Cybersecurity Threats Tech Teams Must Be Prepared For: Part 2 – The Nightmares Continued

Welcome back to another installment of "Your Attack Surface Is Probably a Dumpster Fire." If you read the first part, you already know that cybercriminals aren’t taking days off, and security teams are fighting an uphill battle.

Today, we’re covering five more cybersecurity threats that keep CISOs awake at night. Because why stop at ransomware and cloud misconfigurations when you can throw hypervisor attacks and business logic exploits into the mix?

Of course, TRaViS ASM is here to make your life easier—because trying to secure your network without attack surface management is like trying to cook without a stove. Let’s dive into Threats before your boss asks why cybersecurity spending keeps going up (hint: because the threats do, too).


Legacy System Vulnerabilities: Ancient Relics of IT Past

Woman working on a laptop in a modern glass corridor with sunlight streaming in, representing outdated IT systems vulnerable to cyber threats
Your legacy systems are so outdated that hackers see them as low-hanging fruit—except in this case, the fruit is rotting, covered in malware, and practically begging to be stolen. Still running Windows Server 2008? Fantastic—so are the attackers who already have pre-built, time-tested exploits lined up like a greatest hits album of cybersecurity disasters.

And don’t even think about saying, “But it still works!” Sure, and so does a 20-year-old flip phone, but you wouldn’t use one to run your entire business, would you?


Still feeling good about that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy? Attackers sure hope so.


Why Legacy Systems Are a Hacker’s Playground


  • No modern security patches = an open invitation for exploits. Hackers don’t even have to try.
  • Compatibility issues make upgrades a logistical nightmare = so most companies just… don’t.
  • Attackers love targeting industries that can’t afford downtime (healthcare, manufacturing, government), because they know you’ll pay up to keep operations running.


Why Legacy Systems Are a Hacker’s Playground

  • No modern security patches = welcome mat for exploits.
  • Compatibility issues make upgrades a logistical nightmare.
  • Attackers love targeting industries (healthcare, manufacturing, government) where legacy systems must stay operational.


How TRaViS ASM Helps You Deal With Outdated Tech


Automated Alerts
:

TRaViS will detect and alert if your outdated tech in your external attack surface is outdated and vulnerable.


Continuous monitoring:

If an attacker so much as looks at your outdated system funny, you’ll know.


Reality Check:

If your system is old enough to vote, it’s old enough to be hacked.

Source: CISA Legacy System Guidance


Phishing Scams: Fool Me Once…

Oh Wait, It’s Still Happening

Business professional using a tablet with cybersecurity icons and a lock symbol, representing phishing threats and online security risks.
Phishing is like a mosquito that just won’t quit—except instead of an itchy bite, it’s stealing your login credentials and wreaking havoc on your entire organization. No matter how many times you swat it away, it keeps evolving, getting smarter, more deceptive, and harder to stop.

Gone are the days of obvious scams from a “Nigerian Prince” asking for wire transfers. Now, AI-generated emails are flawless, deepfake phone calls sound eerily real, and hackers have mastered impersonating executives so well that your CFO might as well be working for them.

How Phishing Still Works (And Why It’s Getting Worse)


  • Attackers craft AI-generated emails that are scarily convincing—no more bad grammar or weirdly polite threats. Just perfectly faked messages that pass right through your filters.
  • Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams trick employees into wiring money—because “urgent requests” from the CEO tend to get fast approval.
  • Spear phishing targets high-level execs—because let's be honest, CEOs don’t sit through security awareness training.


How TRaViS ASM Helps Your Team Not Fall for Scams


Dark web monitoring:

Know when credentials are exposed before attackers use them.



Reality Check:

If you still think "My employees would never fall for phishing," just wait until one of them does.

📖 Source: Phishing Statistics Report 2024


Business Logic Exploits: When Hackers Use Your Own Rules Against You

Woman in futuristic visor holding a laptop, representing business logic exploits and cybersecurity vulnerabilities in automated processes.

Cyber criminals don’t always need to hack your system the traditional way. 

Why break down the front door when you can just walk in through an overlooked side entrance?


Instead of brute force attacks, they exploit flaws in business logic, twisting your own processes against you. These aren’t software vulnerabilities—they’re loopholes in how your system is designed to operate. And once attackers find them, they milk them for everything they’re worth.


