Re: The Soft Underbelly: Attacking the Client

Tom Vogt has made a great point with his latest article on security focus. In his article Tom articulates his points in this summary;

The vast majority of corporate networks rely on perimeter defence as their primary security feature. Once inside, an attacker seldom has trouble taking over as much of the network as he likes.

Insecure client machines are primary targets, and can not adequately be protected by border firewalls, a mail server's anti virus software or physical walls alone, and client machines are almost always granted higher access levels than they strictly require. The security of any given system is always that of the weakest link.

The technology exists to mitigate these risks but it is complex, seldom-used and impacts the "user experience". In other words, it makes it harder to work with the computer systems. Hardening each client is a non-trivial task, and the administration of secure operating systems with features such as RBAC or MAC requires skills that too few administrators have. The walls around our cities are high and strong. Inside, we are still building wooden huts.