Five lessons from the big hack attack

The July 4 cyberattacks hit federal government sites, but there are plenty of lessons that private sector IT execs can learn from this holiday invasion, in order to prevent the same thing from happening to their sites.

Every private company should test their preparedness, according to Amit Yoran, CEO of security firm NetWitness. "If this can happen to mature organizations that really understand what the threat environment looks like--and are still falling victim to this stuff--it sends an ominous signal to other companies, who might not be as ready as they would like," Yoran told CIO.com.

Here are a few tips from Yoran and other security experts:

• If you are running a large data base, make sure you have the tools and staffing to respond immediately to an attack.
• Know the lines of authority at your company in the event of an attack. Who are the incident response teams? Who makes decisions concerning an attack? Who diagnoses it?
• Make sure the lines of communication are open at your company so there are no secrets and everyone knows what is going on.

For more on preparing your company for a hack attack:
- check out this CIO.com article

Related Articles:
Hackers hit Twitter again
Chinese hackers attack NYC police department
Even cybercriminals are hit by recession
ID thieves hard at work in '09