Legacy Systems: A Hacker’s Favorite Backdoor

The cyberattackers are getting sophisticated with time and the welcoming of intelligent technologies. The systems are getting harder to break into, people are aware of phishing methods, and malware is not easy to install nowadays. However, they still have a favorite backdoor into breaching organizations and retrieving data for their benefit. An endpoint that is still not updated with time and poses vulnerabilities easy to detect, a legacy system. This must have raised questions as to why these are susceptible to data breaches.

The answer lies within the foundation of legacy systems that stems from being outdated. Such systems are hard to upgrade as per the new trends, pose unidentified vulnerabilities that become endpoints over time, and lack modern security systems that are effective for intelligent threat practices. These are reasons why hackers and cyberattackers find them worthy to attack and work through their weaknesses.

As the businesses are powering through system modernization, it is still evident to say that a few are preferring old legacies for their own reasons. Such decision makers are making their organizations a backdoor for hackers to pinpoint anomalies and take advantage of their laid-back business attitude. Prior to understanding the concept in depth, we still believe it is time to bifurcate the old legacies and consider how businesses can save them.

What are Legacy Systems?

As mentioned above, outdated legacy systems are solutions incorporated by businesses at the beginning of their establishment and have had close to no changes as per the modernizing needs. The technologies evolved and presented the world with inventive features, functionalities, and solutions.

However, these legacies remained close to their roots and chose not to restructure to meet the market standard. For instance, a legacy software may be functional for the organization, but when compliances and security updates are mentioned, it is believed that it lacks them because of no changes. This way, such systems become either receptive to cyber attack, or if not that, fall under the HIPAA and GDPR compliance violation.

Since we have talked about the legacy systems above, it is imperative to give you an in-depth understanding of what it is when compared to modernized software. The question arises as to why these are more susceptible and becoming a default choice for hackers.

What Makes These Legacy Systems a Favorite Backdoor for Hackers?

Coming to the main question, why do such legacies become a favorite alternative for hackers to target. What makes them worthy in the eyes of threat and an easy way not the business systems? This questions is rooting from the above table. Every minute issues becomes a valuable entrance into the system and can be easily tampered by hacker considering they are also equipping themselves for AI, ML, and other technologies. Rather than talking about them briefly, let’s go into detail.

1. Known Vulnerabilities, No Fixes

While we have been talking about the inventive attack-centric technologies, they become excessive when systems are outdated and have low or no security updates. Metaphorically speaking, it is like waging a war on a defenseless organization.

It is understood that as soon as the technology becomes legacy, the vendor prefers to move on to new solutions and no longer update the former. This way, the systems have multiple vulnerabilities, zero security patches, and high chances of exploitation. The efforts to penetrate vulnerability become easy, considering they are not fixed and are void of security measures.

2. Lack of Modern Security Controls

As we have mentioned that these legacies don’t have the updated version of security controls, them old ones become easy to break into. Considering that compliances like HIPAA and GDPR are in place to safeguard the user data, these regulations dictate businesses to follow certain rules when working with immense data.

However, while not following the compliance, it becomes obvious that these legacy system have not adopted modern security controls to defend themselves. Relying on methods is an indicator to risks and a backdoor for hackers to swoop in.

3. Insecure Protocols Still in Use

With legacy systems in place, following the protocol and monitoring becomes a tedious task. For instance, businesses have their data and workflow on-premise, leading to issues with data storage, sharing, and categorization.

Such circumstances lead to insecurity and uncertainty, a weak data transmission protocol, and, in the end, to monitoring the data leak point. Such an environment is like a gold mine for hackers to penetrate, skim through options, and breach without being detected.

4. Attackers' Awareness of Old System Tech

Being hackers, they have an understanding of how to locate an old system tech with the least security updates. That is the least because they can pinpoint technology’s status by apprehending the stack in itself.

Such awareness brings them an advantage, and the businesses with old legacies are at a loss towards data breach, reputational damage, and hefty penalties.

What are the Reasons Why Businesses Use Legacy Systems?

Now that we have understood why hackers find the legacy a chance at better attack, it is time to assess the reasons as to why businesses are still lagging behind. This brings us to comprehend that what are the contemplation points that are not proving in their favour and making them prolong the legacy system modernization.

1. High Replacement Capital Investment

To begin with the change, the modernization takes hefty money, considering the entire system is being restructured.

2. Non-Existence of Custom Features in Modern Tools

Custom legacy systems were built keeping the user-focused needs in mind.

3. Inertia Towards “Why Should We Change?”

No issues and data breaches with legacy systems are also equated with a non-transformational attitude.

4. Assuming That Modernization Can Cause Downtime

It is also assumed that system modernization causes downtime and inefficiencies in work processes.

Preferred System Modernization Strategies That Keep Hackers Away

While navigating through the guide on hackers’ favorite backdoor, we came across the decision-maker’s insecurities as well. Thinking about it makes us bring forth the strategies that can assist you in safeguarding your legacy system and defending the data from a probable breach.

1. Switch to Cloud Environment

Making a shift from an on-premise system to a cloud environment is a transition that changes the safety game entirely.

2. Refactor or Rebuild Critical Applications

If not choosing to shift to cloud, the least you can do is rebuild the entire solution to make it customized for users and sustain the features and components.

3. Retire or Isolate Non-Migratable Components

If choosing to migrate, sometimes it is better to make hard decisions on non-migratable components and introduce the audience to modern features.

4. Embed Monitoring and Threat Detection

As we mentioned that hackers find a monitorless system like a piece of cake to attack, instilling threat and vulnerability detection solutions into legacy systems, powered by AI, proves empowering.

5. Implement Zero-Trust Architecture

“Why trust anyone within the organization?” is the zero-trust approach that protects industry-focused business data from breaches.

6. Upgrade Authentication and Access Control

Instating multi-factor authentication and access control may appear as an excessive security method when logging in daily, but it proves to be the safest way to deter hackers through any door, let alone a backdoor.