Malware is the use of software to infiltrate computers and online sources. Everyone has heard of hackers and identity thieves who have invaded people’s email accounts, personal accounts and e-commerce websites. Your business suffers losses in money, privacy and trust when this event happens. Here are a handful of ways that malware has affected millions of businesses.
Steal Personal Information
A major intention of malware is to steal personal information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, Social security numbers and employment details. Identity thieves steal this information to assume someone’s identity and commit fraud. They may open new bank accounts or obtain services under someone else’s name.
When your personal accounts are hacked, your business loses a significant amount of trust. The owners of those accounts will no longer trust the security and confidentiality of your services. They will terminate their accounts or write bad reviews about your company. Worse of all, they may file a class-action lawsuit that sues you for breach of contract or invasion of privacy.
Steal Financial Information
Stealing money is the main purpose of identity theft. Malware allows unauthorized access into systems that have hundreds, thousands or millions of financial accounts. Each account contains bank account or credit card numbers and cardholder names. A thief makes an unauthorized charge to a person’s debit or credit card that may go unnoticed for several days or weeks. If he or she does not dispute the charge, the illegal transaction is made successfully.
To prevent this problem, the company should encrypt all web pages that transmit sensitive information during online transactions. The details that are sent from the bank to the company are hidden from hackers.
Steal Business Information
Some individuals or companies steal information from other businesses or professionals. If they don’t use malware for financial reasons, they do so to uncover confidential business information. Competitors may want to review trade secrets or learn more about a company’s inventory, sales or income.
However, it’s not just third-party hackers who are responsible for stealing confidential information. Some vengeful employees use malware to sell this information to competitors, lawyers, etc. The more controversial it is, the more likely that these problems occur.
Disrupt Operations
Malware is used to disrupt normal business operations. Hackers may want to ruin the credibility of a business by shutting down their website for several hours or longer. The site has many technical problems that cause visitors to stop using it. Some hackers change the content of the web pages in their favor while pretending to be the site’s owner.
Viruses, Trojan horses and hacked accounts cause all types of problems for businesses and their websites. The problem can be as simple as a virus that shuts down a website temporarily or an international cybercrime ring that steals thousands of credit card numbers. As a result, there are different forms of protection from malware that include firewalls, passwords and antivirus software. Every business leader must take malware seriously and never allow any vulnerability in their computer-based systems.