Has Someone Been Hacking Into Your Servers?

Do you remember a fairy tale called “Goldilocks?”

In this famous children’s story, Goldilocks walks out of the woods and into the three bears’ house. She had no fear because the three bears weren’t at home. She ate their food, tried out all the furniture, and tested the comfort level of each of their beds before settling on the one that suited her for a nap.

When the three bears got home, they were surprised to find that someone had been in their house — eating their food, roaming around their living room, and sleeping in their beds.

If that wasn’t alarming enough, the end of the story finds Baby Bear discovering that Goldilocks the intruder is still occupying his Baby Bear bed.

When Goldilocks wakes up, she finds three bears staring at her, realizes that the three bears’ house has become an unfriendly environment for her and runs away.

While this story of intrusion, theft, and invasion of privacy on the part of Goldilocks makes for a cute fairy tale, it’s not so wonderful when Goldilocks and the three bears’ home is switched for a hacker and your server.

Here’s the question…

Who Is Eating Your Porridge?

Hackers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are young computer nerds invading servers for the fun of it from the safety of their bedroom at their mother’s house. Generally, these kids just want to see if they can hack into your systems and want to snoop around a little. That’s bad, but it gets far more sinister. There are now as many “business models” in the criminal hacking world as there are in legitimate business. There is the lone wolf hacker that operates as a one-man business. There are the international cybercrime syndicates that operate like evil Fortune 500 companies. Rogue nation states and bad actors representing them have even gotten into the act, stealing millions of dollars worth of intellectual property every year.

So, who is eating your porridge?

Does it really matter?

If someone is in your server without your permission, you need to get them out – and fast.

That’s where the IT security professionals of Nexus IT Consultants enter the picture. The Nexus team doesn’t need three bears to scare away individuals who have found their way into your servers. Instead, they close all the avenues of entry that the bad guys use – and are using – to gain entrance to your systems.

Why Are Criminals Interested In Hacking Into Your Servers?

Your business may be pretty straightforward. You have no industrial secrets to protect, no proprietary information to secure, and you don’t have a top-secret, finger-licking good list of 12 secret herbs and spices on your server.

So what are the bad guys looking for when they hack into your server and go roaming around your network?

As we said before, some are just hacking for hacking’s sake. Think of these as the punks with the spray paint that go around tagging buildings in the middle of the night. They really don’t care what’s on your server; they’re just there to cause mischief and cost you money in remediation.

While that category of invader may be an expense and a nuisance, the other categories of cybercriminals we discussed above are not just kids out on a joyride in a stolen Mazda Miata. They’re serious criminals that have no qualms about causing pain for you, your staff, your investors, and your customers.

What are they looking for?

• Proprietary data they can sell.
• Names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails they can trade on the dark web.
• Passwords they can leverage to get into other parts of your digital life.
• Banking information they can use to siphon cash out of your accounts.
• Credit card numbers from your customers that they can use to rack up huge bills and sell to identity theft operations.

Basically, your server is a virtual treasure trove of information just waiting to be harvested by the criminal who is sly enough to find and exploit a vulnerability in your IT systems.

What Can Nexus IT Consultants Do To Secure Your Servers And Broader IT Environment?

• Penetration Testing
• Employee Education
• Managed Security Services
• Backup and Disaster Recovery
• Unified Threat Management
• Security Consulting
• Legislative and Industry Standards Compliance Consulting

Want “Goldilocks” Hackers Out Of Your Servers? How Does It Work?

You can stop cybercriminals from wandering around your company’s IT systems unchecked!

After your initial call to Nexus IT Consultants, the next step is to have our cybersecurity consultants do a complete security assessment of your IT environment. We use specialized tools to determine what endpoints may be compromised and what other vulnerabilities exist. Once we have determined the extent of both the vulnerability issues present on your system and the damage done by the intruder, we then present to you the remediation options that are available. Every remediation is unique. As a result, it is impossible to quote prices for a project such as this over the phone. An assessment must be done to determine how extensive the damage is.

After you have given permission to start the remediation stage and we have successfully removed the hacker from your server the next thing to consider is ongoing IT security management.

Cybersecurity management is a monthly subscription-based service that gives you peace of mind knowing that your system security is being managed, monitored, and maintained by professionals. Our cybersecurity management service saves you from expensive downtime and often detects and deals with threats before you even know that there is a problem.

Looking for more information? We have some fantastic articles for you HERE on our blog.