Large Corporations and Cyber Attacks

Though many people don’t realize it, large corporations are generally the worse at guarding against cyber attacks. This is in direct contrast to what logic would dictate. The reason why is because the complexity of large corporations leaves many holes for hackers to exploit. This weakness can be extremely harmful if not quickly corrected.

Protecting such a large infrastructure is difficult for many corporations to do. Close to half of the vulnerabilities of any large business put them at high risk of being hacked. They deal with more high-risk vulnerabilities than low-risk ones.

Since most large businesses grow due to the influx of acquisitions and mergers they open themselves up more to the likelihood of a cyber attack. Poor management of even one asset can lead to the kind of vulnerabilities that put large corporations at risk.

This often leads to employee turnovers that make a company’s infrastructure unsecured. Frequent changes in employee and IT staff members can result in the kind of disorganization that makes large corporations vulnerable to attacks. Internal networks suffer when new employees are brought in. Hackers know this is the best time for them to strike.

In general, internal networks are less secure than their external counterparts. Large corporations often find that simple human error is the biggest cause of internal network vulnerability. These weaknesses in the network are what catch the attention of those looking to perform a cyber attack. The more perceived weaknesses there are the more vulnerable a corporation is.

External and internal networks have certain vulnerabilities in common. These include software that hasn’t been updated as well as patches that should be used but aren’t. It also includes cross scripting that needs updating and even something as simple as flaws in passwords. Rounding out the list of common vulnerabilities in large corporations is unsecured protocols.

The best way that large corporations can protect against cyber attacks is to tighten their security. Doing so involves proper management of all assets. It also involves taking the time to raise the corporation’s visibility. In turn, this would make the corporation less vulnerable to cyber attacks. This is extremely important because larger corporations often deal with decentralized operations. They are known to use complex technology; something that doesn’t always work in their favor.