Hacking -- The corporate cover-up

If customers, partners and employees can access sensitive systems from anywhere in the world, then the same pathway to the core infrastructure and priceless data exists for hackers as well.

No long ago, a senior executive from one of corporate America's large bellwether stocks received a telephone call from law enforcement, explaining that the company had a major software vulnerability in its corporate web site. The agent described the vulnerability and its location in great detail and requested that it be fixed immediately. But he refused to disclose how he knew.

At the executive's request, the organization's chief information security officer (CISO) investigated the matter, confirmed the flaw and fixed it. Through forensics, the CISO discovered that a foreign government had penetrated the organisation's applications infrastructure and was in a position to bring it down whenever the time was deemed right.