With the announcements earlier this month by Home Depot and J.P. Morgan Chase that their systems’ security had been compromised, companies everywhere should be taking a closer look at their own corporate defenses. Although J.P. Morgan Chase is remaining close-lipped about the breach, Home Depot has confirmed that cyber-attackers may have had access to their payment card data since April 2014.
Can you imagine how much havoc a criminal could wreak with your corporate assets if it controlled them for that long? You might assume that the length of a cyber-breach doesn’t matter―surely criminals can harvest plenty of data in a few hours, right? In reality, transfers of stolen data don’t happen quickly, because such moves may raise red flags with even primitive security systems. Most criminals start working slowly, possibly infecting additional computers on the network before they begin stealing assets, making bank withdrawals, and committing other damaging acts. Only the most robust security solutions, such as those from InterDev’s vendors, can detect these slow data leaks.
For this reason, every employee must take a best-practices approach to security―for creating passwords, maintaining computer and device security, responding to email and interacting with websites. Banking giant SunTrust recently released a comprehensive list of security best practices for these activities and has given us permission to share it.
If you haven’t already done so, we suggest you call a staff meeting to reiterate the importance of strong cyber-security, including adhering to the recommendations on the SunTrust list. Some of them may seem extreme, but they are worth the effort. As Home Depot is learning, the alternative is truly unthinkable.
To learn more about securing your company and its systems against all the threats that face you, today and tomorrow, or to order a vulnerability assessment, please call our Atlanta, Chicago or Jacksonville office. We also invite you to view the slide show from a March Webinar by InterDev partner Imperva, “DDos and Web Threats: How to Protect Your Site and Information.”