SANS Top Vulnerabilities

The System Administration, Networking, and Security (SANS) Institute and the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Center have released a new “Top 20” security threats list. Seven of these vulnerabilities affect all systems regardless of operating system (OS), and six affect Windows specifically (the remainder affect Unix, including Linux).

All Systems

The top vulnerabilities that affect all systems tend to relate to deployment, management, and operational issues rather than specific technologies. These generic vulnerabilities include the following:

Default installs of operating systems and applications. Vendors commonly ship OSs with default configurations and default administration passwords to facilitate installation and deployment. These default configurations may include features that organizations do not need, and these features may be open to attack, particularly if an administrator does not change a default password that is widely known. Organizations should ensure that they run only the services that are critical for their business.