Are breaches inevitable?

[Audrey McNeil <audrey () riskbasedsecurity com>]

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2601347/security0/are-breaches-inevitable.html

Is there a reason that data breaches have been happening at a rapid clip
lately? And is there more that we, as security managers, should be doing to
make sure that our own companies don’t join the ranks of the breached?

Home Depot is the latest company to make headlines for a potentially big
data breach, and it just might be the biggest one yet. The current record
holder is Target, and we’ve more recently seen the company that owns
grocery store chains Supervalu, Albertsons, Acme Markets, Jewel-Osco and
Shaw’s compromised by hackers. J.P. Morgan and four other major banks
appear to have fallen victim to security breaches. UPS stores were also hit
by hackers, and several hundred Norwegian companies were compromised. These
victims have joined the ranks of Neiman-Marcus, Michael’s, Sally Beauty,
P.F. Chang’s and Goodwill. What’s going on?

MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Free security tools you should try

The motivation for attacks like these is usually financial. The attackers
are stealing credit card and debit card numbers, along with personal
information, which they then sell in underground markets. We don’t yet know
whether this is the case with the banks that were hit; those attacks may
have been politically motivated, or we may learn that fraudulent
transactions were used to steal money. In any case, there seems to be a big
jump in electronic data theft for profit. But the stolen information is
only valuable for a few days, and its value diminishes rapidly by the hour.
Some security researchers are saying that this loss of value is motivating
today’s data thieves to move quickly. Another factor may be Microsoft’s
termination of support for Windows XP, which could be prompting hackers to
go for one last all-out heist to grab what they can while many systems are
still vulnerable. Perhaps, knowing that all the vulnerabilities of Windows
XP would soon vanish, our thieves had a fire sale.

But I suspect there is more to the story. Most big businesses use standard
security procedures and technologies that have been around for years, if
not decades. Many of these defenses have not kept up with current threats.
Take antivirus, for example. Signature-based malware detection has long
been ineffective against modern malware, yet most companies continue to
rely on it as a key defense. We know from the details of some of the retail
breaches that those who have implemented advanced heuristic malware
detection have ignored the alarms set off by the point-of-sale malware (for
reasons I cannot fathom). Patching will always be a game of catch-up, with
the attackers having the upper hand. And password-based authentication will
evidently be with us forever, much as I might rail against it. Attackers
use all of these to get through their victims’ defenses.

The simple fact of the matter is that attackers will always have several
vulnerabilities to choose from at any potential victim they want to target.
And security managers, even those who are really good at their jobs, will
never be able to close every single hole. And it only takes one.

So if traditional information security practices are not enough, what else
can we do? I’ve been giving that question a lot of thought lately, and I
think part of the answer is to evolve our security technologies, just as
the attackers evolve their techniques. That heuristic behavior-based
malware detection technology I keep talking about is pretty cool, but is it
still cutting-edge? It’s been around for three or four years. Is there
anything newer out there? And how can we choose the right technologies that
are going to be effective against emerging threats but still stand the test
of time so their manufacturers will be around three years from now?

There are some new products starting to go to market, and venture
capitalists are funding a lot of new security technology. I think we should
all keep a close eye on them. I’m beginning to believe that in the
cutthroat rivalry between attacker and defender, the best technology wins.
The only way we can keep one step ahead of today’s hackers is to take two
steps forward and advance our defensive capabilities to the point where we
can reliably repel, or at least detect, today’s data thieves.

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