That is actually unfair. Most companys spend enormous amounts on security with vast armys of security employees. Not that it is effective, but it is not for lack of resources or trying.
I mean we are literally in a thread about how the 4 trillion dollar company, literally the 3rd most valuable company in the world, with a core competency in software has, yet again, released a core product riddled with security defects for the 50th year in a row.
Commercial IT security is a industry that is incapable to a fault and has, so far, faced basically zero consequences for it.
For every Apple, there are 100 mom-and-pop companies who have nothing.
Even more so in the future when a software company can be launched by a farm of AI Agents with a founder at helm with no clue about computing or security.
What's debateable is how many of those companies actually need irontight security, because they are never realistically going to be targets of criminals and/or they have nothing valuable to steal/corrupt in the first place (other than the owner's pride).
I was pointing out how even Apple, a entity who by all rights should have top-notch security, is still absolutely hopeless in the face of commonplace commercial, profit-motivated attackers.
Massive, extremely well-resourced divisions supported by management in a technically competent organization that is actually trying to solve the problem struggle to produce at best middling security that is inadequate against commonplace threats. This is not a prioritization problem; even if you do “everything right” you are still vulnerable to run-of-the-mill commercial attackers. This is a fundamental capability problem, like how we can not make a net positive fusion reactor right now.
It is actually unfair to blame these companies for not having a fusion reactor because they “were not trying hard enough”. Actual security is not a easy problem, and it is a great disservice to portray it as one that is only unsolved due to dunderheads being in charge since it leads to underestimating what actually needs to be done.
They have a website that can be used to host malware and/or seo link farms.
I still have nightmares about the contact form on my low-stakes personal website getting hijacked to use as a spam sender (because I used unsanitized input in mail headers).
Hey now, when Apple products get a serious Kernel level vulnerability that is able to be executed just by browsing a website. It's a "jailbreak" not an "exploit".
While maybe true, it is better to back that up with data and the data I know of and read yearly is mostly not great. Between Splunk and SANS surveys of 2025 maybe ~2000 companies have a SOC. [1] [2]
Then you have the many companies in the UK, US, Canada, EU that have compliance and regulatory laws that require them to exist in some capacity in house. Though that is changing with MDR services, but someone still has to interface with the MDR.
They've got a guy (who they're considering laying off)
Don't worry the LLMs that are replacing him, are also replacing the hackers too. Pretty soon (if not already), it will just be LLMs fighting LLMs.
Until both LLMs realize the only way to win is to team up against their oppressors.
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in my experience they have a person who does it sometimes when they have time, at best
And their management keep blatantly dropping "client projects" and "billable hours" into discussions with them.
no they don’t.
They don't consider laying him off?
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Apple definitely does.
That is actually unfair. Most companys spend enormous amounts on security with vast armys of security employees. Not that it is effective, but it is not for lack of resources or trying.
I mean we are literally in a thread about how the 4 trillion dollar company, literally the 3rd most valuable company in the world, with a core competency in software has, yet again, released a core product riddled with security defects for the 50th year in a row.
Commercial IT security is a industry that is incapable to a fault and has, so far, faced basically zero consequences for it.
For every Apple, there are 100 mom-and-pop companies who have nothing.
Even more so in the future when a software company can be launched by a farm of AI Agents with a founder at helm with no clue about computing or security.
What's debateable is how many of those companies actually need irontight security, because they are never realistically going to be targets of criminals and/or they have nothing valuable to steal/corrupt in the first place (other than the owner's pride).
I am absolutely baffled by your response.
I was pointing out how even Apple, a entity who by all rights should have top-notch security, is still absolutely hopeless in the face of commonplace commercial, profit-motivated attackers.
Massive, extremely well-resourced divisions supported by management in a technically competent organization that is actually trying to solve the problem struggle to produce at best middling security that is inadequate against commonplace threats. This is not a prioritization problem; even if you do “everything right” you are still vulnerable to run-of-the-mill commercial attackers. This is a fundamental capability problem, like how we can not make a net positive fusion reactor right now.
It is actually unfair to blame these companies for not having a fusion reactor because they “were not trying hard enough”. Actual security is not a easy problem, and it is a great disservice to portray it as one that is only unsolved due to dunderheads being in charge since it leads to underestimating what actually needs to be done.
They have a website that can be used to host malware and/or seo link farms.
I still have nightmares about the contact form on my low-stakes personal website getting hijacked to use as a spam sender (because I used unsanitized input in mail headers).
Hey now, when Apple products get a serious Kernel level vulnerability that is able to be executed just by browsing a website. It's a "jailbreak" not an "exploit".
Exploits are BAD!
> Most companys spend enormous amounts on security with vast armys of security employees
This is true in America in many industries now, but most of the rest of the world (even the rest of the OECD) is still far behind.
Maybe they should've been as productive as the guys down in Santa Barbara.
While maybe true, it is better to back that up with data and the data I know of and read yearly is mostly not great. Between Splunk and SANS surveys of 2025 maybe ~2000 companies have a SOC. [1] [2]
Then you have the many companies in the UK, US, Canada, EU that have compliance and regulatory laws that require them to exist in some capacity in house. Though that is changing with MDR services, but someone still has to interface with the MDR.
[1]: https://www.elastic.co/pdf/sans-soc-survey-2025.pdf [2]: https://github.com/jacobdjwilson/awesome-annual-security-rep...
Does the report talk about how many are /actual/ "SOC"'s, rather than some outsourced SIEM service. Or one guy who gets a daily report...