Re: "It's ok we're behind a firewall"

["David Vertie" <verticalrave () hotmail com>]

Its seems that the reason that so many people don't care is mostly because 
they don't know what has happened to so many other companies in the past.

Many people fall into a false sense of security when it comes to protecting 
themselves. They either believe that they will not be attacked, or that 
their current security measures are sufficient.

I have met more than my share of people who say that their 
firewall/people/resources is/are sufficient and that nobody would ever want 
to possibly attack/maliciously use their resources for any means whatsoever.

You can only guess what happened to those companies when the big worms 
struck, i.e. code red. I saw many a people complaining afterwards about the 
lack of security that they had.

People ironically learn from experience first as a highlight however.

As for techniques, I suggest a history lesson. People will get mad of 
course; mostly because they don't think they need a re-education I guess.

My two cents.

> From: Alessandro Bottonelli <a.bottonelli () axis-net it>
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: "It's ok we're behind a firewall"
> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 16:10:37 +0100
>
> On Wednesday 19 February 2003 11:58, John Brightwell wrote:
> > "It's ok we're behind a firewall"
> >
> I have been hearing this from customers or prospective customers since the
> press (many years ago) and Hollywood begun to address the "sexy" side of
> computer crime--the bunch of black hats out there.
>
> According to a statistic (not a survey like the FBI one) by Ernst&Young 82%
> of incidents are internal and 55% of those internal accidents are due to
> human error (accidental deletion of files, spilling coffee into a server,
> whatever...).
>
> In my experience, the issue is more profound than numbers. When I talk to 
> SME
> entrepeneurs and I suggest that thay DO have an internal problem, when I am
> lucky they dismiss the issue as irrilevant, when I am not so lucky I piss
> them off because they argue something along the lines "I chose my people 
> one
> by one, they have been working with me for years. When I decide I cannot
> trust them anymore, I fire them. I don't need a security system to handle
> that".
>
> When I talk to executives in large corporations I learned to bite my 
> tongue.
> I always piss them off with such issue. Since it is something they feel is
> almost impossible (or just impossble) to address, they don't want to hear 
> it.
>
> There are three case studies (public--they were in the press) I'd like to
> share with the list.
>
> Case (1): the SQL Worm. It stuck 14.000 post offices in Italy for half a 
> day
> and only for some functions, namely the POS System. Assuming they spent one
> man-hour per post office to fix it, at $10 / hour, this is a $140,000 
> damage
> made by AN ARMY of "outsiders".
>
> Case (2): Credit Card Cloning. The Italian Police recently arrested 6 
> people
> with the charge of cloning credit cards with the help of ONE insider in the
> Data Center of an Italian Bank (unamed, since the italian press is usually
> "kind" with banks). The police stated these people spent something in the
> neighborhood of  $1 Million before getting cought. So this is a $ 1,000,000
> dollar damage made mainly by ONE "insider".
>
> Case (3): Document Shredding at the INS (US). Two managers have been 
> recently
> charged with destroying documents to be processed at the INS. Tens of
> thousands of documents are gone forever and there is no way to know what 
> was
> lost (the processing is outsourced and no pre-registration of such 
> documents
> is done before they are processed). JHM Research & Development is the
> outsourcer. They will very likely loose a $325 Million contract for this. 
> So
> this is a $325 Million damage made by TWO "insiders".
>
> Whan it comes to damages (not just numbering incidents), "insiders" have 
> the
> motive, the opportunity, and the capacity to do much more damage (one, two,
> or three orders of magnitude larger) than an army of hackers out there.
>
> But entrepreneurs and executives won't listen. If someone in the list has
> found a way to present such cases without pissing off a prospective 
> customer,
> PLEASE SHARE WITH US.
>
> --
> Alessandro Bottonelli
> A.Bottonelli () axis-net it
> www.axis-net.it

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