Cybersecurity: How to Identify Vulnerabilities

Cybersecurity is defending and protecting software, hardware, and data against cyber threats. It is a strategy used by individuals and companies to protect against unauthorized access to computer systems and the data used by them.

Therefore, a cybersecurity policy formalizes and documents this strategy, establishing an organization's guidelines.

As defined by Gartner, it is in the cybersecurity policy that the principles and approach adopted to ensure the effective management of cybersecurity risks in pursuit of its strategic objectives are defined.

In this article, in addition to understanding why cybersecurity is essential for your company, you will see what the main threats to it are.

The Main Threats to Cybersecurity in Companies

The increasing volume and sophistication of cyberattack techniques make — or should make — many companies concerned about their cybersecurity. And the principle of all this is the detection of risks and threats.

What are the most frequent threats that organizations must deal with? Understand more about this in the following topics!

DoS and DDoS Attacks

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack floods a server with traffic, making a website or resource unavailable.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a DoS attack that uses multiple computers or machines to flood a targeted resource.

Both attacks overload a server or web application, intending to disrupt services.

Ransomware

Ransomware prevents users from accessing personal systems or files and demands a ransom to regain access.

Ransomware can infect your computer in many ways. One of the most common methods nowadays is through malicious spam, the unsolicited email used to deliver malware. It may include "trappings" attachments, such as PDFs or Word documents, and links to malicious websites.

Phishing

Phishing is a social engineering attack where cyber criminals trick victims into handing over confidential information or installing malware.

Most often, they do this via malicious emails that appear to be from trusted senders, but sometimes they use other means, which are explained below.

Most phishing campaigns employ one of two primary methods:

1. Malicious email attachments often have catchy names like 'INVOICE' and install malware on victims' machines when opened.
2. Malicious links point to sites that are often clones of legitimate sites, that download malware, or whose login pages contain credential-harvesting scripts.

Ataque Backdoor

A backdoor is a means of accessing an encrypted computer system or data that bypasses usual security mechanisms.

A developer can create a backdoor to access an application or operating system for troubleshooting or other purposes. However, attackers often use backdoors that they detect or install as part of a scam.

Whether installed as an administrative tool, a means of attack, or a mechanism that allows access to encrypted data, a backdoor is a cybersecurity risk because there are always criminals looking for any vulnerability to exploit.

How to Identify Vulnerabilities to Your Company's Cybersecurity

Vulnerabilities are flaws in your systems that attackers could exploit. Often these are not malicious errors but simply mistakes or things that were overlooked.

What to do to identify possible vulnerabilities to your company's cybersecurity? See some practical tips below!

Watch Your Network

The most important way to identify threats and vulnerabilities is to make sure you can see them.

You want to be able to look at your defenses the same way an attacker would, understanding your network weaknesses and the threats most likely to affect your organization.

Use Threat Intelligence

What attacks are being launched, and what threats might your organization attract?

By understanding the threat landscape, you can protect your organization from threats before they happen.

Use Security Practices in the Development of Your Systems

When systems are developed internally in the organization, it is fundamental to work with a focus on security throughout the SDLC – Software Development Life Cycle – or development cycle, which means having actions from the beginning of this process.

For this, it is essential to use practices and specific methods for this purpose and tools that can check and correct code or even point out possible problems in advance, preventing vulnerable systems from entering production.

Run Penetration Tests

Where do your defenses buckle under pressure? Which employee will likely click on an invalid link in a suspicious email?

You can't know until you test your defenses; the penetration test is the best way to do that.

Manage Permissions Well

By segmenting your network and managing permissions so that not all employees can access all parts, you can control who sees what.

By doing so, you also protect your network from data breaches and malicious insiders.

Use a Proper Firewall

There's no reason not to use firewalls, internally and externally.

Firewalls prevent unauthorized users from accessing your computer network and other devices. They also control traffic on your network.

Constantly Monitor Your Network

Cybersecurity needs to be constantly monitored to be effective. Once you define your controls, make sure they are scanned regularly and updated frequently so they can detect any new vulnerabilities or threats that could hit your network.

Conclusion

A strong cybersecurity strategy can provide an excellent organizational posture against malicious attacks. It also guarantees protection against mechanisms designed to access, alter, delete, destroy, or extort systems, users, and confidential data.

Cybersecurity is also critical in preventing attacks that aim to disable or disrupt the operations of a system or device.

In short, with an ever-increasing number of users, devices, and programs in modern enterprises, combined with the growing deluge of data—much of which is sensitive or confidential—the importance of cybersecurity continues to grow.