Hacker programing in technology enviroment with cyber icons
PHILADELPHIA—Like many criminals, most hackers commit opportunistic attacks.
Chris Novak, co-founder and director of the Verizon Investigative Response Unit, said most hackers are like a home burglar “jiggling door handles” as he walks through a neighborhood.
“They go after whatever they can get into,” said Novak on a cyber claims and loss panel from the NetDiligence Cyber Risk & Privacy Liability Forum. Oftentimes, he added, hackers “don’t know who they hacked in to.”
For this reason, Novak said no organization is bulletproof. Any kind of organization—regardless of industry, size or location—is vulnerable. Breaches happen to organizations “not because of who they are but because they had an easy vulnerability,” Novak said.
Most attacks leverage vulnerabilities that are more than a year old. In fact, many vulnerabilities are more than 10 years old. “There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit,” Novak said.
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Chad Hemenway is Managing Editor of Advisen News. He has more than 15 years of journalist experience at a variety of online, daily, and weekly publications. He has covered P&C insurance news since 2007, and he has experience writing about all P&C lines as well as regulation and litigation. Chad won a Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Single Article in 2014 for his coverage of the insurance implications of traumatic brain injuries and Best News Coverage in 2013 for coverage of Superstorm Sandy. Contact Chad at 212.897.4824 or [email protected].
