There are security concerns that go far beyond the usual suspects. Here are some that should be on your list of scary things.

There are lots of things to keep a security professional up at night, from virulent malware to zero-day vulnerabilities to users wildly clicking on every attachment that hits their in-boxes. Unfortunately, the well-known hazards aren't nearly all that security folks should be worried about.

Constantly expanding capabilities in computing have given rise to a constantly growing list of threat sources. From misapplied technologies that normally serve worthwhile purposes to poor behavior on the part of users (there's that word, again), security issues abound in places both expected and unexpected.

This time, we're looking at the "unexpected" side of the ledger. Beginning with a way in which one of the basic tools of transferring and storing files (the .ZIP compression method) and including technologies that should protect you but probably won't (passwords and OpenPGP) there are plenty of things to think about when it comes to your enterprise security.

For better or for worse — possibly both — this list is not filled with technologies, products, and activities that can simply be carved out of every enterprise activity. It is, for example, highly unlikely that you'll simply be able to leave passwords in history's dustbin anytime soon. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be aware of the various ways in which passwords can fail your organization and make it more vulnerable than you believe it to be.

Security research is ongoing and these items came from a variety of researchers, papers, podcasts, and websites across the Internet. And this list is in no way exhaustive — there are plenty of potentially scary things out there, just waiting to bite security professionals (and their companies) who get a bit too complacent.

So, what are the scary things on your list? We'd like to see the items that you worry about that we didn't mention. Comments are open and waiting for you to add to the body of scary knowledge at Dark Reading.

 

About the Author(s)

Curtis Franklin, Principal Analyst, Omdia

Curtis Franklin Jr. is Principal Analyst at Omdia, focusing on enterprise security management. Previously, he was senior editor of Dark Reading, editor of Light Reading's Security Now, and executive editor, technology, at InformationWeek, where he was also executive producer of InformationWeek's online radio and podcast episodes

Curtis has been writing about technologies and products in computing and networking since the early 1980s. He has been on staff and contributed to technology-industry publications including BYTE, ComputerWorld, CEO, Enterprise Efficiency, ChannelWeb, Network Computing, InfoWorld, PCWorld, Dark Reading, and ITWorld.com on subjects ranging from mobile enterprise computing to enterprise security and wireless networking.

Curtis is the author of thousands of articles, the co-author of five books, and has been a frequent speaker at computer and networking industry conferences across North America and Europe. His most recent books, Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, and Securing the Cloud: Security Strategies for the Ubiquitous Data Center, with co-author Brian Chee, are published by Taylor and Francis.

When he's not writing, Curtis is a painter, photographer, cook, and multi-instrumentalist musician. He is active in running, amateur radio (KG4GWA), the MakerFX maker space in Orlando, FL, and is a certified Florida Master Naturalist.

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