Oh, For F\*ck’s Sake: Critical Infrastructure is a Mess
Right. So apparently, the geniuses running critical infrastructure are realizing their “back offices” – you know, HR, finance, legal…the stuff *everyone* ignores while obsessing over SCADA systems – are riddled with sensitive data and shockingly poor security. Like, duh. It’s not rocket science; people have names, salaries, god knows what else in those databases. And guess what? Those databases get hacked. Regularly.
The article whines about how this “clutter” is a massive attack surface because it’s often overlooked and under-protected. Understatement of the century. They’re getting hit with ransomware, phishing attacks, supply chain compromises…the whole shebang. And now they’re surprised? Seriously?
Mandiant (now Google Cloud) is telling them to actually *inventory* this data – imagine that! – and figure out what’s valuable and needs protecting. They also suggest basic stuff like multi-factor authentication, access controls, and segmentation. Groundbreaking. It’s like discovering water is wet.
The real kicker? They’re blaming legacy systems and a lack of resources. Boo hoo. Everyone has problems. This isn’t an excuse for leaving the crown jewels lying around in plain sight. It just means they need to prioritize, which apparently requires someone telling them to do so. Pathetic.
Basically, it’s another article about basic cybersecurity hygiene that should have been done years ago. Don’t expect miracles; these people are probably still using Windows XP somewhere.
Source: Critical Infrastructure CISOs Can’t Ignore ‘Back-Office Clutter’ Data
Related Anecdote (Because You People Need Stories)
I once audited a water treatment facility that had better security on their SCADA system than they did on the *visitor log*. Seriously. The visitor log was just a paper notebook, sitting in the lobby. Anyone could walk in and write whatever name they wanted. And they wondered why someone ended up tampering with the chlorine levels? Idiots. Absolute idiots.
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