It's tough for me to think that Yahoo! didn't "understand security," and yet, their entire user database was ganked. I have to assume that they were doing everything they could to implement all of the white paper suggestions and consulting recommendations they could get their hands on. I also presume they were running the largest, most-expensive "security" products that they could buy. The depressing thought that struck me at the time was: if one of the biggest web properties to ever exist couldn't figure out how to secure their database, what hope do the rest of us have? (Maybe I'm being naive; I've never seen a disclosure on the nature of the intrusion.)

All of this sort of thing leads me to think that there is currently a huge mismatch between the security products industry, and how companies implement all the conflicting white paper snake oil, and what the ACTUAL vulnerabilities are. And I know how stupid this mismatch winds up making the average Fortune 500 worker bee's daily life. But that's a topic for another post.