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News in Brief<br />

HACKERSTORY #2<br />

Budget and<br />

Production Pressures<br />

<strong>as</strong> Risk Factors<br />

In many companies, security h<strong>as</strong> become an integral part<br />

of the production process. In the course of penetration tests,<br />

secunet nonetheless continues to identify critical vulnerabilities<br />

in internal systems that threaten the organisation’s<br />

security and, in the worst-c<strong>as</strong>e scenario, its most vital<br />

functions.<br />

In subsequent discussions with the relevant system administrators,<br />

it will usually transpire that the vulnerabilities<br />

have already been recognised, though not necessarily their<br />

potential impact. These vulnerabilities are consciously<br />

accepted, since the affected system is directly involved in<br />

critical business processes and not every company h<strong>as</strong> a<br />

sophisticated staging process whereby changes can be<br />

tested on multiple pre-production systems. The decisionmakers<br />

are confronted with a dilemma: in order to incre<strong>as</strong>e<br />

system security, a temporary reduction in functionality h<strong>as</strong><br />

to be accepted. Subsequent corrective me<strong>as</strong>ures – if at all<br />

fe<strong>as</strong>ible – result in correspondingly high costs. Yet failure to<br />

take the necessary action could ultimately lead to substantially<br />

higher costs.<br />

The results were then presented in the form of a detailed<br />

report, with me<strong>as</strong>ures identified for optimisation then being<br />

implemented within a short time by the specialist departments<br />

of Flughafen Düsseldorf GmbH and its service providers.<br />

At the same time, the company used the project to<br />

introduce new mandatory security standards at all levels.<br />

Flughafen Düsseldorf GmbH h<strong>as</strong> expressed its intention to<br />

call on secunet’s anti-hacking expertise in future.<br />

However, if IT security teams are involved at the planning<br />

ph<strong>as</strong>e of a new application, these problems can at le<strong>as</strong>t be<br />

minimised. If, at an early stage, IT security is considered<br />

of equal importance to functionality, this can obviate the<br />

need for complex re-designs or bug fixing in the finished<br />

product.<br />

More information:<br />

Dirk Reimers<br />

dirk.reimers@secunet.com<br />

More information:<br />

Christian Reichardt<br />

christian.reichardt@secunet.com<br />

IN THE NEXT ISSUE:<br />

The Trojan Mouse<br />

1 | 2013 « 09

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