[BreachExchange] 5 Security Practices that Create Hurdles for Hackers

[Audrey McNeil]

http://academy.ehacking.net/blog/250766/security-that-
create-hurdles-f0r-hackers

Majority of hackers believes that no password is secured from them, whether
white hats or black hats. There are many hackers that are working to help
and report vulnerabilities they found for the government, law enforcement,
intelligence and military.

Although organizations are working towards adopting new technologies and
strategies to defeat hackers; but, somehow they are frequently affected.
But, there are some strong strategies and steps that organizations have
adopted and are threatening to hackers in a way that is making their lives
harder.

The hackers ranked the five key security measures as follows that are
creating hurdles for them to sneak or compromise into organization’s
network and systems:

Limit Admin Access to System

The most secured and strong way to implement security in an organization is
to begin with privilege accounts. It is the strongest way to create
barriers for the hackers. Privilege accounts are the “Key to the Kingdom”,
making them the most critical target to an attacker seeking to gain access
and move anywhere in an organization’s network.

By limiting admin access to systems, organizations have snatched the
ability from attackers to gain access to the whole network by compromising
privilege accounts.

"First, attackers gain a foothold in the network by any means possible,
often through exploiting an end-user computer, then working to elevate
their privileges by compromising a privileged account, which allows
attackers to operate on a network as if they are a trusted IT
administrator," Black Hat 2016: Hacker Survey Report.

Protect Privilege account’s Passwords

It’s very easy to fall into a trap when it comes to human users. It’s a
more critical issue when privilege account user is tricked into any trap by
an attacker. In current organizational trends, privileged accounts are
extended to the machines and systems to allow them to interact. And it’s
the main reason to introduce protection for privileged account passwords.

There are many systems and application that has saved privileged account
details and are secured, but due to integration with other systems and
users of that system may wind up with large numbers of rogue privileged
accounts with access to their environment. So protection for privileged
accounts is fundamental for organizations.

It is the most critical barrier that an organization can create to protect
its privileged accounts from getting exposed to their environment.

Extend IT Awareness Trainings

Employees and other users are the weakest link in any organization that are
easily get trapped and tricked into exposing authentication and other
organization’s confidential details. Especially as personal mobile devices
are increasingly used for business purposes, educating employees on secure
behaviors has become imperative.

By providing basic security awareness training to employees and other
company’s stakeholders, we can transform employees from weakest link into
the first line of defense. That will surely defeat an attacker to
compromise or trick employee to gain access to the system.

Limit Unknown Applications

You need to know which applications are authorized to be used on a network;
additionally their passwords should be protected. Applications are needed
to be undergoing strict policy enforcement for password strength, account
access and password protection.

Centralized controls to the application allow employees to do their task
securely, while it also eliminates the chance of sniffing application or
malicious application to be installed on the organization’s systems.

Protect user’s Password:

Lastly, the privileged accounts are not the only one responsible to expose
most confidential rights to access the system, but regular employees are
equally responsible if they are not protected. Employee passwords should be
protected by using security best practices.

It will allow them to manage their accounts more securely and are more
likely to remain secure from password attacks by attackers. However, when
you are ready to secure end user passwords, look for solutions that enforce
your security policy for password strength and the frequency of password
changes, and also provide easy and secure password resets.

These simple strategies and practices that are implement-able for every
type of organization can not only protect you from attacks, but also create
barriers for the attacker to gain access to the system. More security
layers will create a hurdle for an attacker to attack your organization.
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