Rules for the transfer of software from development to operational status must be defined and documented. Development and test activities can cause serious problems, e. The level of separation that is necessary, between operational, test and development environments, to prevent operational problems must be considered to ensure adequate protection of the production environment. Where possible, a similar separation must also be implemented between development and test functions.
In this case, there is a need to maintain a known and stable environment in which to perform meaningful testing and to prevent inappropriate developer access. Where development and test staff have access to the operational system and its information, they may be able to introduce unauthorized and untested code or alter operational data.
On some systems, this capability could be misused to commit fraud, or introduce untested or malicious code. The untested or malicious code can cause serious operational problems. Developers and testers also pose a threat to the confidentiality of operational information. Development and testing activities may cause unintended changes to software and information if they share the same computing environment.
Threat outcomes may lead to disclosed private info, deceived users, disrupted computer system use, or seized access privileges. Web threats often result in, but are not limited to, causing:. Cybercriminals will use almost any vulnerability within an operating system OS or an application to conduct an attack.
The most concerning internet threats travel the web to attack more systems. These threat agents often use a mix of human manipulation and technical commands to reach their targets. Web threats of this nature use the internet's many communications channels to spread. Larger threats use the global internet to respond to threats, while more targeted threats may directly infiltrate private networks.
Typically, these threats are distributed through web-based services. Malicious actors prefer to place these threats in locations where users will often engage with them. Public websites, social media, web forums, and email are often ideal for spreading a web threat. Users are affected when they engage with malicious URLs, downloads, or provide sensitive info to websites and message senders.
This engagement may also trigger infection and spread of web threats to other users and networks. Despite the unending scope of web-based dangers, it is possible to spot some general traits of web threats. However, spotting a web threat requires a vigilant eye to catch subtle details. Some web threats are clearly of concern to web infrastructure hardware, such as water and heat. While those are easier to spot, others require careful attention.
Any time you are browsing websites and receiving digital messages are when you should be most cautious. As mentioned previously, web threats typically include human and technical manipulation in order to attack. Be aware there tends to be overlap between web threats, and some may occur simultaneously. Some of the most common web threats may include the following. Social engineering involves deceiving users to act unknowingly against their own best interests.
These threats usually involve gaining the trust of users to deceive them. Manipulating users in this way can include:. Includes malware and harmful scripts lines of computer programming commands to create or exploit technical vulnerabilities. Where social engineering is the human side of web threats, malicious code is the technical side. These threats can include but are not limited to:. Exploits are intentional abuses of vulnerabilities that may lead to an undesirable incident. Cybercrime refers to any unlawful activity conducted via computer systems.
These threats often use the web to enact their plans. Typically, web threats refer to malware programs that can target you when you're using the internet. The main tool behind such browser-based infections is the exploit pack — which gives cybercriminals a route to infecting computers that either:.
The list includes the following types of online threats:. Among the many examples of web threats, here are some of the more well-known examples:. This threat was particularly dangerous because of its worm functionality, allowing it to spread completely autonomously.
WannaCry exploited a native communication language within Windows to spread this malicious code. A spear-phishing attack led to the breach of numerous celebrity iCloud accounts.
This breach ultimately resulted in the unauthorized leak of countless private photos from these accounts. While the attacker was eventually located and prosecuted, the victims are still suffering from their intimate photos being made public — without their permission. This has become one of the most well-known phishing attacks of the decade.
Full protection from web threats means you will need to find ways to cover these weak points. General tips to follow for both end-users and web service providers include:. Service providers like website owners and server operators are where true comprehensive security starts.
These parties will need to take precautions for better protection. They can do this by:. We use cookies to make your experience of our websites better. By using and further navigating this website you accept this.
Detailed information about the use of cookies on this website is available by clicking on more information. Web threats definition Web-based threats, or online threats, are a category of cybersecurity risks that may cause an undesirable event or action via the internet. This term typically applies to — but is not limited to — network-based threats in the following categories: Private network threats - impact sub-networks connected to the wider global internet. Typical examples can include home Wi-Fi or ethernet networks, corporate intranets, and national intranets.
