The Achilles Systems Hack Assessment Series: Breach or Blueprint? Building a Threat Informed Defense - Part 1 of 4 for Operational Leadership

Achilles Systems, a fictitious IT service provider to human resources teams in medium and large businesses, has fallen victim to an attack in which sensitive customer data and, potentially, customer networks, have been compromised. Achilles has a small security team who has historically focused on basic controls and compliance. However, it seems clear this attack was the work of a sophisticated adversary capable of circumventing the controls in place.

Much of Achilles' security has not been maintained since an initial push many years ago, and newer controls were bypassed or disabled by the attacker. Some examples of these are multi-factor authentication, which the attacker bypassed in part by impersonating a Achilles executive in a call to the Service Desk. Later in the intrusion, the attacker disabled Achilles' endpoint detection and response agents while moving through the internal network. Once the attacker achieved access, they quickly moved to systems containing sensitive data and parts of the network where direct customer access was possible.

As Achilles works to recover from the attack and regain customer trust, it seeks to invest in a more advanced defense able to withstand a more capable and determined attacker. Achilles management is committed to revisiting its security controls, devising better ways to proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities, and investing in ongoing efforts to identify and respond to attacks before the damage is done.

Part 1 of 4

In this webcast, we will quickly review the breach at Achilles Systems and discuss why their existing security capabilities weren't enough to prevent the attack from being successful. We will then discuss a blueprint for continuous detection and response via security operations, and how Achilles might leverage the lessons learned from this breach to combat even the most sophisticated attacker in the future. We will cover topics such as: