Cybersecurity Threats to the Non-Executive Director

Why Non-Executive Directors are Targeted and How They Targeted?

The responsibilities of being a non-executive director in today’s highly connected environment include many risks and challenging tasks. Non-executives are the primarily responsible figures for the correct functioning of an enterprise, ensuring effective governance, therefore, holding accountable for a large portion of secure data on other employees. They have a responsibility in front of the board to convince of high liability, as statistically, most board members are highly skeptical about this matter, as opposed to the executives (Oord, Rothrock, and Kaplan, 2017). Having access to highly valuable data within the organization, especially that includes financial and personal information makes executives the main target of the cyber-attacks.

Being accountable for a vast portion of duties and information includes the possibility of unintentional negligence of certain factors. Non-executive directors frequently manage to work on behalf of several organizations, which makes them more exposed to a variety of security issues. Moreover, such an extensive range of information possession creates more value for these particular workers for hackers, as they can approach a wider spectrum of data. Therefore, non-executives must take more caution In terms of their personal cybersecurity to avoid being hacked, as well as put increasing focus on the companies safety and protection of the informational property.

Holding accountable for a lot of strategically important company information, it was determined that non-executive directors are becoming one of the primary targets of hackers. There are many ways they trick the directors into granting access for invasion, as these employees face high exposure to a range of security issues. The vulnerability of web services, which expose the software that is used, unhidden document properties creates many possibilities for cyber-attacks., which non-executives are responsible for. Research determined that 16% of Forbes 2,000 corporate web servers are vulnerable to cyber-attack due to missing security updates or outdated software (KPMG International, 2015). Through admittance to these properties, hackers have all assets to easily infiltrate corporate systems, including personal identities, financial accounts, and healthcare information from just one person, which most likely be a non-executive director.

Threats Specific to the Non-Executive Directors

Hundreds of cyber attacks have been invented during the Internet’s existence, ranging from random to targeted forms, damaging internal systems of the companies and individual devices. However, some particular hacking threats are especially dangerous for the non-executive directors at the companies. The following threats compromise the security of the enterprise by compromising highly secretive data.

Confidentiality leakage is probably the most dangerous threat that non-executives must constantly monitor. Confidentiality breaches are the most common hacking tactic, targeting weak security systems (Donaldson et al., 2015). Stealing social security numbers, credit card information, healthcare reports, and secret company documents are a shortlist of all the potentially vulnerable information that non-executives have access to. The most dangerous part of such a cyber-attack that the information may be extracted unnoticeably and only discovered upon its leakage to the competitors or the media (Donaldson et al., 2015). Therefore, it is vital to establish a highly protective cyber-security system and have a constant watch over it to prevent any confidential information leakage.

Targeted cyber-attacks such as hacktivism is a severe hazard for the enterprise, primarily lying on the non-executive director’s shoulders. Activist hacking is a targeted attack that is used to make public statements to embarrass their adversaries (Donaldson et al., 2015). Hacktivism is frequently used against enterprises to ruin their reputation or a particular individuals inside the company for various purposes. Non-executives may quickly become the main targets of such crime, as they are accountable for a large portion of sensitive personal data that may be used to jeopardize the reputation.

The last threat lies within simple e-mails and websites, which is commonly known yet often disregarded. Proofpoint research determined that more than 20% of the e-mail addresses are at high risk of containing hacking bugs that access personal information (Proofprint, 2018). As executives daily go through dozens of emails, they must continuously be on the watch to track suspicious addresses and avoid opening them. Attackers take advantage of such inattentiveness, therefore, perpetrating easily entered security defenses, which were failed to be double-checked. Otherwise, the confidential