Hackers target databases in their daily attacks to steal confidential data and useful information for financial gains or take pride in bringing down organizations’ systems without beneficial gains. Databases are the most exciting hot spots for hackers around the world, according to a data breach investigation report of 2015. The reason why databases have become the target for may hackers is quite simple – the databases are used to store the company’s vital customer records and confidential data, which is the backbone of any organization. Most organizations do not protect these crucial assets enough to ensure safety and integrity. With Stellar Information Technology Private Limited services, your servers and databases are guaranteed safety with state-of-the-heart information security measures.
During the extreme cases that cybercriminals execute attacks against servers and databases successfully, they can gain access to sensitive data and extract financial gains out of it or intentionally inflict damages that might cause impact to business operations. Once these attacks are successfully executed against an organization’s servers and databases, data recovery options become the only strategies an organization employs to get back to its feet again. Without these strategies, an organization might face extreme damages. The lead time taken to recover determines the veracity of the financial loss or reputation damages caused.
Common database threats
Threats identified some years back are the same as those that continue to plague business information systems today. The common threats inflicted against databases today include excessive privileges. It happens when employees are granted excessive privileges more than they require to execute their daily functions. When employees get default excessive privileges, more than they require to execute their functions, chances are, they can abuse those privileges in one way or another. A typical example of excessive privileges is when an employee can change a friend’s savings account’s account balance. These usually happen when employee roles are changed, and access privileges are not updated.
Another common database threat is database SQL injections attacks. SQL injections attack target traditional databases, while NoSQL injections targets ‘big data’. A successful injection in either way gives an attacker access to the entire database. And they can do whatever they want to do with the data, either financial gains by selling data to competitors or interested parties.
Malware is a perennial threat used to steal data and sensitive information via legitimate uses unsuspectingly using infected devices. Storage media exposure is another threat that gets organizations unaware. Most backup storage media are left unprotected, and that’s where attackers nowadays focus most. Attackers also target vulnerabilities in databases since most organizations take months to patch. Cybercriminals target unpatched databases or those configured with default parameters due to workloads associated with system administrators and their inability to undertake time-consuming testing processes or the challenge of finding a window to take down and concentrate on critical business systems. And it should be noted that human factors contribute about 30 per cent of a data breach.