Yahoo Breach Highlights Cloud Risk

Imperva's January Hacker Intelligence Report examines dangers of third-party code in cloud computing

January 30, 2013

2 Min Read

PRESS RELEASE

Redwood Shores, Calif., January 29, 2013 - Imperva, Inc. (NYSE: IMPV), a pioneer and leader of a new category of business security solutions for critical applications and high-value data in the data center, today announced its January Hacker Intelligence Initiative Report, "Lessons Learned from the Yahoo! Hack," which examines the dangers of third-party code in cloud computing.

In December 2012, a hacker breached Yahoo! with an SQL injection attack that took advantage of a vulnerability in a third-party application that was provided on the Yahoo! Web site. This attack highlights the risk that many Web applications face: Web applications may contain some sort of third-party code, such as APIs, that was not created by the developers.

"The weak link in the Yahoo! attack was not programmed by Yahoo! developers, nor was it even hosted on the Yahoo! Servers, and yet the company found itself breached as a result of third-party code," said Amichai Shulman, CTO, Imperva. "The challenge presented by the Yahoo! breach is that Web-facing businesses should take responsibility to secure third-party code and cloud-based applications."

In "Lessons Learned from the Yahoo! Hack," Imperva recommends specific business and technical steps. From a business standpoint, for example, enterprises should:

· Put in place legal requirements in a contract for what you will and will not accept from a security perspective.

· Incorporate security due diligence for any merger or acquisition activity.

Technically, Imperva recommends enterprises:

· Conduct a Web application vulnerability security assessment. A manual review of Web application security or proper use of automated Web application security vulnerability assessment can identify potential vulnerabilities that should be addressed in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

· Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF). A WAF serves as a security policy enforcement point that prevents vulnerable Web applications from being exploited.

To download the full report please visit: http://www.imperva.com/download.asp?id=299.

About Imperva

Imperva is a pioneer and leader of a new category of business security solutions for critical applications and high-value data in the data center. Imperva's award-winning solutions protect against data theft, insider abuse, and fraud while streamlining regulatory compliance by monitoring and controlling data usage and business transactions across the data center, from storage in a database or on a file server to consumption through applications. With over 2,000 end-user customers in more than 60 countries and thousands of organizations protected through cloud-based deployments, securing your business with Imperva puts you in the company of the world's leading organizations. For more information, visit www.imperva.com, follow us on Twitter or visit our blog. We're hiring!http://www.imperva.com/go/jobs.

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