Typically, someone on the Help Desk is tricked into disclosing a password or other confidential information. Or a hacker may con his way into a retailer's systems by convincing a local store manager that he operates a store in another part of town and must check some important piece of information. Meanwhile, security breaches continue to climb. Attacks on companies number about 1,000 a month, according to an IBM executive, and there are about 250,000 attacks on government systems per year. CERT, a federally funded security research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon University, says that 15,167 incidents have been reported in the first three quarters of 2000.
Vulnerabilities are things like inappropriate ports open on a firewall.
When someone starts talking about vulnerabilities, there is a tendency to think it's a discussion just for the techies. Getting those at the highest levels in the company to understand the risks involved in today's open environment is key to establishing better security processes and policies. He challenges retail companies to figure out what is the value of their information, what could happen to that information in the wrong hands, and how technical vulnerabilities enable that to happen. The real issue, of course, is how a retail company can manage security and protect its infrastructure in today's open-systems environment. Setting up firewalls, encrypting data and installing virus protection and intrusion detection software are all steps in the right direction.