Big Breaches

Cybersecurity Lessons for Everyone

What are the root causes that have allowed attackers to break into so

many organizations? This chapter mainly focuses on six technical root

causes. Before delving into those, we first discuss three of the “meta-level”

root causes: failure to prioritize security, failure to invest in security, and

failure to execute on security initiatives. For anything important in life or

business, one may argue that these three types of failures (to prioritize,

invest, and execute) can apply to almost anything, but we will cover some

of the specifics to security in this chapter.