WhiteHat Security: Majority of Websites Are Vulnerable to Data Thieves

The study, by WhiteHat Security, showed that public administration websites had the worst record when it came to patching up vulnerabilites, with 64% at risk every day. Retail sites ranked second, with 55% of their sites having at least one serious vulnerability every single day of the year.

WhiteHat Security founder Jeremiah Grossman said: "These are the vulnerabilities that can get you into trouble. They can compromise some or all of your systems, get user data, or take over accounts. About 2% of the vulnerabilities are patchable."
To dig deeper into why those vulnerabilities were not getting fixed, WhiteHat conducted in-depth surveys with 118 customer companies, ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 50 firms.

The single biggest factor was whether an organisation's remediation efforts were driven by compliance reasons or risk reduction.
Perhaps unsurpringly, those who focused on compliance had the lowest number of vulnerabilities, at just 12 per website. They also had the highest remediation rate at 86%.

Another key factor was whether vulnerabilities were put into a company's bug tracking system.
"Someone has to transcribe it into the bug traffic system," he said. "But sometimes they'll just throw the report over the fence and just tell the developers to take care of it."

White Hat Wesite Securty Report: http://ow.ly/OFrgF 
DataIQ: http://bit.ly/1BqsF7j