9
June 2014
Industry One on One
What are the trends in defending against modern attackers.
Question:
Response:
To defend against any attackers, we must think how they think. We must consider: what is
the basic premise of attack strategy? It is that an attacker strikes where the defender is
weakest. In today’s web-connected companies, those weaknesses are usually in the form of
vulnerable 3rd party technologies that are deployed behind hardened network perimeters and
with trusted access to a company’s most valuable digital assets. Even the most robust
firewall isn’t effective against an attacker who has compromised a trusted vendor. This is
exactly how Target was hacked last year, when 40 million credit cards were stolen. Target
made a strategic error in not verifying the security posture of its third party vendors, and as a
result are facing exposure to damages that could potentially top $5.2 billion. By contrast, a
hardening program to properly secure all of Target’s vendors would have cost somewhere in
the estimated low single digit millions of dollars — not an insignificant investment, but
certainly a negligible fraction of the costs they now face.
The McLean Group
Ted Harrington, Independent Security Evaluators
Ted Harrington
What is your favorite pastime outside of work?
Question:
Response:
My wife and I enjoy traveling and immersing ourselves in the culture of the country we are visiting. Of all
the places I’ve visited, I’d say that either the Islands of Thailand or Tokyo were my favorite. We are
looking forward to our upcoming trips to Colombia, Greece and Croatia.
The McLean Group
Ted Harrington
