A Hacker You Should Do Business With

by Kim Boatman, Technology.Inc.com, December 15th, 2009

Evaluating your company's security vulnerabilities is the first step toward preventing costly data losses that could compromise both information and your company's reputation. A so-called ethical hacker could help.

It’s just a USB drive, casually dropped by an employee entrance, in the cafeteria or next to a cubicle. But what happens to that drive can tell worlds about your company’s IT security.

An employee wanders by, picks up the drive and, out of curiosity, sticks it in the computer at his or her workstation. The drive contains infected code that compromises your system.

Evaluating your company's security vulnerabilities is the first step toward plugging those gaps and preventing costly data losses and security breaches that could compromise both information and your company's reputation. For some small to mid-size businesses, evaluating security is a requirement of doing business with government agencies, credit card companies or health-related companies.

But utilizing an ethical hacker can make sense for your business even if you’re not required to do so. For a few thousand dollars, an ethical hacker can give you a sense of areas you need to shore up.

“A lot of small business owners think, ‘We’re a small company. Why would anyone want to access my environment?’’’ says Carl Herberger, vice president of information security and compliance for Evolve IP, a managed technology services provider for small and mid-sized businesses. You’re more of a target than you might imagine, asserts Herberger. “It is the small businesses that are frequently entryways to bigger businesses.”

What an ethical hacker does...

Read the full article online here: A Hacker You Should Do Business With