Security Brutalism: Theory and Practice

This is the first post in a series of two exploring the concept of Security Brutalism and its practical applications. It's intended for all security professionals. The second post will focus more specifically on CISOs, highlighting why it's important for them to understand Brutalist Security and how to effectively present it to executive leadership for buy-in.

Introduction: The Crisis of Complexity

The modern enterprise security landscape is drowning in complexity. Layer upon layer of tools, policies, acronyms, and governance frameworks have calcified into something unresponsive and self-serving. Too often, security is slow when it needs to be fast, noisy when it should be quiet, and ornamental when it must be functional.

Security Brutalism is a response to this chaos—not as a rejection of security fundamentals, but as a reassertion of their essence. Just as effetive special operations doctrine or highly successfull innovation teams values precision, simplicity, and decisive impact over mass and bureaucracy, Security Brutalism calls for a stripped-down, purpose-driven discipline focused on effect, not aesthetics.

Theory: The Principles of Security Brutalism

Based on lessons learned from both leading and working within teams, we can establish a set of principles that anchor the concept of Security Brutalism in real-world security operations.

1. Simplicity of Form, Clarity of Purpose

Security must be understandable at a glance. This means fewer tools, fewer dependencies, and fewer "maybes." Every control must have a job and every policy a measurable outcome.

• Theory: The more complex a system is, the more fragile it becomes. Complexity is a liability in an adversarial environment.
• Practice: Replace a 30-page access policy with a 3-bullet standard: "Least privilege. Expire everything. Log all changes." Make it clear. Make it enforceable.

2. Intentional Friction

Brutalism accepts that some friction is necessary. Security must occasionally inconvenience the user to prevent compromising the system.

• Theory: Friction is not the enemy; unintentional friction is. Introduce purposeful checkpoints where decision-making matters most.
• Practice: MFA prompts on privileged actions, approval workflows for production access—not constant nagging, but intentional gates at critical points.

3. Operational Minimalism

Like a special forces team carrying only what it needs to execute the mission, the security program must be lightweight and lethal. We are fighting a war, there is no way around it.

• Theory: Tools and frameworks are not virtues; outcomes are. Favor tools that reduce entropy, not increase it.
• Practice: Audit the security stack quarterly. If a tool isn’t actively reducing risk or friction, decommission it. No shelfware, no zombies.

4. Strategic Visibility

Security without visibility is like firing in the dark. Brutalist systems are loud where it matters and silent where it doesn’t.

• Theory: Focused telemetry and real-time response beat sprawling dashboards and delayed alert fatigue.
• Practice: Build simple dashboards that answer five questions: "Who touched production?” "What changed?” "What failed?” "What’s talking to what?” "What’s anomalous?”

5. Decentralized Defense, Centralized Doctrine

Empower engineers to secure their own systems—but give them clear doctrine to operate under. Brutalism thrives in doctrine, not policy sprawl.

• Theory: Empowerment without alignment leads to entropy. Alignment without empowerment leads to bottlenecks.
• Practice: Define 5 non-negotiable security standards (eg. "All secrets in vaults, no exceptions; Production Is Sacred; Least Privilege by Default; Tag Everything, Trace Everything; Build to Fail Secure”), then decentralize implementation.

Practice: Real-World Security Operations in a Brutalist Mode

Case Study 1: The Fast Review Team

Mission Profile: Lightweight, high-impact security review program for a large, fragmented enterprise.

Situation: A Fortune 500 company with over 25 fragmented engineering groups, multiple cloud platforms, and a flood of vendor integrations. Traditional security reviews were slowing product teams down, creating friction with no clear value.

Brutalist Tactic:

• Built a tiered review intake with Slack + ServiceNow (or others similar).
• Designed a 5-minute review rubric for low-risk vendors.
• Defined a 10-question decision tree for engineers to self-classify their requests.

Impact:

• Reduced time to review from 3 weeks to 1 day for 70% of cases.
• Increased internal satisfaction scores by 40%.
• Security team’s approval rate actually went down—because engineers started submitting cleaner designs up front.

Case Study 2: Kill the Dashboard, Elevate the Signal

Mission Profile: Eliminate alert fatigue and redirect detection efforts.

Situation: The SOC was buried under false positives from EDR, SIEM, and cloud logs. Security metrics were measured in "events ingested” instead of "incidents resolved.”

Brutalist Tactic:

• Reduced alerting scope by 80%, focusing on "privileged execution + anomaly” only.
• Built a "command signal” dashboard updated hourly with four columns: critical assets, current threats, privileged anomalies, remediation status.
• Employ cutting-edge automation and domain-specific AI to efficiently filter out noise and highlight critical information.

Impact:

• Time-to-triage dropped from 3 hours to 10 minutes.
• SOC morale improved; engineers stopped treating alerts like white noise.
• Leadership finally saw the threat landscape in language they understood.

Case Study 3: The Doctrine Wall

Mission Profile: Creating centralized, non-negotiable rules for decentralized teams.

Situation: Security policies were ignored. Each team "interpreted” security differently. No two deployments looked alike.

Brutalist Tactic:

• Replaced the 80-page policy binder with "The Wall"—a single page of 5 commandments. *
• Every engineering team was required to post "The Wall” in their team space.
• Quarterly audits measured against only those 5 principles.

Impact:

• 90% reduction in critical misconfigurations within 6 months.
• Engineers adopted the doctrine as a badge of honor, not an obligation.
• Security shifted from policy enforcer to operational partner.

Conclusion: Security as Operational Art

Security Brutalism is not anti-security. It is pro-effect. Like specilized units in the military and crisis manamgement organizations, Brutalist Security teams are small, fast, and focused. They don't waste motion. They don't seek perfection—they seek decisive advantage at the point of contact.

We are not building cathedrals. We are building bunkers. Strong, clear, and unapologetically purpose-built.

If you're leading a security team today, ask yourself:

• What can I strip away?
• What doctrine do I enforce without apology?
• Where am I trying to be elegant, when I should be functional?

Therein lies the way.

* Here's an example of the 5 Commandments

1. All Secrets Must Be Vaulted

No credentials in code, configs, or wikis. Use centralized secret management with access logging.

2. Production Is Sacred

No one touches production without explicit approval and MFA. Every change must be attributable and logged.

3. Least Privilege by Default

Access is granted just-in-time, not just-in-case. Temporary roles over permanent permissions.

4. Tag Everything, Trace Everything

Every asset must be tagged with owner, environment, and purpose. No untraceable systems.

5. Build to Fail Secure

Design systems to fail securely, not conveniently. If it breaks, it locks down—not opens up.