Maginot Revisted: More Real-World Results From Real-World Tests

Attackers are bypassing conventional security deployments almost at will, breaching systems in a wide swath of industries and geographies. In this follow-up to our groundbreaking May 2014 report, “Cybersecurity’s Maginot Line: A Real-World Assessment of the Defense-in-Depth Model,” we examine new data gathered in the ensuing weeks. Like France’s famed Maginot Line—an impressive but ultimately futile defense line built in the run-up to World War II to stave off a German invasion—today’s defenses are failing.

Because FireEye sensors operate behind other security layers, we have unique vantage point from which to gauge other security tools. By design, any threat observed by FireEye in the study had passed through all other security defenses. The new data validates our original findings and identifies several new trends. Across all industry segments, 96 percent of systems were breached on average. And 27 percent of those breaches involved advanced malware.