Cyberattacks Hit Many Fortune 100 Companies

October 23 2011 by Jessica Scully in Loan Articles |No Comments

It’s bad enough when you are a Fortune 100 company and you’ve been hacked, but it’s really terrible when you are a leading security company like RSA. In fact, you may not want anyone to know and just not say a word rather than reveal that your company’s data may have been compromised. There are laws that demand disclosure in the case where customer data is breached, but if it is just company data, the same does not hold true, even if that later lead to a breach in the customer’s information. Regardless, somehow word got out that over 760 companies had been hacked recently and the names of those companies have been presented to Congress, even though the extent of the damage is still unknown at this time.

How safe is anyone?

RSA, a major security company admitted that they’d been hacked in March, and that subsequently it created vulnerability in their SecurID tags. The hackers also managed to plant malware in the company’s systems that gave them even further access. Meanwhile, though unreported, the same cyberattack was going on at other major companies like Facebook and Microsoft. Even Google saw its fair share of trouble. All in all, about 20 percent of companies on the Fortune 100 list were attacked with the final tally being 760 companies affected in all. It does not mean all these companies had data breaches, but that they were actively engaged in fending off the attacks. Some may have been more successful than other companies, but it is unlikely the general public will ever know the level of impact.

Companies Afraid to Speak Up

Companies realize that admitting that their security has been compromised is not a good business strategy. Thus, affected companies remain silent. Even companies like McAfee that make their living out of monitoring online threats and viruses won’t be eager to share the news if they fail to protect clients from these attacks. Many companies may not even know they have been hacked until it is too late, also. Hackers benefit from this culture of silence as the attack can spread very far before companies are even aware that there is a threat. If they manage to get sensitive data, the company may even want to handle the matter internally rather than prosecute in public where shareholders and the general public will get wind of the company’s vulnerabilities to hackers and give their company a public relation’s black eye.

What Hackers Gain

Hackers can gain access to sensitive server accounts and sit on that information until they find a buyer. At that point, the access is sold to an interested party, a transaction that can happen even months later. The fact that there is a hole in their security may not be obvious until the actual damage is done and access has been gained by other cybercriminals or competitors. That ensures that cybercrime will continue to grow and that businesses will need to be ever more wary and sophisticated with their computerized information and security systems.

Loan 365

Fast and easy personal loans today!