Insurance agencies and brokers should remain vigilant when it comes to their websites and possible malware attacks. They need a backup plan, a fallback plan and should be sharing website and email security best practices with all their employees on a consistent basis.
Malware is Becoming More Evasive and Aggressive
There has been a large increase in evasive malware behavior in the last year. Evasive malware tries to undermine traditional security technologies with new methods. Novel methods must be continually created to thwart these attacks. Make certain you are using a quality website security option that keeps its malware solutions up-to-date and at the cutting edge. Hosting providers such as GoDaddy, 1&1 and many more all offer a variety of security and malware monitoring and removal options. Malware advancement moves quickly and your insurance agency security solutions need to remain updated and current.
Modified Browser Settings
All major browsers (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari) have experienced an increase in malware programs which can modify browser settings and important security-relevant proxy settings. Attackers are turning compromised systems into proxies so that further malware injections can be implemented. To help prevent this attack, never open unknown or questionable links, and train all employees to follow this important best practice.
Password Guessing Attacks
For this type of attack, the malware starts the authenticating process procedure and uses common username and password combinations to attempt to gain access to a website and escalate privileges. Brute force attacks are not new, but they are no longer contained to desktops. A recent study found that 53 popular mobile applications were vulnerable to password guessing attacks. Those vulnerabilities placed around 600 million users in danger of being hacked. Always use complex, unique passwords to keep access to your site protected against this type of attack, and use a sophisticated password time out option.
Enterprise-Level Database Leaks Via The Cloud
Cloud services have become an increasing solution for businesses. This, in turn, has caused an increased interest in exploiting cloud vulnerabilities. Awareness of the vulnerabilities and risks of storing commercial information on the cloud is not growing as fast as the sophistication of cloud attacks. As cloud data management becomes too difficult to wield, new security vulnerabilities may be discovered. It is important that your agency utilizes reputable cloud based solutions, and that you follow the best practices above, for all your cloud based applications.
If your agency lacks the in-house resources necessary to maintain and update a secure insurance agency website, you can consider outsourcing this to a proficient outsourced IT organization or an insurance marketing agency which is proficient with insurance websites.
