Zero-Day Threats Are a Silent Business Killer. Here’s Why

Let’s imagine that your business has a hidden back door—one that your building manager doesn’t even know exists—and that door leads straight into the heart of your office. By the time someone finds out that door exists, someone could have snuck in to wreak all kinds of havoc, unbeknownst to you. This is what is known as a zero-day threat; it’s a security vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild, one that was previously unknown to the vendor and unpatched against, and it’s a serious problem for any SMB.

Understand the Zero-Day Threat

Essentially, a zero-day threat is a flaw in a piece of software, like an operating system, a web browser, or other application, that ultimately gets exploited by an attacker.

It’s called “zero-day” because it’s unknown to the software vendor, which means they have zero days to fix the vulnerability before the threat is exploited. Traditional security measures, like antivirus, are useless against zero-day threats, as there’s no known threat signature to detect it by. This means there’s a window of opportunity for attackers to strike unimpeded until the patch is issued and deployed.

So what’s a business to do against such a threat?

What’s At Stake for Your Business

The last thing you should do is ignore a zero-day threat, as they can result in downtime, data breaches, damage to your reputation, or worse.

If a zero-day attack leads to ransomware being installed on your device, operations can cease entirely, putting your organization in a difficult position. If a data breach occurs, attackers can steal sensitive customer data, which could land you in a tricky situation as far as compliance and consumer trust is concerned. Small businesses are often targeted during these attacks specifically because they don’t have the resources to handle such advanced threats.

When you don’t know a threat is coming, it’s hard to respond… But it’s not impossible.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

You can’t patch what you don’t know about, but you can identify and respond to unusual activity on your network—and that’s often the best way to prevent zero-day breaches.

The problem, however, is that most SMBs don’t have the means at their disposal to look for and detect this behavior. This is where working with a managed service provider pays off; instead of hiring a whole in-house cybersecurity team to handle the monitoring, detection, and response, you can instead outsource the responsibility to Aspire Technical. Not only do we have the expert skills to detect and respond to threats, but we also have the technology to rapidly respond to such threats in an appropriate and timely manner.

The end result: less downtime, less risk, and more reliable cybersecurity measures as a whole.

Due to the nature of zero-day threats, you have to be cautious and ready to take action when they are discovered. Can you say your business is ready to stand against them? If not, we recommend you work with us at Aspire Technical. With our multi-layered security solutions, 24/7 monitoring, and continuous threat detection and response practices, you’ll be ready for anything.

Learn more today by calling us at (480) 212-5153.