NexLINKEDIN ARCHIVE / Security
The patterns behind interconnected cyber risk
Earlier today I posted about interconnected cyber risk.
By Phil Kinsley
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Earlier today I posted about interconnected cyber risk.
I spent some time this evening looking at recent breaches, and the same patterns keep appearing across very different organizations.
Financial institutions are being hit through social engineering. Government systems are being exposed through maintenance accounts and vulnerable edge devices. SaaS platforms and developer tools are being compromised through third-party access, API credentials and trusted software paths. Citrix and Zimbra continue to show how quickly internet-facing infrastructure can become an entry point.
Different industries. Similar weaknesses.
In many cases, the issue comes back to trust: identities, vendors, applications, service accounts, API keys and support processes with more access than attackers should ever be able to inherit.
These also aren’t organizations without security resources. Many have mature programs, dedicated SOCs and significant cybersecurity investment.
They still got breached.
For smaller and mid-sized organizations, the takeaway is pretty simple. You don’t have to be specifically targeted. You may just be using the same SaaS platform, VPN appliance, third-party integration or support process as thousands of other companies.
And sometimes the easiest path into your environment isn’t through your environment at all. It’s through someone you already trust.
That’s why the fundamentals still matter: understand privileged access, know what your vendors can reach, protect service accounts and API keys, reduce internet exposure, patch edge systems quickly and independently verify unusual support requests.
AI agents belong in that conversation too. If an agent can access your data or systems, treat it like any other privileged identity.
If it can happen to organizations with enormous security budgets, it can happen to you.
The goal isn’t to assume every breach can be prevented. It’s to make the path in harder, detect suspicious activity faster and limit the impact when something does happen.
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