Prevention Is the Only Cure: The Dangers of Legacy Systems Prolonged exposure to poorly managed legacy IT devices proves time and time again the familiar adage: What can go wrong will go wrong. On Dec. 16, 2020, Accellion FTA, a 20-year-old file transfer appliance, became the subject of media attention by reporting a now-infamous zero-day exploit. Patches were quickly released later that month, with additional investigations leading to further patches over the next 60 days. Despite Accellion promoting awareness of the zero-day exploit, over 300 known victims have fallen to the vulnerability. Conglomerates were no exception; energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is just one large-scale example. Despite advanced knowledge due to public cases in December and January, the oil and gas company found itself victimized by the third-party vulnerability and reported the breach on March 16, 2021, exactly three months after the first exploits. The oil giant became yet another victim of the same mistake: allowing legacy systems to take unmanageable root in the corporate IT infrastructure.