Cybersecurity firm FireEye has defended the decision to place an injunction against a researcher as the only way to protect trade secrets. Last week, reports surfaced suggesting the cyberforensics firm attempted to prevent the public disclosure of security vulnerabilities discovered within the firm's suite of software.

Felix Wilhelm, a security researcher for ERNW GmBH, disclosed the flaw, which permitted the default use of the root account on Apache servers linked to FireEye clients. If an attacker exploited this flaw, they would be able to compromise servers, leading to data theft and control without permissions issues -- one of the worst and most critical vulnerabilities imaginable.