Host threats - impact specific network host devices. The term host often refers to corporate endpoints and personal devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, and traditional computers. Web server threats - impact dedicated hardware and software that serve web infrastructure and services. What are web threats? While not all web threats are created deliberately, many are intended — or have the potential — to cause: Access denial. Access acquisition. But senior executives should recognize the impact this factor has on their companies and ensure that, whenever possible, career opportunities and rewards are based on performance that extends beyond any single acquisition.
For example, an aging electronics company made a series of acquisitions to gain access to new and different technologies. Because some managers viewed these new subsidiaries as the only path for growth in the company, they arranged transfers to the recent acquisitions and took with them important operating people from their old divisions.
Other players whose interests are at stake include outside advisers, especially investment bankers. Because they are compensated on a transaction basis, their fee does not vary dramatically if a deal takes three weeks or nine months to close.
It is in their interest, therefore, to conclude the process quickly—in part because, within investment banks themselves, merger and acquisition activity involves no risk capital.
Indeed, merger and acquisition work offers a more certain path to profitability than do traditional corporate finance or security sales and trading aspects of the investment banking business. This situation may create a serious problem: companies use these outside experts to provide objective, professional advice, yet these advisers face a conflict between representing their own interests and those of their clients.
Of course, there are some restraints on increasing momentum to make deals. Prevailing laws and most corporate bylaws require the board of directors to approve acquisitions. Perhaps board members assume that management has already evaluated these issues adequately. Most companies do not make acquisitions sequentially with several acquisitions coming close together.
As a result, few companies have opportunities to learn over time. When a company has experience in integrating acquisitions successfully, this familiarity may serve to slow momentum.
Of course, it is not always possible or desirable to slow down the acquisition process. Once a potential candidate is identified, managers are faced with the very real threat that another company could buy it. Indeed, moving quickly to acquire another company is appropriate in many cases.
For example, if a management group sees only one candidate that meets its strategic requirements, or if imminent environmental changes could close off an opportunity, then quick action may be the best choice. For each acquisition, managers should consider what factors are accelerating the process and distinguish openly between corporate strategy and such factors as the interests of special groups or individual career and ego issues.
These considerations are, of course, intertwined in most situations. But addressing each one separately in a forthright manner can help the participants challenge easy or convenient explanations for making the deal rapidly. After several years, we had indigestion so badly that we wished somebody else had acquired them. Experienced acquirers we interviewed consistently emphasized that it is better to let a deal go than to let momentum sweep a company into a partnership that it has doubts about.
A more concrete set of actions to mitigate momentum involves adjusting the incentives to do the deal that the various parties are experiencing. The CEO and board should address the ways that such motives can escalate pressure to consummate an acquisition. Because acquiring company managers can exercise the most control over internal rewards, we will focus on those incentives here. These rewards can take many forms.
Career enhancements and ego satisfaction are two we have already highlighted. Another practice that some companies adopt is to appoint key acquisition analysts to top management roles in the newly acquired subsidiary.
These procedures may encourage managers to think about taking the business into new areas, may foster managerial continuity throughout the acquisition process, and may help integrate preacquisition analysis into postacquisition operations. But these methods also reward the pursuit of inappropriate acquistion candidates and can compound the problem of increasing momentum.
An alternative that seems to address both sets of problems is the early and prominent involvement of line managers in the acquisition process. Their experience can help the acquisition team remain focused on potential operating problems that analysts who lack an operating orientation might miss. When CEOs or other managers believe that the outcome of a proposed acquisition could affect their reputations, pressure to consummate the deal builds.
It would be naive to recommend that managers simply attempt to maintain a sense of distance and perspective—as though that were easy to do. But one technique that can help is a formal check-and-balance system that keeps those responsible for dispassionate review out of the process. The CEO or the board can play such a role. It may still be difficult to slow the momentum, even with changes in reward structures. Some companies counter this problem by involving experienced board members and managers in acquisition activities.
An experienced team is more likely to identify and probe into potential trouble spots and resist the urge to pursue poor choices. Our research indicates that the experience most lacking on acquisition teams is not that of staff or consultant specialists but of general managers who have been involved in all phases of an acquisition—including trying to make the partnership work. During the acquisition process, both suitor and target enter into negotiations with certain expectations about the purposes of the acquisition, the benefits they expect, levels of future performance, and the timing of certain actions.
