Security Lessons From Recent Citrix Data Breach
According to Citrix and Resecurity, attackers exploited weak passwords and bypassed multi-factor authentication to obtain Citrix’s business documents.
Citrix claims that, “there is no indication that the security of any Citrix product or service was compromised.” However, it has yet to determine (and/or publicly disclose) the exact scope and type of information that was breached. Citrix has initiated a forensic investigation and is engaging external consultants for assistance.
Resecurity speculates that this attack began over Christmas holidays. According to Citrix’s blog post, the FBI notified Citrix about the ongoing compromise on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. For further updates on this event, stay tuned to Citrix’s blog.
Our Take
Commonly amongst data breaches, the end user is the weakest link. Two-factor authentication is not enough to protect against weak passwords. As a means to circumvent the problem, you should consider doing the following:
- Enact additional layers of data protection where it makes sense.
- Develop a plan to respond should your data be compromised in an incident like this.
- Implement longer password requirements.
- Supplement passwords with multi-factor authentication.
- Enact user training for cybersecurity.
Incidents like this are the new normal – settle in.
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