Hackers want data. The higher quality data, the happier the hackers are. Higher quality data can be sold for more money. Or use it for more hacking. Stolen credentials for the CEO are worth more than the password for the person who works on the loading dock.
Old-timers will remember network hardware pioneer Nortel Networks. Nortel was hacked around 2000 and filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The company was sold off for scrap.
Why? Because the CEO demanded access to every bit of data – M&A data. Patent data. New product data. Financial data. Competitive bid data. And the hackers who were in there for 10 years because the CEO’s password was compromised (and the company’s security was non-existent), had all the data before even most of the people in the company did.
Needless to say, that data was very valuable to hackers and ultimately caused Nortel to file for bankruptcy and be dissolved.
Sometimes the hackers buy the credentials from data brokers.
Then they buy other information about the executives on the dark web.
If the hacker is smart, he or she will stay quiet to avoid detection. Once in, the hacker will see what information the executive has access to and starts surveying what data is available to steal and sell.
Maybe the hacker reads and copies ALL of the executive’s emails.
Then, slowly to stay under the radar, the hacker starts selling the data. Just a little bit at a time. If the hacker is lucky, they can stay inside for years. Talk about recurring revenue.
Who do the hackers want to compromise?
The CEO. CFO. CIO. Cxx.
Certainly the hackers will take credentials for anyone, but the execs are the golden ticket.
Other golden tickets? The executive assistants to the C-Suite. They often access to multiple executive’s information. Talk about a jackpot. You don’t just have the data that the, say, CFO has, but also the data of the CEO.
Also remember that people often have personal stuff on their office computers. Pictures and other personal items. Hopefully nothing compromising, but, in reality, often that stuff is there too.
Hackers are certainly not above blackmailing executives.
If an executive is having an affair and there is information about that, that is certainly fair game.
For more information on this, check out this article in Cybernews.
If you need help making it harder to compromise your executive team – and this includes your board – contact us.
Credit: Cybernews
