ThycoticCentrify comment: San Francisco water treatment plant breach
June 2021 by Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at ThycoticCentrify
Following the news around a hacker trying to poison a San Francisco Bay Area water treatment plant – Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at ThycoticCentrify offers the following comment:
“This highlights and reminds us how bad password hygiene is getting and how important it is for organisations to prioritise password security and management. Organisations must help employees move passwords into the background so they do not have to choose, remember or store passwords, using privileged access security solutions helps organisations reduces the risk of weak passwords which is a common cause of many security incidents and data breaches moving passwords into the background at the same time reducing cyber fatigue.
Organisations must have a solid provisioning and de-provisioning process for privileged access especially those that have access to sensitive systems via remote access. Reward your employees in 2021 with a password solution that reduces password risks and helps them become more productive than waste time trying to think of their next great awesome password that will ultimately get stolen or cracked.
Companies should demand multi-factor authentication by default and integrate it into privileged access management security solutions, as this breach shows the importance of not letting a password be your only security control.”