Why You Could Be Hacked Right Now and Not Realize It | Antivirus Software

Percent of the hacking violations involved either stolen passwords or weak, guessable passwords. The thing is, roughly 76 percent of people use the same or a similar password for most, if not all, websites.

That said, if an employee's personal life is hacked, your business can be compromised/compromised within minutes.

With ransomware so prevalent, that's what businesses expect now. Yes, ransomware is simple monetization for the hacker.

However, this is not the only risk. There are all kinds of malware strains and types of attacks that siphon off credit card information, health information, social security numbers, and financial information - anything they can sell on the dark web.

We know of one company that lost EUR 124,000 because one of its suppliers was hacked and didn't know. The attacker observed email traffic for several months, watched and copied requests for money, and changed the financial transaction information to an offshore account. Ultimately, it was perfectly fake invoices that looked really normal - except for the account number, which was different. This is just one example of how creative and unexpected these attacks can be.

HOW MALWARE IS DETECTED

It takes an organization an average of 191 days to identify a data breach.

In the past, the malware was obviously detectable. Things broke, computers slowed dramatically, and hard drives were spinning loudly and whirring even though they were playing a game of Freecell. It was clear that something was going on that shouldn't be. Things have changed.

 

Hackers now know that it will harm them if they are discovered, so they use stealth mode. Therefore, it takes months on average to discover something. The symptoms that we all expected are no longer there.

Often you only notice that something is wrong when unauthorized transactions take place or you receive a notification that you are already logged into your account. At this point, it is too late to do damage control.

IF YOU ARE AFFECTED BY RANSOMWARE OR MALWARE

A break-in can bring any organization (corporations, small tax firms, nonprofits, entire cities, whatever) to its knees. Major data breaches or ransomware almost always go public and result in the disclosure of intellectual property, financial records, customer data, and other information.

Any data exposure can be very costly. Your business will not operate until the issues are resolved and your reputation will take a hit.

If at any point you have been successfully hit, there is a higher chance that you will become the target again. Not to mention, malware may be present on the systems that you haven't yet recognized. The safest option is to delete and restore your files from a backup and then change all accounts and passwords. Yes, all. Don't skip any.

CONCRETE TIPS FOR BETTER IT SECURITY IN YOUR COMPANY

·         Use complex passwords and make sure no one uses the same passwords for multiple accounts.
·         Add local full disk encryption to prevent files from being accessed if something is stolen.
·         Use encryption in emails to avoid stealth attackers and man-in-the-middle attacks.
·         Enable multifactor authentication - this significantly reduces data breaches
·         Make sure the systems are updated regularly. New security vulnerabilities are discovered regularly, and these updates address those vulnerabilities.
·         Conduct cybersecurity training. This should be done annually, but retraining is appropriate if you have experienced a violation.
·         Use solutions that monitor both outbound and inbound traffic to detect abnormal behavior.
·         Be suspicious of money requests and review unusual requests by picking up the phone and calling a trusted phone number of the requestor.
·         Monitor the dark web to keep abreast of information that is on the dark web and that could harm your business.

Protegent360’s antivirus software has helped dozens of small businesses, business consultants, service providers, non-profit organizations, health organizations,, and manufacturing companies recover from ransomware, malware,, and other data breaches.