White Papers for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Rootkits: An Emerging Threat You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Trend Micro

Suppose you left your company’s front door wide open, wrote your computer passwords on sticky notes and put them on every keyboard—and went on vacation for a month.Whatever you can imagine happening in that scenario, that’s the potential danger that a rootkit poses. An intruder could steal your entire customer database and send malware to every email address. Or thieves could use bank account numbers to siphon funds from customers, suppliers, employees and even your own business. Competitors could steal your intellectual property—engineering drawings, source code, process formulas—that took years and millions of dollars to develop.As you can imagine, a successful rootkit has the potential to cost your business dearly. Suppose an attacker uses spyware cloaked by rootkits to steal personal information for your best customers. In an attempt to mitigate the damage, you may be forced to compensate your customers out of your own pocket, an unexpected and unwelcome expense. And the financial consequences can be far worse if one of those customers launches a civil lawsuit, or your business is subject to fines from a regulatory agency. Beyond money, the damage to your company’s reputation can be irreparable. You know how hard it is to gain and keep customers by earning their trust. A major security breach can undo all that work—in an instant.

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