In this era of increasingly advancing technology, businesses have become a target for cybercrime, presenting new challenges for businesses. This article focuses on how businesses can stay protected.

What are Vulnerabilities?

A vulnerability is any weakness in the computational logic (e.g., code) found in software and hardware components that when exploited results in a negative impact to confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an organization.

Examples of Vulnerabilities:

1.Misconfiguration: A misconfiguration occurs when the deployment of a system or application was deployed with default settings or incorrectly implemented. This leaves gaps in security allowing for threat actors to gain unauthorized access to the network, systems, and data.

2.Weak or stolen credentials: Weak passwords or stolen credentials can result in threats actors impersonating an employee giving them access to applications or assets that they can either steal or encrypt to hold for ransom.

3.Zero day vulnerabilities: Zero day exploits are vulnerabilities in software and firmware that are discovered by malicious actors prior to the knowledge that it even exists. The term “Zero Day” refers to the software vendor having zero days to release a patch or update to fix the exploit. Zero day vulnerabilities are a severe security risk since they leave businesses vulnerable to threat actors to deploy malware, ransomware, or steal data.

4.Insider threats and Social engineering: An insider threat is a risk within a business caused by employees or third parties that will use their authorized access to intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to the business. Such as data theft, leak sensitive information, or sabotage systems. People can also be considered a vulnerability, social engineering is a manipulation technique that exploits human error to gain sensitive information, access to the network, or data. A common method of social engineering is phishing where a threat actor sends an email that pretends to be from an authorized source in order for the employee to either click on the malicious link or give private information.

5.Outdated software and Unpatched systems: When there are new bugs or vulnerabilities discovered in software, updates are made available to patch these bugs or vulnerabilities. Failing to update means the software does not have the latest security version leaving businesses exposed to major security risks. Hackers are more likely to target businesses with unpatched systems since they lack the current security patches and therefore making it easier for hacks such as ransomware, malware, or data breaches.

Past data breaches and Impact

Companies can suffer major financial loss and lose their credibility due to a data breach. A data breach is an incident where data is stolen or taken from a system without the authorization of the system’s owner. This sensitive data can be credit card numbers, medical records, social security numbers, customer data, or business and financial information.

Data breaches cost businesses huge financial losses due to downtime in business operations and large costs to fix the breach. They can also face legal penalties and fines if the data breach was due to non-compliance with laws and regulations. These repercussions create bad press that cause permanent damage to a business’s reputation leading to customers seeking new business relationships with competitors.

Examples of past data breaches

The data breach of Yahoo in 2013 is one of the biggest cyberattacks in the United States. Over 3 billion user accounts were exposed and sensitive information was stolen such as email addresses, passwords, birth certificates, names, and birth dates. Yahoo failed to disclose the correct number of affected users which resulted in the company facing a $35 million fine and 41 class-action lawsuits. In 2021 Microsoft suffered a massive data breach that impacted 60,000 companies world wide. The hackers exploited four different zero day vulnerabilities that allowed them to gain access to Microsoft exchange email servers resulting in having access to data, being able to deploy malware and using backdoors to take over servers. Even though Microsoft was able to patch the vulnerabilities it did not fix the issue right away since the individual servers had to be manually updated by the owners to receive the patch.

How can businesses stay protected?

Taking proper security measures as well as having the right tools for the job will help mitigate risks and keep businesses secured.

Security measures include:

1.Educating Employees: Educating and empowering employees to be more security conscious is a good starting point for a better secured business. Conducting training on how to identify a phishing email, the importance of strong passwords, and how to report suspicious activity helps increase cybersecurity awareness. Establishing policies on how to handle sensitive data and customer information. Be given clear instructions on what to do if a cyber incident were to happen based on an incident response plan. The frequency of training is important as well since employees must be kept updated on the latest cybersecurity trends.

2.Security audits: Having a third party conduct a security audit is an excellent way to review a business’s security posture. A security audit includes vulnerability assessments, risk analysis, and penetration testing. They help in identifying vulnerabilities, risks, or threats in systems and networks. Once these vulnerabilities have been identified a business can use this to design a security plan to properly secure security gaps.

3.Maintain software: Ensuring that all software being used is up to date with the latest version is crucial since updates include security patches that fixes vulnerabilities. Automating updates whenever possible to ensure latest versions without having to manually update them is an efficient way. Maintaining software helps decrease risks of data breaches and cybercrime.

4.Backups: Having backups of data is an efficient way to keep operations running if an incident were to happen such as a ransomware attack. Businesses will not have to deal with the ransom threat since they can restore the data allowing for operations to continue. These backups should be done frequently and should be tested to ensure that the recovery process works efficiently. Businesses can back up data to a secure environment such as the cloud, drives, or physical copies stored in an offsite location.

5.Security technologies: Implementing security technologies provides layers of protection that deter hackers from attacking businesses. An example of security tools are firewalls, VPN, encryption, and SIEM tools. A greatly utilized tool are security information and event management (SIEM) dashboards. An SIEM tool works by collecting and analyzing data from a company’s applications, networks, servers, and users in real-time. Then displaying this on a single central dashboard where security teams can monitor activity, block attacks, address alerts, and respond to potential threats. Having multiple security tools together such as firewalls, encryption, SIEM dashboards and a VPN greatly improve a business’s security posture that reduces the chances of a security breach.

Conclusion

By businesses learning how data breaches occur and what vulnerabilities are exploited, they are better suited to implement security solutions that will protect them from a cyberattack. As technology advances businesses have to advance with it since malicious actors will exploit any business that is not properly protected.

References:

1. NVD – Vulnerabilities- National Institute of Standards and Technology (nist.gov)
2. EDR Solutions- What is Endpoint Detection Response? | EDR Solution | EDR (xcitium.com)
3. Vulnerability management solutions- Rapid7’s Vulnerability Management Solutions
4. Biggest Data breaches in US history-Biggest Data Breaches in US History (Updated 2024) | UpGuard
5. The Essential Guide to SIEM-The Essential Guide to SIEM | Splunk
6. Crowdstrike Falcon endpoint protection enterprise-CrowdStrike Falcon® Enterprise: Endpoint Breach Prevention