Some high-profile hacks have come to light recently; It was revealed last month that the private details of over 412 million users of the adult dating and pornography company Friend Finder Networks were hacked in October, making it the largest data breach ever recorded, it brings back into focus the importance of businesses ensuring their customers data is always protected, for example, while it came to light in September that Yahoo! experienced a hack in 2014 where the accounts of around 500 million users were compromised.
More and more businesses are now using the cloud to store their customers data. As with all new technologies though, hackers will look to exploit any security vulnerabilities they can find. While the attack on Friend Finder Networks does not appear to have been a cloud-based attack, a number of high profile attacks have taken place against cloud storage systems in recent years.
In this article, David Midgley, Head of Operations at payment gateway and merchant services provider Total Processing, examines what has made cloud storage vulnerable to attack and how to protect the cloud as much as possible from hackers going forward.
All of the big supermarkets now let you order your groceries online and websites exist that can be used to order a takeaway, while Amazon can now be used to order almost anything! Most of these services now also have apps to make such transactions even easier for the consumer too. This is because increased internet penetration, along with affordable data packs, has meant consumer-focused businesses have boomed in the last ten years.
All of this means that consumers are now increasingly comfortable making online financial transactions. Id even argue that consumers now come to expect the ease and convenience of making financial transactions in this way. However, the public should be wary of handing over their financial details so easily.
Businesses, particularly big businesses, have embraced cloud storage options in recent years to store their data as, among other reasons, cloud storage solutions have meant they no longer have the numerous costs associated with storing all their information in large data centres. However, some businesses dont seem to understand the potential hazards of using such a method for storing customer data.
While the cloud has opened up new frontiers, its also opened up a whole new world of security issues, as hackers now have another way to try and access peoples personal and financial information.
Therefore, it is vitally important that businesses processing and storing customer information do their upmost to ensure it is secure and safe from those with sinister motives. This unfortunately is not always the case though.
For example, the last two years has seen a number of high profile attacks against cloud storage systems. For example, this is not the first time Friend Finder Networks has been attacked, as their site, Adult Friend Finder, was previously attacked in May 2015. Furthermore, the attack on Apples iCloud platform that resulted in the release of the personal photographs of many high-profile figures was a big talking point in the summer of 2014 and it was only last month that the hacker was finally sentenced for his crimes. Similar to the attack on Friend Finder Networks, in July 2015, a group called The Impact Team claimed to have stolen all the personal details of the extra-marital dating site Ashley Madisons 37 million users in a separate attack. The next month, this information was then released in two large data dumps. In turn, this led to a number of people being targeted by extortionists for large sums of money.
On all of these occasions, the hackers were able to access this information following a single hack too. As who working in the fintech sector, where large amounts of customer financial data is processed on a daily basis, I find this very worrying, particularly given more and more people now make online transactions.
However, it may be unfair to only highlight cloud storage, as hackers will attack wherever they can find a weak spot in a companys security. It may simply be that the initial high-profile attacks put the spotlight onto cloud storage systems, making them a well-known target for other subsequent hackers.
Given these most recent revelations, Im sure we can all agree that online security needs to be a top priority. It really isnt difficult either, as common sense practices, such as businesses keeping all their security software up-to-date and making sure their privacy and spam settings are rigid, really do go a long way to helping a business keep itself and the information it keeps protected.
