... Definitely...
The folk around me started to wing it for fear of looking foolish. I had no such fear. I quickly rattled through a few options in my head
Was it like one of those classes in the gym, Body Combat or some such tosh?
No, that didn't seem quite right. Was it some new age, machine learning pish which somehow ended up with all of us in the room naked and smeared in raspberry jam?
I had a quick scan about me, old Buffalo Bill was nearing retirement, fuck. His balls would be like elephant ears.
I decided I had better find out quick about the naked, jam smeared wrestling so I could feign illness if it were the case.
Cool. Although, what actually is that?
I said, tapping my pen sagely against my chiseled jaw.
Cline capered like a puppy peeing on newspaper.
I am so glad someone asked! I was worried I was in a room with five old pros!
He enthused.
I threw him a steely eye. Had he implied we were gnarled old prostitutes? I could still get my leg behind my head, not so gnarled there eh?
It's where we map out attack vectors!
He waved his marker at the wall like Obi Wan Kenobi watering his roses. Before finding a spot and starting to draw frantically.
He drew a box.
Right. Now, let's say a virus compromised one of our machines?
He wrote virus on the first box.
Then he drew a line to another box.
I sighed and raised a hand.
Yes, BoomDawg is it?
He pointed his marker wand at me all too familiarly.
So it's a flow chart?
Cline looked a little cross.
There is a bit more to it than that.
He replied testily.
Hmm. Ok, back in a minute, I just have to take a call.
I waggled my phone about as if it were a protein shake.
Oh, yes, of course. See you in a minute.
Said Cline brightly as I left the room.
I shook my head.
Not fucking likely matey...