Real hackers do not randomly find a flaw in a system. There is a systematic approach to hack a system!
Regardless of size and type of an online entity and its online presence, a giant company with ten thousand of employee, or a home user of the Net, the only reason a system (may) have not hacked or taste the bitter part of internet is because it has not been targeted!
Hack proof, and resistance…are you kidding? systems are mainly vulnerable to basic penetration testing! A system enough mature to resist targeted attacks is literally a piece of “Art of Security Management” rather than a collection of sophisticated security tools or staff.
Once you are targeted you could truly measure the strength of your security measures and experience shows that we could barely stay safe after being actively targeted. However, targeting process may take years but once a malicious actor put your name on the list, you need to find way to response and faster ways for recovery.
I am not considering persistent threats where you have been hacked for years before even you realize. Remember, not all malware activity is supposed to be noisy and obvious. Hence, targets remain totally open to adversaries for months and years before they could even detect anomaly so let’s talk about hidden-side of being victimized and APT later.
What does it mean to be targeted?
It is not as simple as it sounds but briefly, it means adversary simply profiles you/your business for a relatively longer time and uses every aspect of your online presence to have what I call BB or brighter blueprint of a cyber entity.
Attacker creates an enhanced “vision” of a cyber target and s/he uses every single direct or indirect possible object to picture the target. At the end, or somehow in the middle of this process, attackers know your system way better than yourself! And that’s where they land the attack. The result depends on the purpose and motivation, could be destructive or hidden with minimal impact which is scary because then they nest somewhere within your system as long as they need.
The truth is, if a system has not been hacked, that’s not because it has a solid security posture, it is only because it has not been targeted.
Stay secure,