How Hackers Abuse Business Logic

  • Refund fraud: Abusing return policies for free products, because why steal when you can trick the system into giving it to you?
  • Feature abuse: Finding ways to manipulate app behaviors for unauthorized access—because “that’s not how it’s supposed to work” doesn’t stop attackers.
  • API manipulation: Altering requests to escalate privileges, bypass security checks, and do things your system never intended.

How TRaViS ASM Keeps Business Logic in Check

Security-aware code reviews:

Helps dev teams spot vulnerabilities before hackers do.

  Threat intelligence integration:

Because "we didn’t think of that" isn’t an excuse.


Reality Check: 

Hackers don’t break the rules. They play by them—better than you do.

📖 Source: OWASP Business Logic Attacks


Software Supply Chain Risks: When Open Source Bites Back

Businesswoman interacting with a digital security interface, representing software supply chain risks and open-source cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Ah, open-source software. Free, flexible, widely used… and a ticking time bomb if you’re not careful. It’s the backbone of modern development, but here’s the catch: attackers love it just as much as developers do—but for very different reasons.

The reality? Open-source isn’t the problem—blind trust in it is. With thousands of dependencies, countless contributors, and a constant stream of updates, one bad package can poison an entire ecosystem. And by the time anyone notices? It’s already too late.

How Software Supply Chains Get Compromised

  • Attackers inject malware into popular open-source libraries—because why hack a company when you can just infect the tools they use?
  • Developers unknowingly import compromised dependencies—and suddenly, that "trusted" library is now a security disaster.
  • Updates push out infected code to thousands of apps instantly—because supply chain attacks scale like a dream (for hackers, at least).


How TRaViS ASM Keeps Your Supply Chain Secure

Third-party risk monitoring:

Because "just trust the vendor" isn’t a security strategy.


Secure development practices enforcement:

Ensuring your developers aren’t introducing vulnerabilities.


Reality Check:

If your CI/CD pipeline doesn’t include security checks, it’s basically a delivery system for vulnerabilities.

📖 Source: Sonatype State of the Software Supply Chain


Hypervisor Attacks: Hacking the Layer Beneath Your Virtual Machines

Cyberpunk warrior wielding a glowing cable, symbolizing hypervisor attacks and cybersecurity threats to virtual machines.

Hackers love virtual machines—especially when they can compromise the hypervisor and take control of everything running on it. Think of the hypervisor as the puppet master behind your entire virtual environment. If an attacker gets their hands on it, they own your infrastructure.

And the worst part? Most security teams focus so much on securing individual VMs that they forget the hypervisor is a single point of failure. Hackers don’t need to break into every virtual machine—they just need one crack in the foundation to bring the whole thing down.

How Hypervisor Attacks Work

  • Attackers escape guest VMs and take over the entire host machine—because why compromise one system when you can have them all?
  • Exploiting vulnerabilities in VMware, Hyper-V, and Xen—because hypervisors aren’t immune to security flaws.
  • Once inside, they pivot to all connected virtual machines—turning your cloud environment into their personal playground.

How TRaViS ASM Helps You Stay in Control

Anomaly detection in virtual environments:

Flagging strange activity before attackers get comfortable.


Reality Check:

Your entire cloud environment is one hypervisor exploit away from total compromise.

📖 Source: NIST Hypervisor Security



Travis asm logo.



FAQ: Your Cybersecurity Questions, Answered with Brutal Honesty

1. If I have a legacy system, does that mean I’m doomed?

Not necessarily—but if you don’t isolate it and apply security controls, you will be breached eventually.

2. How do I stop employees from falling for phishing scams?

You train them relentlessly and deploy phishing-resistant MFA. Expecting humans to never click? Good luck.

3. What’s the biggest risk in open-source software?

Blindly trusting it. If you’re not scanning dependencies for vulnerabilities, you’re gambling with security.

4. Can hypervisor attacks really take down my entire infrastructure?

Yes. If an attacker controls the hypervisor, they control everything running on it.

5. Will TRaViS ASM replace my security team?

No, but it will make them actually effective by eliminating wasted effort.

6. Does TRaViS ASM integrate with existing security tools?

Of course. What good is a tool if it doesn’t play nice with the rest of your stack?

7. How often should I scan my software supply chain?

Continuously. Because attackers don’t wait until next quarter to introduce malware.

8. What’s the best defense against phishing?

Zero-trust email security, aggressive training, and assuming every email is a lie until proven otherwise.

9. Where can I get started with TRaViS ASM?

Right here. Schedule a demo and let us show you just how exposed you really are.


Cybersecurity Threats Tech Teams Must Be Prepared For: A Reality Check from TRaViS ASM