If you’re not an I.T. wiz, some of the descriptions of the router security features might seem more like a foreign language than anything aimed at helping you decipher which integrated services router is right for your company. We’re here to help you understand the security features of a router by breaking them down for you one at a time. Let’s talk about Data Diddling.
First off, what is it?
Data Diddling is one of the worst types of hacker attacks because it’s not immediately obvious that anything has happened. Unlike ‘data destruction’ where the attack results in data being deleted completely – and sometimes, unfortunately, this data is irreplaceable – data diddling changes the data in your system but doesn’t delete so it still appears to be there the assumption is that the data is correct.
Think of it this way, a hacker breaks into a network and deletes your client database and all the data surrounding your account receivables. Your accounting staff come into work, sit down at their computers, and find that the records have vanished. There’s no way know who owes you how much, which invoices are outstanding, who you’ve sold what to. It’s devastating, but at least you can immediately go into crisis mode and get some I.T. professionals in to help you try to recover the data.
With data diddling, the hacker goes in and keeps all the account receivable records, but changes the amounts that you’re owed. Or changes a few bank account numbers. Or tinkers with some addresses, or credit card numbers you have on file, or whatever else he feels like tinkering with. You don’t immediately know anything has happened. It could be weeks or months before a payment comes in that’s completely different than what you expected and someone actually decides to go into the system and start figuring out the source of the discrepancy.
At first, it might be assumed to be human error, but then it happens again a week later, and then again. Finally, you realize you must’ve been hacked—things are different and wrong – but when? How do you know which records are accurate? How can you roll back to the records that you had before the attack when you don’t even know when the attack occurred?
That’s why data diddling is such a problem and keeping your network secure with a security module is necessary to prevent both data diddling and data destruction attacks.