Horses Not Zebras

Posted @ 8/12/2011 1:46 PM By Doug Wolfire

         Often we hear from clients in a state of panic about some recently manifested computer glitch and frequently there is a tone of doom and paranoia to their call: “It was working fine and all of a sudden everything is locked up, deleted and gone, I must have a virus or I’ve been hacked!” As trained network and security professionals we will be the first ones to say that networks are hacked, viruses do exist and malware is definitely out there.       But we use a theory called “Horses Not Zebras” which goes like this: If you are asleep one night and you hear the sound of hooves beating past your window, in most parts of the world you can assume it is the sound of horses and not zebras. Only if you live in Africa, and then only in certain parts of Africa, would it be logical for you to even question it if might be zebras.  The same holds true for most network issues, unless you have a specific rea ...