Advertising your business on a website in cyberspace is definitely the way to succeed. Your website will reach prospective clients globally. However, there are risks which you should be aware of.
Cyber crime is prevalent, and website breaches of security happen on a daily basis. The perpetrators are motivated by various goals. When considering who needs to take responsibility for website security, the answer is not always clear as we shall discover.
What Are the Goals
- The corruption or larceny of private or sensitive data.
- Changing the website code in order to alter what people observe.
- Denial of Service (DoS) assaults that result in services becoming inaccessible.
The perpetrator may want to gain specific information, attack a bigger target or change a popular website. Whatever the reason, the effects will be catastrophic.
Valuable Data and Information.
If you possess delicate or financial information, your website will appeal to hackers. It can be used for financial profit. Acquiring personal information will also be useful to steal an identity or spread malice.
Industrial and Political Espionage.
Database information may be useful to rival companies or governments. Appropriated data or passwords and usernames could be useful to hackers. These would give access to customer accounts, confidential files, and emails.
US intelligence officers have unearthed information about industrial espionage and the Chinese Government. Part of its economic policy is stealing company secrets. The goal is to become the world’s largest economy by leapfrogging over US and other international competitors.
An Unsafe Website.
Web Application Vulnerability Scanners peruse websites for vulnerable security risks that enable attacks like
- XSS (cross-site scripting).
- SQL Injection.
- Command Execution.
- Directory Traversal.
- Insecure Server Configuration.
If your site has susceptibilities, it is almost certain they will be recognized and exploited by hackers. There will be security breaches on your website.
The Springboard to Larger Gains.
You might feel safe as a small company in the market. However, if your site has vulnerabilities, hackers will target it. Their goal will be to reach the larger organization to which you are a supplier.
It would be possible for a hacker to acquire personal information. This could be used to produce an email targeting someone in the larger organization (social engineering). Your website could also be exploited to aid the installation of malware on a targeted company’s computer.
Who is Responsible for a Breach of Website Security?
Microsoft critiques have always looked for ways to sue the software giant over security flaws in its products (1). A recent survey questioned respondents over whom they considered were responsible for breaches. The following are the results:
- 30% - perpetrators, hackers.
- 25% - developers.
- 22% - users.
- 14% - deploying organization.
- 8% - service providers.
It is easy to shift the blame to someone else. If someone enters your house illegally, the perpetrator will be considered guilty. However, if you leave the back door open when you leave the premises, you will have to take some of the blame.
There are ways of securing your website, and you should take advantage of them. Help to reduce website security breaches.
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