An email breach at industry giant Deloitte has led to one of the world’s most costly hacks for the Fortune 500 company. It could have been avoided if the company had only followed its own suggestions.
Headquartered in New York, Deloitte stands as one of the largest private companies in the US, which reported $38.8 billion in revenue last fiscal year. It offers tax, auditing, consulting, and cybersecurity advisory services to major governments and large Fortune 500 multinationals. Interestingly, the company, which is known for its cybersecurity advice, fell prey to hackers that targeted the company using a well-known, if misunderstood attack.
Simply put, hackers gained access to Deloitte’s network by cracking the password on an admin account that did not require a two-step authentication. That access provided the cybercriminals with unrestricted access to all areas and privileged data. The Irony here is that Deloitte offers advice on Multi-factor authentication, yet had not implemented the technology on its own internal systems.
However, there is a silver lining here, one that highlights the importance of two-factor authentication (2FA) and how effective it can be for securing critical resources. Today’s businesses can learn from Deloitte’s (and many other organizations’’) failures, and embrace 2FA to better protect their resources. However, there is quite a bit of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding 2FA, with many thinking it is difficult to implement and even harder to manage. Today, nothing could be further from the truth, thanks to cloud-based services that when combined with best practices make it easy to implement 2FA.
By adhering to best practices and selecting products (and/or services) that ease the path to 2FA, businesses can immediately improve their security standing and avoid the type of hack that has become all too common.
Of course, there is a lesson to learn here. Deloitte did not seem to follow their own advice and fell prey to the very type of attack that they had warned about. While the reasons for failing to deploy 2FA at Deloitte may never be known, the fact remains that properly securing systems means looking at strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating how those impact operations.
For many, 2FA is a technology perceived as far too difficult to deploy. However, those same individuals have failed to pursue the needed due diligence to keep critical business applications secure and also failed to acknowledge how 2FA has evolved. What’s more, prices on 2FA have come down, and ease of implementation has increased - all thanks to the cloud.
Businesses looking to properly secure systems must look further into 2FA and implement it as quickly as possible, and only then can those businesses not fall prey to the same hacks that Deloitte has.
For more information on implementing 2FA, please visit the AuthAnvil by Kaseya web site.