An Unfortunate Reminder

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 1,000 times – and we’ll keep saying it: the right configuration is key for your network to be fully secure. We had another reminder this week, with news of a data breach affecting Capital One in which a hacker gained access to more than 100 million credit card applications and accounts, in what CNN calls, one of the biggest data breaches ever. Capital One had security measures in place, but the breach still occurred. So how did the hacker get through? A misconfigured web application firewall.

Misconfiguration Opens the Door

More specifically, according to the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, “a firewall misconfiguration permitted commands to reach and be executed by [a specific] server, which enabled access to folders or buckets of data in Capital One’s storage space at the Cloud Computing Company.” Unfortunately, this is all too common. According to Gartner, 99% of successful network breaches can be attributed to a misconfiguration of the firewall.

The DOJ complaint alleges the hacker gained access multiple times over a few months. It wasn’t until Capital One received an anonymous tip that the company became aware of the data breach. That means the stolen personal information – which included approximately 120,000 social security numbers, more than 75,000 bank account numbers, and millions of names, addresses, and birth dates – was available to the highest bidder for quite some time.

Not only was the firewall misconfigured, the theft was not quickly detected. Those are two expensive issues you don’t want your network to have. Capital One expects to spend $100 to $150 million in costs related to this data breach.

How Can I Prevent a Breach?

So how do you prevent the same thing from happening to you? Get a professional configuration with ongoing management of your network. Our network engineers provide personalized solutions based on your unique needs, ensuring optimized performance and security. Once your configuration is complete, they offer managed security services that take the burden of everyday monitoring, patching vulnerabilities, threat detection, and more away, allowing you to rest assured that the security of your valuable data is in the hands of top-notch, certified professionals. And anytime you have a question, they’ll be there at our Security Operations Center to help.