Tenable Blog

By now everyone has heard about the ransomware called Wanna, WannaCry or WCry spreading across the globe and locking down the data of some of the world’s largest companies. The malware appears to exploit an SMB flaw that Microsoft provided a patch for in March 2017. You may have heard that the worm has been successfully stopped and you have nothing to worry about, but the vulnerability still exists on millions of systems and can be used again.

Inventorying and managing the software on your network is foundational to your security. Unmanaged and unauthorized software is a blind spot that increases risk and IT support costs. What you don’t know will hurt you.

Intel recently announced an escalation of privilege vulnerability in the Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT), Intel® Standard Manageability (ISM), and Intel® Small Business Technology firmware, versions 6 through 11.6. This vulnerability has the potential of being a proverbial big one. The vulnerability has been part of the Intel chipsets for years, specifically the Management Engine (ME).

Before diving into some initial findings of this year’s Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), here are a few things to remember. First, the report is a subset of all incident and breach data, not a comprehensive study. It is comprised only of Verizon customers and their partners, and should be weighted as such. Second, the DBIR data sources change and diversify every year. This needs to be taken into account when making comparisons from one year to the next. Third, while the DBIR can be extremely useful, it is not gospel.

Safeguarding a network in today’s dynamic threat environment is a formidable task. Mobile devices and an increasing dependence on the internet make the job of maintaining control of network systems and data seem nearly insurmountable. The continual discovery of product vulnerabilities and the advent of malware toolkits ensure that networks are continuously bombarded by increasingly sophisticated attacks.