Safeguarding subtle intellectual property (IP), consumer details, and financial information is critical in the current world. Therefore, information security is of keen interest to any business organization. The technological growth and advancement of information technology resulted in numerous system attacks by malicious individuals. US is the dominant share of most data breaches standing at an estimated figure of $8.64 million as documented by IBM. Over the years, information breaches are proving to be an intensively arduous task. As a result, they have had devastating consequences on companies, such as the eBay data breach that exposed more than 140 million customer details.
eBay incident leads to many questions, and some are not yet answered. The data breaches are tricky to tackle due to various businesses and cooperations employing varying data security measures, hackers are continuously developing new threats and attack schemes, and highly professional IT gurus are expensive and complicated to get (Hunt, 2020). As a result, numerous small companies prefer outsourcing cyber security services.
Cybercrime is a very lucrative venture, and numerous malicious individuals are on the lookout for sensitive individuals’ information to sell. As time goes by, hackers are coming up with new sophisticated ways of attacking cooperate and company systems. Currently, the primary method used in carrying out these attacks is by viruses. The viruses are conveyed to organizations through emails or USB storage devices connected to the computer. Also, a network may be compromised by downloading an infected file from the internet, instant messaging on social media platforms, file sharing, transfer programs, and an infected PC gaining access into a network remotely. Once the virus is in the organization’s network, it can move from one PC to the next using numerous ways.
The eBay attack shocked many and was more shocking than the perpetrators attacked through a whole month. It is stated that the attack may have been made possible after the malicious individuals gained access to some of their employee’s login credentials. The breach of the staff credentials could allow the hackers to gain access to more than the consumers’ surface information. Some of the effects of such events have already been felt as the breached eBay consumers’ data was posted for sale on a famous dark site. The company issued a statement assuring the public of the security of their financial information; however, this cannot be confirmed.
Given the numerous ways the virus can move from one computer to the next within the organization, the organization must employ the following measures (Cybersecurity, 2021). First, the company has to check on the anti-virus software installed on their computers. The software must be up to date and installed on all the computers accessing the company’s network. Under this, the company should also carry out regular vulnerability and breach checks on the company network. The evidence provided shows that the company did not employ these checks regularly, allowing the attack to occur.
Also, the company should educate its staff on the various information security breaches and safety measures. In this regard, the company should also develop an information security policy. The company lacked an incidence response plan making them take longer before announcing the attack. Also, the systems end-users should have various restrictions on what to access with a given level of pass. The login credentials of these employees should also be generated on each login request and an idle computer shut after a given period of being sedentary. With these solutions implemented, the company will be free of such attacks.
Reference
Cybersecurity. (2021). Computer Security – Threats & Solutions – BH Consulting. BH
Consulting. Retrieved 27 February 2022, from https://bhconsulting.ie/computer-security-threats-solutions/.
Hunt, T. (2020). The eBay breach: answers to the questions that will inevitably be asked. Troy
Hunt. Retrieved 27 February 2022, from https://www.troyhunt.com/the-ebay-breach-answers-to-questions/.
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