Ever wonder how hackers find vulnerabilities in your systems?
Cybersecurity remains one of the top concerns for decision-makers throughout the business world. Protecting your computing environment and valuable data from hackers and cybercriminals demands the full attention of your organization’s security team.
Failure to provide adequate protection can result in a devastating data breach or malware attack.
In the world of enterprise computing environments, cybersecurity teams are embroiled in a high-stakes contest with prospective hackers.
Unfortunately, hackers too often hold an edge in this daily struggle.
You see, hackers only need to be successful once to accomplish their goal, while your security team must display virtual perfection, every day.
So, how do hackers find vulnerabilities in your systems in the first place?
Let’s take a look.
How hackers find vulnerabilities
While there remain nearly endless methods of breaking into your systems, for the most part, they fall under a few common categories.
- Spear phishing
Hackers use this technique against previously identified targets in an attempt to trick them into divulging access to specific information. They can then use this information to compromise your enterprise infrastructure or sensitive data resources.
Once a hacker obtains the target’s contact information, they begin an email campaign that presents fraudulent and dangerous links. When the link is clicked, it delivers ransomware, or other forms of malware, which allow unauthorized access to the environment.
- IoT search engines
The prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices presents a large attack surface to exploit. For these, hackers use specialized IoT search engines to learn details about IoT devices, including if they utilize default passwords.With this information, they can gain entry into your organization’s network, where cybercriminals can plant malware or steal sensitive data.
- Man-in-the-middle attacks
In this type of attack, a hacker monitors incoming and outgoing communication on your company’s network. The goal is to intercept unencrypted messages that contain sensitive information or login details.After stealing these login credentials, hackers can move around your network masquerading as authorized users, causing all sorts of havoc.
- Bluetooth hacking
You might be surprised to learn that hackers can find vulnerabilities through Bluetooth, but it’s true nonetheless.
Vulnerabilities in Bluetooth-enabled devices offer hackers another method to use when attacking a computing environment. They exploit these weaknesses to plant malware or steal data.
Leaving Bluetooth ‘Enabled’ on devices not actively using it enables hackers to successfully use this technique.
- Session hijacking
Hackers may hijack a victim’s browsing session when you visit a website. The hijacking is accomplished via brute force, or by getting the user to click a malicious link.
- Monitoring CVEs
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) are public announcements used to inform users of potential flaws with their systems and software that need addressed. While these remain critical in alerting customers of important security updates, it works as a double-edged sword.You see, hackers find vulnerabilities by monitoring these same CVEs, and have even been known to scan for ways to exploit these flaws less than an hour after announcement.
What can you do?
With so many ways for hackers to find vulnerabilities in your systems, it’s no wonder cyberattacks remain such a huge problem.
And, unfortunately, many companies lack sufficient resources to provide the security required to protect their environments.
But, the good news is that you never need to go it alone.
Engaging a third-party security team provides an excellent way to improve security – without the expense of maintaining an in-house cybersecurity team.
Ideal Integrations, along with our cybersecurity division Blue Bastion, can help.
We offer our customers multiple cybersecurity services designed to defend against hackers, and address the aftermath of successful attacks.
We can provide managed detection and response services to keep your infrastructure secure. Our incident response teams can help you recover in the wake of a successful incursion. And, managed endpoint security is available to ensure all of your remote devices stay secure.
Simply contact us at 412-349-6680, or fill out the form below, and let our security and IT experts will gladly outline your options and best solutions.