The highly publicized Apple Developer website breach, which left upwards of 100,000 records with personal names, mailing addresses and emails potentially accessed by intruders, shows that no company—no matter how big—is immune to a cyber attack.

1. Preventing Breaches Like the Apple Developer Website Hack
The highly publicized Apple Developer website breach, which left upwards of 100,000 records with personal
names, mailing addresses and emails potentially accessed by intruders, shows that no company—no matter how
big—is immune to a cyber attack.
Apple has released little detail about the situation, which may mean they have discovered a larger, fundamental
issue with their developing infrastructure. Especially since the company response was to completely overhaul its
systems and databases—a fairly substantial reaction.
The magnitude of the company allowed Apple to handle its situation well. The attacker managed to download
some personal information, but by no means did the attacker have unfettered access to Apple resources. Nor was
the attacker capable of logging into servers deep inside the Apple network or capable of launching or injecting
malware into App Store applications (that we know of). Apple has been safe from such large-scale, high-profile
breaches for a long time because of the company’s vast knowledge and experience in cyber protection.
For organizations less versed in building a wall of defense against outside hacks, there are three things they can
do now to help prevent such a breach in the future.
• Compartmentalize your data. This is the equivalent of storing records in locked file cabinets and
only giving people access on a need-to-know basis. It is an architectural decision—keep your login information
away from the blogs, and separate that from the payment information. Encrypt everything, and stick a firewall in
front of these data resources.
• Perform behavioral analysis on network traffic. 100,000 customer data records coming
from a sign-on database is an anomalous traffic pattern, which can be detected manually (humans are great
anomaly detectors!) or with software packages. Computers communicate in very predictable patterns, these
patterns can be profiled, and anomalies can be detected quickly.
• Hack yourself. Although audits and Red Team attempts often miss the more subtle attack vectors, an
outside team can often pinpoint small vulnerabilities that might allow an attacker access to your systems and
data. Place the audit or Red Team in front of the developers first, and force them to be honest. Pride should not
stand in the way of securing your customers’ data.
It’s important to remember that 100% security is only possible if you have no data to protect. The question we
should be asking is: What are the best steps one can take to ensure as close to 100% protection as possible, no
matter how much data needs to be protected?
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