If You Give a Hacker A Host

If you give a hacker a host.

If you give a hacker a host, he's going

to want to dig. If he finds something

good, he'll settle in. Biding

his time and looking for ways to move

deeper into your network. He'll study

your network and see how it

all connects. He'll look for weak

spots and he'll find them because

nobody's perfect. If your network

is like most, you'll have plenty of

insecure configurations to work with.

Using each endpoint as another entry

point, he'll worm through your network,

going deeper and deeper. As he

goes, he'll take it all in and make plans

for later and you'll be none the wiser.

Once he has the run of the place, he'll

look for ways to parlay access into

control. It won't be too hard either, it

just takes an open SMBv1 here, a

vulnerable Log4j instance there, and

maybe some excessive permissions or

default passwords for good measure. When

he gains control, he'll want to play, but

that may draw attention, so he'll

probably open a back door before getting

started. Just in case.

Then he'll get to it. He might monitor

traffic and steal a token, inject some

scripts. Or carry out a denial of

service attack just for fun.

He'll extract financial records, customer

information and trade secrets, whatever

looks good. After

he's tuckered himself out chasing all

that data, he'll probably want a break,

so he'll call a timeout. He'll shut

everything down, locking you out until

you pay up. You'll scramble

to regain control as operations screech

to a halt. With

each tick of the clock feeling like a

punch to the gut, you'll probably cave to

his demands, but even then, it won't be

over. Only 8% of ransom payers

ever get all their data back, and

recovery costs typically exceed the

actual ransom by four times.

So even after the hacker calls it a day,

you'll still be stuck cleaning up. With

time, maybe you'll move on, but the

hacker won't forget you. He'll think of

you often and reflect on all the fun he

had. One day he'll grow bored

of his other playthings and he'll want to

play with you again. When that

happens, he'll need a host to get things

going again. He'll remember that back

door he opened, and he'll walk right back

in. If you give a

hacker a host, he's going to want to dig.

And that's just the beginning. If

you don't want to give a hacker

a host, GYTPOL (now Remedio) is here to

help. We specialize in closing gaps and

securing your configurations quickly,

effectively, and with zero risk to your

business. Let's keep your organization

secure.