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The 10 Most Impactful Types of Vulnerabilities for Enterprises TodayManaging system vulnerabilities is one of the old est - and most frustrating - security challenges that enterprise defenders face. Every software application and hardware device ships with intrinsic flaws - flaws that, if critical enough, attackers can exploit from anywhere in the world. It's crucial that defenders take stock of what areas of the tech stack have the most emerging, and critical, vulnerabilities they must manage. It's not just zero day vulnerabilities. Consider that CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog lists vulnerabilitlies in widely used applications that are "actively exploited," and most of them are flaws that were discovered several years ago and have been fixed. There are also emerging vulnerabilities in 5G networks, cloud infrastructure, Edge applications, and firmwares to consider.
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User Rank: Apprentice
3/15/2014 | 5:53:42 PM
The FireEye system did its job well enough, elevating the alerts to the attention of Target IT, which eliminates the "sheer overload" excuse. Likewise, if the administrator had turned off automated response, it was critical to forge a field-tested policy for dealing with such detections manually, and then follow it to the letter. As for a number of Russian IPs, that in itself carries enough negative freight to merit special consideration-- aside from the principle that any "strange" address merits investigation.
Target did none of these things. What Target did is typical of the "90-day Wonder" policy of generating new managers ex nihilo, an IT person placed in the job for reasons that have little to do with experience or competence. As the survival tactic of one lacking experience, that manager essentially bought a well-respected brand, and then tried to hide behind it-- blaming FireEye for what was a Target responsibility.
Any Target promotion of a favored, specific person over those with more skill and'or experience is also excruciating commentary on the politics of Target management, since it focuses on factors which have little or nothing to do with professionalism. Such "fast track" promotions insidiously kill incentive among staff to demonstrate responsibility and competence. Fast track staffing is also disingenuous to the extreme, a breach of trust between executive management and staff-- especially those who were told promotion is based on demonstrated effort, competence and experience.
With the extremely questionable managerial culture at Target, the only possible defense against a charge of deliberately risky behavior with customer accounts is "mistakes were made"-- an abject confession of incompetence. While every manager is entitled to on-the-job training, that training should ensure millions of customer credit cards and bank accounts are not also at risk.