This blog has previously explained why small and medium-sized businesses need to remain especially diligent in an increasingly digital world. Regardless of a company's size, it is essential to have strong protections in place to prevent cyber criminals from accessing sensitive information, such as customers' personal data.
If recent events are any indication, all types of organizations could fall prey to an online attack, and the recovery process could be expensive and time-consuming.
LivingSocial, the popular website offering users a local market experience, announced last week that it had been infiltrated by hackers. According to reports, up to 50 million users could have had their personal information accessed, including names, email addresses and dates of birth. However, the section of the website that stores credit card information was not breached.
CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy sent an email out to customers, explaining the breach and that LivingSocial would never ask individuals for their password, but would instead direct them to the website and then make changes.
In an email to staff, O'Shaughnessy said that the company will need to work incredibly hard over the coming days and weeks to validate customers' faith and trust once again.
Garret Grajek, CTO and co-founder of authentication vendor SecureAuth, told CRN that businesses needed to encrypt passwords and tightly control access to user data.
"In insecure enterprise environments, users are allowed to keep their passwords in each of the service providers, allowing hackers to attack the weak cloud sites to obtain identity information," Grajek said.
If cyber criminals can break through larger companies' databases, smaller businesses need to be extremely diligent. Should any security breaches occur, having the right technology insurance in place can make the recovery process run as smoothly as possible.