We Are Now Entering The "Goldilocks Zone"

Turns out that Goldilocks isn't just a children's story, or even a metaphor used by marketing-types extolling the vices of extremeism and the virtues of "just right" privileges. Yep, even astronomers coop Goldilocks to describe the perfect zone for habitable planets. In a recent Associated Press article titled "New Earth-like Planet Discovered Outside Our Solar System" it was reported that the possibility for a habitable planet besides Earth might have finally been located. The article goes on further to state "The planet is smack in the middle of what astronomers call the Goldilocks zone, that hard to find place that's not too hot, not too cold, where water, which is essential for life, doesn't freeze or boil. And it has a shopping mall-like surface temperature of near 72 degrees, scientists say." Shopping mall-like temperatures not withstanding, it is still a good lesson for every IT professional concerned with security and the impact of outsider versus insider threat as it relates to the potential for data loss. The results have been well documented and can be manifest in: Data loss Data corruption Data theft Hard costs for remediation Soft costs in productivity impact Embarrassment costs if headlines hit Stock price hit (for publicly traded companies if breach was significant enough) Avoid too much privilege and too little privilege by implementing a least privilege solution today.