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Simply put: this was a banner year for mega data breaches; according to Gemalto’s Breach Level Index, over 900 data breaches occurred during the first half of 2017, which compromised 1.9 billion records. More data was stolen in the first six months of 2017 than the entirety of 2016. Unfortunately, the massive exfiltration of data is a critical symptom of weak machine identity protection.
In the aftermath of major security incidents, experts often wonder how cybercriminals were able to exfiltrate large amounts of data while remaining undetected. Compromised machine identities allow attackers to use encrypted tunnels where traffic is only sporadically inspected - an approach that permits them to evade security controls. In fact, a recent study from A10 Networks found that 41 percent of cyberattacks use encryption to evade detection.
“Organizations increasingly rely on encrypted communication between rapidly changing networks of machines that are used for a wide range of critical-business functions,” said Nick Hunter, senior technical manager for Venafi. “To secure encrypted communications between machines, it’s vital that we protect each machine’s unique identity with at least the same rigor and precision we use to protect the online identities of humans. Unfortunately, most organizations don’t have the technology or intelligence necessary to do this, and because the number of machines on enterprise networks is exploding, this problem is rapidly getting worse.”
To highlight the role that compromised machine identities played in the data breaches revealed in 2017, we examined security incidents where large amounts of data were extracted without detection. Due to the massive scope and duration of these breaches, it’s likely machine identities played a pivotal role in these breaches.
“Effective machine identity protection requires complete visibility and continuous assessment of all identities across the extended enterprise,” concluded Hunter. “Only comprehensive intelligence can drive the automated, coordinated actions that are necessary to proactively remediate machine identity weaknesses. Until more organizations have these capabilities, we will continue to see massive breaches, even among large organizations with major investments in security. The only way organizations can stem the rising tide of data loss is to automate machine identity protection.”
Will we continue to see breaches that manipulate weak machine identities in 2018?
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