The Need for Active Network Forensics

The media is rife with examples of why current security tools and strategies aren't enough. Organizations have too much confidence in deployed security solutions.

  • Too much attention is given to prevention - there is no way to stop everything.
  • Companies trust that compliance to government mandated regulations equals security.
  • They have a false belief that updating, patching, meeting compliance requirements, and deploying new technologies will protect them. "Sit back and relax–all is well."
  • Even if organizations acknowledge that new threats will be introduced into the wild and that security updates will not be immediately available, they still tell themselves, "It will happen to someone else, it can't happen to me."
  • Because of this faith, trust, or ignorance, organiztions don't prepare for detection, response and recovery.

Below are just some of the news stories chronicling this dangerous trend:

RSA Survey: Security Pros Worry That Current Defenses Aren't Enough

March 8th, 2010

"...two-thirds of those surveyed said they estimate their network security solutions thwart fewer than 25 percent of network-based security threats"

 
 

Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

February 2nd, 2010

"Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private sector networks... We often find persistent, unauthorized, and at times, unattributable presences on exploited networks... We cannot be certain that our cyberspace infrastructure will remain available..."

 
 

U.S. 'Severely Threatened' By Cyber Attack

February 2nd, 2010

"Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication...Cyber criminals' capabilities presently exceed the response capabilities of those defending networks."

 
 

Fearing Hackers Who Leave No Trace

January 19th, 2010

"The offensive technical capability to play this game is well within the reach of the principal adversaries of the United States. In fact, one could argue that some of our adversaries are better at this game than we are."

 
 

Data breach costs top $200 per customer record

January 19th, 2010

"2009 brought more sophisticated criminal attacks that didn't show up on our radar screen"

 
 

Internet heading for 'perfect storm'

January 19th, 2010

"...the biggest challenge revealed by the survey is simply the sheer number of challenges that have come along at once"

 
 

Hackers wield newest IE exploit in drive-by attacks

January 19th, 2010

"Hackers are attacking consumers with an exploit of Internet Explorer (IE) that was allegedly used last month by the Chinese to break into Google's corporate network"

 
 

IE6 exposed as Google China malware unpicked

January 19th, 2010

"This attack involved very advanced methods, with several pieces of malware working in concert to give the attackers full control of the infected system, at the same time it attempts to disguise itself as a common connection to a secure website"

 
 

Poisoned PDF pill used to attack U.S. military contractors

January 18th, 2010

"Unidentified hackers are running an ongoing cyber-espionage attack targeting U.S. military contractors."

 
 

Hackers are defeating tough authentication, Gartner warns

January 18th, 2010

"Cybercriminals are using increasingly sophisticated tactics to outmaneuver security systems so they can steal customers' log-in credentials and pillage their bank accounts, according to a Gartner analyst"

 
 

Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated

January 14th, 2010

"Hackers...used unprecedented tactics that combined encryption, stealth programming and an unknown hole in Internet Explorer"

 
 

More Victims Of Chinese Hacking Attacks Come Forward

January 14th, 2010

"This attack involved very advanced methods, with several pieces of malware working in concert to give the attackers full control of the infected system, at the same time it attempts to disguise itself as a common connection to a secure website"

 
 

U.S. Army Website Hacked

January 12th, 2010

"Every organization has these problems...They may not realize it, but they're just waiting for a smart kid to come along and copy off every critical piece of information they have"

 
 

Conficker worm just keeps on coming

January 11th, 2010

"...some cleverly designed spam is getting past our filters as well...problems are examples of evolving network threats that present some challenges to the security team"

 
 

Heartland breach shows why compliance is not enough

January 6th, 2010

"Theft of a ...staggering 130 million credit and debit cards... certified as fully compliant with the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)"

 
 

Symantec predicts: In 2010, 'antivirus is not enough'

December 10th, 2009

"...the industry is quickly realizing that traditional approaches to antivirus, both file signatures and heuristic/behavioral capabilities, are not enough to protect against today's threats."

 
 

Two Official Kaspersky Websites Hacked

December 10th, 2009

"That investigation must have missed something, because the grey hat just performed a nearly identical hack on Kaspersky's Malaysia and Singapore websites"

 
 

Most Security Products Don't Initially Work As Intended

November 16th, 2010

"Fifty-eight percent of failures were attributed to incomplete or inaccurate logging of who did what—and when"

 
 

Survey: Most organizations struggling to secure data

September 23rd, 2009

"79 percent of respondents said their organization has experienced a data breach"

 
 

NY Times Website Infected With Fake Antivirus

September 15th, 2009

"It's a fake page for a nonexistent antivirus app, which is actually malware...It's a multimillion dollar business"

 
 

Network Solutions was PCI compliant before breach

July 27th, 2009

"...despite its being PCI compliant, a breach had compromised approximately 573,928 individuals' credit card information"

 
 

Major Secure Email Products Miss Spear-Phishing Attack

January 19th, 2010

"The problem is that most anti-phishing technology is built to catch large-scale phishing attacks, but not the insidious and dangerous small, targeted ones"

 
 

Heartland data breach proves PCI compliance is not enough

January 19th, 2010

"Achieving PCI compliance does not imply that a business has achieved real security"