3G Security Overview
GPRS Security Issues and Solutions
| Helping Hackers Hack your Business |
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| Blog Articles - Articles | |||
| Written by John | |||
| Tuesday, 03 March 2009 00:00 | |||
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You may think of hackers hacking your computer system but these days what they are really after is your business.    Your company may act ethically but can the same be said of your competitors? And if your business is perceived as a highly profitable with a strong e-commerce presence on the web, it can make you the target for corporate blackmail. Losing your customer's details or worse still their confidence could half your annual turnover overnight. It could also lead to serious legal liabilities or losing your trading status due to failure to comply to corporate governance requirements in your sector.   As the individual responsible for Information Security in your organisation, you need to make sure that this doesn't happen! Don't you? Wouldn't you rather help hackers hack?   Hackers work to a pattern. They reconnoitre your company. They will look for information about it on the web. They will drive past your offices. They will go through your garbage. They may even park in your carpark or befriend your colleagues. They are looking for names, organisational positions, telephone numbers and email addresses and also trying to get a feel for how seriously you take security and whether you have left any weaknesses.   Next they may probe your computer network using a technique called port scanning. They are interested in the type of hardware and software you use. What version it is. Whether it has been patched recently. What kind of firewall you use and your anti virus software. What services your computer provides such as Web or ftp access.  They will also be interested in your physical security and look for gaps in your procedures for dealing with visitors and contractors and with telephone requests.  Once they have this information they can use it to hack into your computer systems or more dangerously enter your buildings.  You may be interested to know that so far they have done nothing illegal. If you want to help your hackers with this process, you should put the following measures in place -  - Put as much information about your company on the web as possible. Tell people everything about your organisation, who runs it, what position they work in, what their telephone numbers and email addresses are and when they joined the organisation.  - It is very unhelpful to keep this information to a minimum and only give out generic email addresses such as info@ourcompany.com. You are also very unlikely to fall foul of data protection laws for breaching employee confidentiality if you do this.  - Don't sort your garbage into confidential and non-confidential categories. Hackers dislike sorting through trash to find nothing. Leaving out a computer print out of your customer database always makes their day.  - Don't control access to the proximity of your building. Reserving parking space may help your employees but it makes life hard for hackers.  - Tell your employees to talk long, loudly and frequently to every stranger they meet about the goings on in your business, especially any new customers, products, acquisitions or mergers. They shouldn't be suspicious of suddenly acquired new friends and they should open personal and spam email without a thought.   - They should also tell all and sundry about your newly installed computer system, especially all the problems it is having.  - Challenging strangers in the building is discourteous and leaves a very poor impression of your company as does dealing negatively, firmly but politely with external phone calls requesting information about your company and its computer systems.  In short, if you want hackers to hack your business, you have to make life easy for them. They will love you for it and, of course, it will look good on your resume too.  Won't it?
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 11 April 2009 14:40 |
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