Remember the good ole days, when Andy and Opie walked down the dirt road carrying fishing poles and a bucket of worms, whistling the time away as they cast into the pond in search of a big fish? Well, Andy Griffith was no cybersecurity legend, that’s for sure, but that cast into the pond illustrates a current theme in the almost weekly barrage of big breaches, not to be confused with big britches. It is the ripple effect, that moment when the bait or the pebble hits the pond and a series of ripples radiate from the point of impact and shake things up in places far removed from the original spot. But you knew that.

A recent ThreatPost article describes the ripple effect all these big breaches have on the cyber landscape, and it stipulates a number of reasons that might be the case. Scale, for example, tends to increase the vulnerability of larger operations simply because they are large and offer a lot of points of entry. Partners, too, are more broadly threatening, as APIs are cultivated to allow third parties a way to participate, each with its own set of vulnerabilities. That’s bad news for both the primary as well as the partner, as both are increasingly vulnerable. And large organizations often buy other, smaller ones, thereby inheriting additional vulnerabilities.

Smooth Waters

Whether big or small, your organization is connected. Chances are, your company’s name is not a headline or a household soundbite, and ICS would like to help you keep it that way. Because networks and data are always vulnerable, and you’re never too big for your britches, or breaches. Right, like you didn’t see that one coming.