Five Ways Hackers Gain Access to Your Business
Five Ways Hackers Gain Access to Your Business- You probably know that hackers are a threat to your business. You know that they can do things like steal customer payment information and compromise your systems, but just because you know what they can do doesn’t mean you know how they can do it.
If you want to protect your business and its information from attacks, you have to know the ways hackers gain access to your information.
DNS Attacks
DNS stands for domain name system. It’s the system your business uses to organize computers, services, and other resources that are connected to the internet. Every business uses a system like this, even if there are only a few devices in your office.
Take a minute to read the DNS security report for 2021 and you’ll realize just how important it is to protect this system. The report estimates that nearly 90 percent of organizations experienced a DNS attack, with the average cost of the attack costing $950,000.
Attacks can’t gain traction if you have the right protections in place. If you don’t want your data to be stolen, if you don’t want to deal with app downtime, and if you don’t want to deal with cloud service downtime, it’s important for your business to improve its security measures where DNS is involved. As the first line of defense against malicious IP traffic, consider IPAM services from a company that can keep your DNS system secure and help you recover quickly from an attack.
Phishing Emails
It may seem insane that phishing emails are still a thing, but they are still a thing because they still work. Even if you think you know a phishing email when you see one, there are many tricky ways scammers are using to try and convince you that the email they are sending is real.
It’s important to educate yourself on how to recognize and avoid phishing scams. A few signs that the email in your inbox isn’t real include:
- They don’t address you by your name
- The return email address contains jumbled letters and numbers
- The email contains spelling errors
- The email contains generic information—not actual account information
Social Engineering Passwords
Hackers love passwords because they enable them to access systems easily without the need for other hacking methods. They can guess easy passwords, which is why it’s so important for you to encourage employees to use complex passwords and change them often, but they can also social engineer passwords.
This method involves tricking users to give up their credentials. For example, they may send an email asking you to reset your password. If they really know their stuff, they can disguise their email by making it appear like it came from an actual department within your organization. To stay safe, instead of clicking the link in the email, always go directly to each platform and change your password there.
Compromised Wi-Fi
How secure is your Wi-Fi? If it isn’t something you have ever thought about before, it’s important to start thinking about it now. It’s easy for hackers to gain access to an entire system if the Wi-Fi-is easy to hack. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you by taking the steps to set up secure Wi-Fi.
Chances are, you don’t just use the Wi-Fi in the office to get work done. You may use home Wi-Fi or public Wi-Fi at a coffee shop. Both of these are bad ideas. You should only ever plug into a Wi-Fi network that you know is secure, which means securing your home Wi-Fi and using a VPN when you’re on the go.
Stolen Credentials
Even if you do everything right, you could still fall victim to hackers. That’s because they can buy your information.
Instead of hacking you directly, they may hack into another system that has your information on file. Then, they can use that information to infect or shut down systems, steal information, and steal money.
It’s important to think carefully about what vendors you work with and what information you provide. Don’t be afraid to ask how they keep their systems safe from hackers, and don’t be afraid to end a relationship if they don’t take cybersecurity seriously.
Hackers can do all kinds of terrible things that can make it difficult for you to recover, if you’re able to recover at all. Don’t become a victim of a hacker because you don’t know how they operate. Knowing how they can steal your data is the first step in making sure you keep your information safe.