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This list comes from Ira Winkler, one of the nation's leading computer security experts and president of Internet Security Advisors Group, a security consultancy that specializes in vulnerability assessments and penetration testing services, in an interview with Baseline.

First, IT should focus their attention inward, as insiders continue to represent the biggest security threat. That includes putting in intrusion detection and misuse-and-abuse detection, because even when outsiders break in, they show-up as insiders.

Second, practice security awareness, which in many cases simply means practice security common sense. And to have common sense, users must have common knowledge, and it should be the fundamental goal of every security department to communicate common security knowledge to all employees. And this common knowledge should not only address how employees behave internally, but also how they behave externally, because if employees are only expected to behave internally one way and externally another, bad security behavior is bound to be brought into the company.

Finally, make absolutely sure the basics are taken care of. That means make sure the systems are hardened, all the updates are turned on and enabled, all the antivirus software is turned on and updated regularly, and in general all of your software is continually updated.

As Winkler said, “The attacks aren’t coming from geniuses. Probably, there are one or two geniuses out there in any attack that find a vulnerability and create a tool for that vulnerability. Then, at that point, many morons can take that attack script and run it against anybody. But if companies are implementing the basics properly and proactively securing their systems, they will be ahead of the curve and prevent the crimes.”

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