The prevalence of cyber crime has skyrocketed over the past several years to include cyber espionage, malware and phishing schemes. In their January 2015 issue, ChannelProNetwork.com published a insightful article by Arkady Bukh and we thought we would share it with you.
Any security you put in place is potentially vulnerable with enough time and knowledge. And there are plenty of PCs, laptops, and smartphones for cybercriminals to mine: In August 2010, IMS Research forecast that there would be more than 5 billion devices connected to the Internet later that year. More recently, the analyst firm predicted that 22 billion Internet-connected devices will be in use by 2020.
Some of the most popular and well-known types of hacking include bypassing routine authenticaion, most commonly referred to as a back-door attack; denial-of-service attacks meant to render a computer or network unusable; direct-access attacks in which a hacker gaines access to a standalone computer and performs a variety of actions; exploits that cause unanticipated behavior of software, hardware, or computerize electronics; and indirect attacks generated by a third-party computer, which makes the attacks difficult to track down. There are others as well.
So what makes one business more attractive to hackers than another? Here are 12 vulnerabilities hackers check for when targeting computers or networks:
1. Gullible and overly trusting users
2. Unsecured building and computer room entrances
3. Discarded documents that have not been shredded and computer disks that have not been destroyed
4. Network perimeters with little to no firewall protection
5. Poor, inappropriate, or missing file and share access controls
6. Unpatched systems
7. Web applications with weak authentication mechanisms
8. Wireless networks running without WPA or WPA2 enabled
9. Laptop computers with no drive encryption
10. Mobile devices with no, or easy to crack, passwords
11. Weak or no application, database, and operating system passwords
12. Firewalls, routers, and switches with default or easily guessed passwords
For more information on solutions for running your businesses’ technology more efficiently, visit our website or contact Megan Meisner at mmeisner@launchpadonline.com or 813 448-7100 x210.
