Tales of the unexpected: mitigating the left field security risk

When looking at the malware attack surface we tend to spend most of our time focused on the common threat vectors such as browser exploits, social engineering/phishing, email attachment infections and remote code executions. This is understandable as that’s where the vast majority of malware comes from; but not all of it. Every now and then a threat emerges from the left field, and takes us and our defence mechanisms by surprise. But are these attacks really that hard to mitigate against?