Has Your Organization Been Hacked? Here's What You Need to Know

The sooner you know you have been a hacking victim the better your odds of lessening the financial and reputational consequences.

The problem is that most organizations don’t know they’ve been hacked until it’s too late. However, there are warning signs.

One red flag is anomalous account activity. Once a hacker establishes a presence on a system, the next move typically is to elevate system privileges or move laterally to users with higher privileges. System monitoring can establish a baseline for the type of systems accessed regularly along with information such as when and which files were accessed and altered.

Another common warning sign you’ve been hacked is a slower than usual network. A slow computer isn’t significantly alarming, but, if the system is running slowly, your company could be experiencing a data breach, as network slowness can be generated by transferring files outside the network, or it can indicate onboard malware or viruses or suspicious outbound traffic.

Cybersecurity professionals also warn: Be alert to file changes. Upon obtaining access to an organization’s network, hackers may modify, change, or delete essential system files in an attempt to avoid detection.

These changes may be completed in minutes or even less. If your organization is not monitoring critical system files actively, these signs of a data breach can stay undetected for a long period of time.

There can be a massive amount of changes to critical files, especially for organizations with complex IT infrastructures. Having the ability to differentiate between regular changes and changes that indicate a data breach in progress is key.

Consequently, organizations need the technical ability to identify positive, neutral, and negative changes in real time.

Experts in this arena contend that organizations can lower their risk of being hacked by updating software. This updated software can be anything from your content management system platform, cloud-based tool or any other program you use.

Software and technology companies are always adding security protocols to their products, but they won't work if you aren't updating your apps and tools. You can choose an auto-update feature in your tools' settings that will automatically update the solutions you use.

Manual updates can be created as well. But the key is to stay on top of these changes and to update your entire suite of tools to keep your data safe from hackers.

It’s also a good idea for organizations to use anti-phishing toolbars, a web browser extension that protects against these attacks when you visit a malicious website. Anti-phishing toolbars check everything that you click on in real time and block any possible threat or attack.

Want to learn more? Tonex offers Introduction to Hacking Training, a 3-day course that introduces participants to the world of computer hacking and hacker’s approaches against security. The advanced hacking training gives you the comprehensive understanding of hackers and how the systems can be attacked so that proper defense techniques can be implemented. 

Introduction to Hacking Training covers the main topics in ethical hacking including: introduction to modern IT and vulnerabilities, ethical hacking phases, network hacking, system hacking, reconnaissance and Foot printing, SQL injection, mobile platform hacking, web hacking, sniffing, enumeration, session hijacking, social engineering, scanning, stack smashing and operating system security.

For more information, questions, comments, contact us.