Why Your Business Keeps Getting Hacked (and How to Finally Stop It)

Many modern businesses face unique cybersecurity challenges that can lead to huge losses, ending their operations. Your business may be no different, but the reasons you face cybersecurity risks are simpler than you think. 

The good news is this: With some diagnosis, you can identify and fix common cybersecurity challenges that expose you to frequent hacking attempts. Let’s explore some vulnerabilities your business has and how you can fix them today.

Human Error and Social Engineering

Human error remains the leading cause of hacks in any business, and studies attribute 95% of all cyberattacks to it. Often, poor decision-making, negligence, inaction, or ignorance can expose you to hacks or create vulnerabilities in your business systems. Human mistakes often result from an overly complex digital environment, poor training, or a lack of cybersecurity awareness and planning.

On the other hand, social engineering involves cybercriminals exploiting human psychology while attempting to gain unauthorized access to your data. Rather than attacking technical vulnerabilities, bad actors manipulate your workers’ trust, behavior, and emotions, getting them to break security protocols or expose their credentials.

Some examples of social engineering tactics include:

• Phishing using emails or messages
• Business email compromise
• Quid pro quo
• Baiting

Preventative Measures

You can easily curb human error and social engineering attacks in the following ways:

• Conduct regular cybersecurity awareness training, teach your employees better security hygiene practices, and how to identify social engineering attacks. 
• Simulate phishing and social engineering exercises to improve your business vigilance.
• Create clear, enforceable security policies to govern your security operations.
• Build a cybersecurity-conscious culture that encourages your team members to exercise extra caution with unusual requests.

Weak Passwords and Poor Access Controls

Weak passwords and poor access controls are the most common cybersecurity vulnerabilities in businesses. Many business owners use easy-to-guess or crack passwords that automated tools can break in seconds. Additionally, reusing passwords across multiple accounts means a breach in one compromises all of them. 

Passwords can also leak, especially if you store them in insecure mediums. Storing passwords in sticky notes, plain text, spreadsheets, or browsers can expose you to hacks. 

Poor access control gives users excessive permissions, increasing your risk of data exposure. Additionally, failing to review accounts to manage outdated or unnecessary access rights can create more vulnerabilities. 

Preventative Measures

• Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication for an extra layer of protection on all accounts.
• Educate your staff on how to create strong passwords. Create guidelines that require passwords to meet specific length, complexity, randomness, and uniqueness for all accounts.
• Use password managers to generate, store, and autofill complex passwords securely.
• Enforce the Principle of Least Privilege for all user accounts in your systems.
• Use Role-Based Access Control to simplify account management and reduce human error.

Unpatched Software and Vulnerabilities

Perhaps the most critical vulnerabilities your business may ever face are outdated software and unpatched systems. Poor update and patch management exposes you to zero-day attacks and data breaches that may expose customer data, intellectual property, or privileged user data. 

Additionally, outdated systems often create other challenges for your business, including unexpected system crashes, downtime, and incompatibility with newer systems. That can lead to massive financial losses, loss of customer trust, and potential compliance and legal risks. 

Preventative Measures

• Schedule automatic software updates for all your company software. Establish processes that apply stable security patches to your systems as soon as they are available.
• Replace all deprecated or legacy systems, switching to more secure modern cloud solutions.
• Prioritize automated patch management tools that identify and apply patches for known vulnerabilities quickly.
• Focus on updating critical systems that handle sensitive business processes.
• Automate vulnerability scanning to identify further unpatched vulnerabilities in your business systems.

Third-Party Vendor Risks

If your business relies on third-party tools, you face exposure to the vulnerabilities present in their products. For instance, let’s say you outsource your cybersecurity needs to a Managed Service Provider (MSP). If your chosen MSP has a weak security posture, attackers can use it as an entry point into your network.

Additionally, any disruptions to your partner vendors’ operations can slow down or halt your operations. You may also face the risk of fines and reputation loss in case your partners’ exposure to cyber threats affects your business performance.

Preventative Measures

• Perform thorough due diligence using strong security assessments and background checks before onboarding new vendors.
• Limit vendor access to only necessary systems and data, applying the principle of least privilege to manage your risk.
• Ensure open communication channels between your business and vendor for timely alerts in case of any security incident.
• Use clear contracts and SLAs to define security expectations, responsibilities, and consequences in case of non-compliance.
• Monitor vendor cybersecurity postures and compliance throughout your relationship. 

Insider Threats

Sometimes, compromised insiders are a massive cybersecurity threat to your business. They may be present or former employees, contractors, partners, or service providers. Since these insiders may have legitimate access and authorization, it may be harder to detect suspicious activity from normal behavior. 

Insider threats may be malicious or unintentional. Malicious insiders deliberately sabotage your cybersecurity and may be motivated by revenge, espionage, or financial gain. Negligent insiders, because of ignorance or carelessness, may fall for phishing scams or misconfigure your systems.

Preventative Measures

• Create and implement insider threat programs that monitor, detect, and respond to potential insider risks.
• Limit the access of all insiders to critical business systems using the principle of least privilege.
• Use behavioral analytics to detect anomalies in user activities.
• Create clear policies that outline consequences for misuse of access.