While it is true that some elite hacking tools are passed in the shadows, most of these business-breaking programs are available on the public internet and have thousands of developers. For any aspiring hacker, these applications allow them to complete tasks in seconds which, 5 years ago, would make an experienced hacker take pause. Bypassing anti-virus, collecting passwords, and even exploiting weaknesses are made menial resulting in spectacular data breaches.
Vulnerability
Many smaller businesses, without the knowledge of how these tools can be used against them, are left wide open for attack. Whether from a lone wolf or group of hackers, it is very rare that these companies are targeted directly but, more often, an automated tool will try to exploit the company and be successful. These types of force multipliers allow hackers to potentially sit-back and hack thousands of systems without targeting an individual company or person.
Detection
There are a number of ways to detect if you’ve had a data breach including strange transactions on customers credit/debit cards, auditing company server logs, or even being notified by the hacker. But our recommendation at Sencode is to ensure that your company’s website or office is not vulnerable to these types of attacks from the start. A proactive approach to security has saved many companies from bankruptcy due to a malicious hack.
Tools
Many hackers including those working for nation states prefer to use these types of free and open tools as they have no direct tie to that specific country. When the internet is filed with tools which will do exactly what you would like to do, why would these countries go out of their way to ‘reinvent the wheel’ unless necessary?
Weaponisation
Security professionals release these tools to the public as a form of protection. Instead of Hiding these tools so that only the malicious hackers have access to them this stops companies from protecting themselves. Knowledge of these tools and how to use them is a weapon, not only for these trying to attack, but also trying to defend these networks from a potential catastrophe.
The prevalence of these tools often makes attacks from these programs easy to detect for anyone who knows what to look for, But it is often the case that smaller companies may not.
Prevention
This is where taking steps towards prevention comes in. Because this game of cat and mouse is constantly evolving, preventative measures must be updated over time but will serve to defend a company from these tools, as well as many of the more secretive and subtle ones. This is where Sencode comes in. We conduct a specialised security audit of any type of network including web, internal, and mobile. This ensures not only that these types of networks are secure from the public tools in a novice hacker’s hands, but also from even the most experienced of threat actors. Our white hat hackers simulate an attack on your company minimising any disruption that may be caused, and take steps to ensure no damage is done to the data or work flow of your company.
Once we have completed our assessment, we will highlight any issues we have found in a clear and concise manner so that they can be easily fixed, as well as offering training to fix the vulnerabilities we find.