“If network administrators simply instituted proper configuration policies and conducted good network monitoring, about 80 percent of commonly known cyber attacks could be prevented, a Senate committee heard Tuesday.

The remark was made by Richard Schaeffer, the NSA’s information assurance director, who added that simply adhering to already known best practices would sufficiently raise the security bar so that attackers would have to take more risks to breach a network, ‘thereby raising [their] risk of detection.’

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security heard from a number of experts offering commentary on how the government should best tackle securing government and private-sector critical infrastructure networks.”

(Senate Panel: 80 Percent of Cyber Attacks Preventable | Threat Level | Wired.com)