Businesses today face more risks than ever with cyber criminals actively increasing their efforts to exploit companies’ vulnerabilities by stealing data, demanding ransom, or conducting any number of illegal activities that will help them generate illicit profits, gain notoriety, or fulfill political motives.
Regardless of the motive, cyber criminals pose a very real threat to businesses of all sizes. To prevent the bad guys from exploiting them, strategic companies are investing in vulnerability management assessments and correlating tools to better protect themselves from becoming victims.
What are the Four Primary Types of Security Vulnerabilities?
Vulnerabilities are different than cyber threats because the latter come from outside the organization, whereas the former is a problem that exists within a company’s internal technology infrastructure. Let’s take a look at security vulnerabilities since remediating them will often entail getting different solutions, especially since threat actors are consistently looking to find weaknesses to exploit.
Human vulnerabilities
Human vulnerabilities are generally considered to be the “weakest link” in terms of security – user errors, misconduct, or falling victim to social engineering are just a handful of human activities that create vulnerabilities.
Operating system vulnerabilities
Operating system vulnerabilities are flaws within an OS that enable hackers to exploit and gain access to a company’s systems.
Network vulnerabilities
Network vulnerabilities are issues residing in a network’s hardware or software where cybercriminals can take advantage of their existence and use it to infiltrate.
Process vulnerabilities
Process vulnerabilities can be created by specific controls – or lack of controls – such as weak passwords, lack of security protocols, opening access to all instead of restricting to a “need to know” basis, or leaving peripherals unsecured.
Cybercriminals typically use threats to exploit the vulnerabilities, but if those are eliminated, it makes their illicit job a lot harder to do.
Learn more about how Trava's phishing simulation works to prevent social engineering attacks. Watch the video.