NYT Hack Shows Gaping Holes in Traditional Security Systems

AfterThe New York TimesandThe Wall Street Journalrevealed last week that their computer systems had been compromised by Chinese hackers, theJournalreported that the FBI has been probing attacks on U.S. media outlets for more than a year.The newspaper said the attacks arepart of a long-running pattern by a"foreign entity" to compromise security at major U.S. companies.TheTimes attack, particularly, set the security community buzzing because the newspaper noted in its reporting on the hack that its antivirus software made by Symantec failed to identify 45 of the 46 strains of malware planted on the media outlet's computers."One of the biggest dangers we have now is that most enterprises think that their enterprise-class antivirus protection is going to protect them from this type of attack," George Tubin, a senior security strategist with cyber security companyTrusteer, told TechNewsWorld. "It simply doesn't."Symantec agrees. In a statement issued to the media following publication of theTimesaccount ofthe attack, the company said,"Turning on only the signature-based antivirus components of endpoint solutions alone are not enough in a world that is changing daily from attacks and threats."Aside from the failure of the Times antivirus software to shield it from hackers, the incident has another disturbing element to it, according to Harry Sverdlove, CTO ofBit9, a maker of trust-based security solutions.This attack seems to be more personal than past hacks. "This is atypical for Chinese espionage attacks," Sverdlove told TechNewsWorld. "The more personal an attack gets, the more targeted it becomes and the less effective traditional security will be in that situation."