What Hackers Want – Nine Questions to Ask Yourself
If you’re going to secure your business against cyber crime, it helps to first know what needs securing.
Taking a moment to think like a hacker could be the difference between a cyber incident which is merely an annoyance and one which is life-changing. So, what does your business have that a hacker could want?
Money
With any luck, your business is making some profit, or at least has some assets. Organised criminal syndicates work tirelessly to part businesses around the world from billions of dollars every year.
Ask yourself:
- What information would a hacker need to access to transfer some of that money to themselves?
- How do you transfer money externally? Is it just a username and password for your bank account, some credit card details, or do you have more robust authentication systems in place?
- What information would a hacker need to trick somebody else into transferring money to themselves?
- How do other people transfer money externally? Does somebody receive an invoice over email and just pay it?
Things that can be turned into money
Many of the world’s oldest crimes have found a new home on the Internet. Fraud, extortion, and theft are all too common in the digital age.
Ask yourself:
- Does your business have any data that could be sold to your competitors?
- Does your business have any data that you would pay to get back if it was taken from you?
- Does your business have any important systems that you would pay to get working?
- Do you store any data on your customers or employees that could be used to get money out of them?
Things that can be turned into things that can be turned into money
Sometimes a business is just used as a way to get money out of somebody else. In this case, the hacker wants to use your reputation, your technology or your bandwidth to support them in their larger efforts.
Ask yourself:
- Does your business have a website that a hacker could break in to and host scam websites or malicious software on?
- Does your business have enough computing power that a hacker could use some to mine cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin?
- Does your business have enough bandwidth that your network could be used as part of a botnet?
If you don’t know the answer to these questions, we’re happy to help. Contact Wireless Communications about our ICT Health Check!
