Slashdot Mirror
Data Breach Study Spanning 500 Break-Ins Released
Dr. Jim Anderson writes "The good folks over at Verizon Business have released a report that summarizes what they've found after looking through 500 forensic investigations involving 230 million records, and analyzes hundreds of corporate breaches including three of the five largest ones ever reported. What did they find? How about (1) Nearly nine in 10 corporate data breaches could have been prevented had reasonable security measures been in place, (2) Fewer than 25 percent of attacks took advantage of a known or unknown vulnerability and (3) attacks from Asia, particularly in China and Vietnam, often involve application exploits leading to data compromise, while defacements frequently originate from the Middle East."
Stupid users and administrators would still be considered a vulnerability, which is the problem with the wording. If a system has no vulnerabilities it is impossible to break into.
That's why 9/10 attacks involved totally preventable breaches -- if reasonable security had been in place.
My blog
the attacker might have used social engineering ...which is a vulnerability. Lack of proper security measures and security training.
In addition to the training, you need to make breaches of security a terminable offense, for everything from a deliberate theft of information, to writing down a password on a sticky note and putting it on your monitor. Without teeth, you cannot enforce a security policy, and a policy that isn't enforced isn't a policy.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Not to mention the fact that CxOs are frequently the biggest offenders when it comes to poor security practices. I've seen more than one CEO of a Fortune 500 company use the name of the company as their domain/email password, and refuse to change it on a regular basis like the rest of the users at the company. Trying to enforce a security policy with someone who can have you escorted off the premises on a moment's notice is pretty much impossible.
The only way it works is to get the CEO/Chairman/Lord High Muckety-Muck to sign off on a policy that applies to EVERYONE, and then firing an executive for breach of policy as a demonstration of how serious the company takes security. (This assumes that a CxO breaches policy at some point, which is pretty much inevitable.) The attitude of "security policy is for little people" reminds me of Leona Helmsley's 'taxes are for little people' attitude.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Apparently, someone is trying to make Rumsfeld out to be an idiot. Though that he may be, IMO this quote is actually fairly insightful, if somewhat poorly worded. I've had a similar saying (is it a saying if I'm the only one saying it?): "There are three types of people in the world. Those who don't know what they're doing and know they don't; those who know what they're doing and know they do; and those who don't know what they're doing but think they do. It's the last group that screws everything up for the other two groups." The thing to realise is that everyone falls into all three categories for different aspects of our lives, and the challenge is to tell the difference for each situation to try to avoid being in the last group.
In Rumsfeld's quote, "known knowns" are the areas where we are in the middle group: knowing what we're doing, and knowing that. "Known unknowns" are the areas where we don't know what we're doing and know we don't. And "unknown unknowns" are the last group: things we think we know, but don't. (Ok, that's not quite precisely what he's talking about, but it's analogous.) And that last group is the most dangerous one.