A recent PCMag article by Larry Seltzer highlighted some of the security risks within routing infrastructures and how the uniquely named Chuck Norris botnet looks across network devices and finds default passwords as an entry point to spread harmful code or take control of devices. Even though this one has been named Chuck Norris, I’m much more a fan of
Sydney Bristow who doesn't seem so 1980's.
It is interesting that organizations spend
thousands or millions of dollars trying to build secure infrastructures by putting up the “biggest fence” to build a strong perimeter, but
like any action/spy fan knows, all it takes is a little help from the
inside or one small weakness and wham, the bad guys are in. While a
strong foundation is important, it’s not the only step to ensure a
secure and protected environment.
Although this article focused on the
individual PC world, the problem can be just as huge for organizations dealing with their routing and switching network infrastructure.
I’m scared to admit the amount of times I’ve seen organizations leave
default passwords on their devices, or never change passwords when
employees leave to join competitors or are terminated. That small back door is
just enough for someone to get in and wreak havoc. Adding to the potential pain,
once in, most IT teams would never see any modifications or changes
unless an outage was caused. And the smarter bad guys know how to get the
information they want without triggering alarms or build a sinister plot to cause as much damage as possible.
Organizations need to build and maintain a strong and
secure infrastructure. With embedded intelligence and automation, users
can set rules and policies notifying the IT team when passwords are
weak or not changed periodically, and, if a bad guy happens to get in
through the front or back door, the system logs and tracks all changes
to the network infrastructure devices. So if an unplanned change is
made, an issue is generated and the good guys can stop the bomb from
going off and damaging the entire system.