To reduce the potential for disagreement during the negotiations and to facilitate closure, the parties often agree to disagree for the moment and postpone resolution of difficult issues. Such practices may help to provide maneuvering room in negotiations and opportunities to save face in public announcements. They may also help both parties find a common ground for agreement on seemingly intractable issues during the fast-paced negotiations.
The two sides, however, must eventually clarify those parts of the agreement that remain ambiguous. As trust breaks down, both parent and subsidiary managers may overreact and become involved in bitter disputes. The ambiguity that had helped to close the deal may become a source of difficulty and conflict once the agreement is finalized. But the two sides could not reach agreement on the responsibility for and on the timing of these actions.
Instead, they left these decisions to other managers who had not been involved in the negotiations. The differences of opinion that subsequently arose led managers in the parent and the subsidiary to compete with each other rather than with outside competitors, which hurt overall corporate performance. When their expectations for postacquisition performance are not met often predictably , parent company managers may believe that their earlier doubts about weak or incompetent management in the subsidiary were correct.
As conflict builds, managers in the acquired company are likely to believe that their worst fears of a malevolent takeover have been confirmed.
In short, managers of acquisitions face an ironic situation: ambiguity is useful—if not essential—during negotiations. Yet the very ambiguity that aids negotiating sows the seeds of later postacquisition problems. Managers should not seek to eliminate the ambiguity and uncertainty that are bound to be present.
Instead, they should focus it. Participants on both sides need to examine important aspects of the deal and decide which outcomes or actions are essential to them. Companies can resolve these ambiguities successfully by separating negotiating issues into two categories: inflexible requirements to which both parties must agree, and negotiable items that can either be resolved later or left ambiguous.
The two sides should address these points explicitly and should be willing to cancel the deal if they cannot reach agreement. Once they take this step, managers on both sides can then focus their attention on outcomes or actions they consider important but negotiable.
We expect a certain return on our investment and have developed and refined a set of control systems that are an essential ingredient in our management approach. Classifying and distinguishing sets of issues has other benefits too. Managers on both sides can develop an agenda for dealing with deferred issues in the immediate postacquisition period. In many cases, the operating managers, who must make the acquisition work after the deal, should handle these questions. Although some changes must be left to the operating managers, guidance should be provided concerning the purpose of the acquisition and the performance requirements.
If a common focus is lacking, mistrust between the parties will almost inevitably develop, forcing managers on both sides into defensive positions rather than an attitude of cooperation. We see your XYZ division as our entry into that business. Such clarification helps both the negotiating and the operating managers to sort out the problems and issues that must be addressed. Equally important, clarification provides an external focus for their combined activities and reduces the possibilities of political infighting.
In contrast, overly precise statements of performance expectations can backfire and increase rather than decrease the ambiguity and uncertainty in the situation. Precise definitions of expected results are often based on financial calculations that outside analysts have prepared with neither a detailed operating knowledge of the companies or industry nor a stake in making it work.
If detailed objectives become a straitjacket, they can have serious consequences as business conditions change. While qualitative statements are more ambiguous, postacquisition managers will have more room to maneuver if they have a general framework to guide them in the future. According to our research, a generally unacknowledged factor—the process itself—affects the outcomes of many acquisitions.
We are not suggesting that these barriers occur in every acquisition; their frequency varies with the circumstances. But we have found that hindrances do exist in the acquisition process, and they can have a significant impact on the ultimate success of the deal.
Also, understanding how they might affect your particular situation can help minimize their detrimental effects. Who are the key advisers in this acquisition?
How do their analyses address the way in which the business will operate after the deal is closed? What is their incentive to contribute to the integration of the two companies after the acquisition? Are any of them given precedence in decision making? Are some analyses systematically ignored? Are the decision makers giving adequate attention to operational considerations and nonquantitative issues?
What person or group is charged with integrating analyses? Are these people important and respected senior members of the organization? Do the reasons for the acquisition support arguments for speeding up the process? Does only one appropriate candidate exist?
Is internal development an option if no acquisitions materialize? Do environmental factors for example, other bidders or impending regulatory changes make it essential to act quickly?
What are the sources of pressure to complete the deal? How is the rush to close affecting the acquisition?
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