A third of organizations are at considerable risk from poor security housekeeping, with networks tested by NTA Monitor Ltd found to have at least 10 flaws. The company said that organizations are prioritizing security vulnerabilities and addressing high profile issues at the expense of a much larger number of less serious vulnerabilities which are being ignored.
By contrast, high-risk vulnerabilities were found to have decreased, with only 6% of networks surveyed having a vulnerability of sufficient magnitude to allow a hacker to access and take control of computer systems. This is down from 19% in 2001.
The spread of low-level DNS vulnerabilities can give hackers access to a company’s network names and addresses, and leave routers exposed to trivial denial of service attacks so preventing any traffic from entering or leaving the site.
Because routers and firewall systems are typically installed in their standard configuration, they are biased more towards functionality and up time than security, the company said. This has led to an unreasonably high number of vulnerabilities being identified in the last couple of years, NTA Monitor Ltd reported. The Rochester, Kent-based security testing company examined more than 13,800 risks it has identified over the last 5 years.
Source: Computerwire
