Company Management Is Aware of Various Forms of Potential Attacks

Target Company is one of the leading merchandisers in the United States accounting for a substantial market segment in the retail industry. Over the past years, there has been a lot of competition in the retail industry thus making it necessary for businesses to come up with new ways of improving business performance. In 2013, Target Company experienced a breach in its computer systems thus affecting its data. The data breach led to huge losses of more than $148 million which led to a substantial shift in the operations of the industry.

The breach led to the reduction of earnings from a rate of 85 cents to 78 cents per share thus greatly affecting the wealth of the shareholders. The data breach was as a result of unauthorized access of customer payment cards through the fraudulent access of details leading to the withdrawal of huge sums of money from the cards. Following the data breach, there was an investigation by the US department of criminal investigation as the attackers had used the computer systems to advance their interests.

Through the installation of malware programs into the computer systems, the attackers were able to access useful information of most customers in the Bricks stores. The breach affected over 42 million payment cards which made it necessary for retail businesses to come up with better ways of managing their customer information. Since the data breach, companies have continuously come up with both proactive and reactive strategies to avert future cases of data breaches. Proactive Strategies.  These are the approaches are measures that companies put in place to ensure that their networks are immune from attack.

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They may range from training employees adequately to contracting professional observers to monitor the organization’s systems and networks.

With such an incidence of a data breach that resulted to catastrophic effects, companies now realize that there is an extreme need to dedicate funds to secure their systems. As much as the services do not come cheap, an attack could lead to massive losses and even worse lead a company to collapse. From a more tangible point of view, banks for example use vaults with hardened steel and alarm systems in order to detect and prevent break-ins. This is a perfect example of what proactive strategies are. This also applies to networks and computer systems Companies need to create strong firewalls which prevent unauthorized access hence the possibility of a data bleach or failure of a system is reduced if not eliminated. Proactive strategies include programs to improve cyber security intelligence by security experts to ensure that the system is free and secure from attack.

Use of security experts as part of the organization helps keep the systems secure at all times as the business management is fully aware of the different forms of potential attack. Cyber security experts also help advance technological safety due to the high level of knowledge in the development of systems and their maintenance Strategies such as intrusion detection are preferred by big organizations to help detect any unauthorized access to a system. The first step to defending a network or a system is through patching the existent or vulnerable system. This entails very complicated procedures and budgets but eventually, a networks is safeguarded from unauthorized access thus information and data from the system remains safe for use by the organization alone. Usually, the processes are expensive and difficult to develop since most systems are different and new procedures have to be created Automated Vulnerability Assessment is another proactive measure that organizations should implement in order to safeguard their networks.

It is important to note that there is no amount of reinforcing a system that can make it perfectly immune from threats. For that reason, some attackers take advantage of the small mistakes that patching cannot solve and use them to access an organization’s network. This is where vulnerability assessment comes in. it enables the system to identify the individual accessing the system by asking a series of security questions and a password. If there is a false entry, the system automatically locks out the individual and denies them a second chance of accessing the system. As stated earlier, no system is perfectly immune from attack since at times; the attackers are employees and insiders of the same organization.

For that reason, it is important to have a set of reactive measures and procedures that the organization should take in the event of a breach or an attack. Malware such as viruses and worms are the weapons that attackers often use to corrupt a site It is important for an organization to partner with security auditors when a virus or a worm is successfully released in the network by the attackers. Reactive strategies however largely consists of law enforcement to help minimize future potential attacks on a system. The reactive strategies help identify response plans that will be useful in the elimination of future vulnerabilities in the system.

The use of federal investigation agencies helps advance the aversion of future damages to a system which leads to more safety in the entire database of the organization. Cybercrime is prominent in the contemporary world which puts systems and networks in jeopardy for many organizations. In order to prevent a falling victim of a cyber- attack, it is crucial for a company to adopt both the proactive and reactive strategies of making their networks hack proofing. By so doing, the cases of hacking and breaching of data are drastically reduced. Proactive measures work hand in hand with reactive strategies in order to ensure that systems remain confidential to authorized users alone.