Important lessons are learned the hard way. Republican National Committee (RNC) hired Deep Root Analytics, a data analytics firm to profile voters and they left sensitive- 9.2 billion data point amounting to information of nearly 200 million American citizens on an unsecured web server. A poorly configured amazon S3 bucket that could have led to a massive data leak.
The mistake could have caused havoc since anyone with an internet connection could access the data lying on the server. Amazon and all other cloud service models are easy to deploy and set up but they are not secure by default. There is simple configurationprocess which if followed could have avoided the complete situation. Now AWS or any other cloud services have worked hard to educate the users but despite that, majority of cloud service user lack basic security measures.
What do we learn:
1. Majority of companies while using AWS leave SSH wide open to internet. This simple configuration error allows anyone to remotely access data from anywhere.
2. Even native security services are not deployed universally and needs to be checked properly and regularly.
3. Many organizations do not follow the multi-factor authentication protocols increasing the breach probabilities.
Clearly what happened at RNC could happen to any organization and chances are it will. Since now the information about such cloud services not being configured for security is out in the open. The risk while sharing sensitive information with third party is always high and every company should take extra measures to ensure the safety of critical data.
What should be done:
Risk acceptance and management is essential to run any business in the cyber world. Deploying state-of-art security measures as well making a risk reporting culture in the company is necessary!
Companies should have a mindset of risk management because an attack can happen anytime. Here are few steps companies should keep in mind:
1. Risk Identification
2. Risk Assessment
3. Risk Mitigation
4. Continuous improvement.
Companies must deploy stringent security protocols and ensure that they are being followed. Third party expert security services can be utilized if the company feels in-house abilities are not enough. Logix Infosecurity deploys latest cloud security and advanced threat protection software so that the critical information stays safe. We work on continuously updating the software as cyber criminals are changing their methods.
