Your Guide to External Cybersecurity Threats
From the outside, your business’s network looks like a fortress. But to an attacker, it’s a puzzle waiting to be solved. They are constantly scanning your digital perimeter for a single weak spot.
This is why successful external penetration testing is a crucial part of your cybersecurity plan. It helps you see your business through a hacker’s eyes. Most importantly, it helps you determine how to improve your security.
So, before hackers find your weaknesses, you need to find them first. Let’s find out how.
What Are External Weaknesses?
Think of your business’s digital infrastructure as having doors and windows that face the internet. External weaknesses are simply those doors and windows that have been left unlocked.
These are security flaws in your internet-facing systems that an attacker can find and use without needing any prior access.
Hackers use automated tools to search the internet nonstop, looking for these easy targets. They know that businesses have a vast and growing number of potential weak spots.
Once they find a way in, they use it to get a foothold in your network, steal data, or launch bigger attacks.
Common Attack Vectors and Real-World Examples
In the first half of 2024 alone, over 22,000 new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) were reported. This marks a 30% jump from the previous year.
Theory is one thing, and it’s great to understand. But the reality of cybersecurity threats is frightening, and rightly so.
Here are some of the most common external attack vectors and recent examples of how they were exploited.
Exposed and Insecure APIs
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are the digital messengers that let different software systems talk to each other. When they are not secured properly, they can become a direct line to your sensitive data.
Real-World Example: The Trello Data Leak (2024)
In January 2024, an attacker scraped the data of over 15 million Trello users. (Data scraping is an automated process that extracts large amounts of data from a digital source into a structured format, like a spreadsheet.)
This happened because a publicly accessible API allowed anyone to look up user information just by having their email address. The attacker used this to link millions of emails to Trello profiles, creating a huge list for targeted phishing attacks.
Weak or Stolen Credentials
This is one of the simplest yet most common entry points for attackers. It happens when accounts that are accessible from the internet use:
- Default passwords (like “admin” or “password”),
- Easy-to-guess passwords, or
- The same passwords for multiple accounts.
Real-World Example: The Zacks Investment Research Breach (Disclosed 2025)
In early 2025, attackers gained high-level access to Zacks’ internal systems. They did this by using a single stolen password for an administrator account.
This one weak point allowed them to steal the usernames, passwords, emails, and phone numbers of nearly 12 million users. This shows how a single compromised password can give an attacker the keys to the kingdom.
Misconfigured Cloud Services
Cloud storage is handy, but one wrong click in the settings can leave your private data open to the public. This often happens with online storage folders where the permissions are accidentally set to “public” instead of “private”.
Real-World Example: The DeepSeek Database Exposure (2025)
In January 2025, the AI company DeepSeek was found to have left a database open to the internet without a password. This simple mistake exposed over a million log entries.
The exposed data included user chat histories and internal company keys, all because of one simple configuration error.
Unpatched Software and Systems
It’s unavoidable; all software has bugs. Unfortunately, these bugs can sometimes become security holes. When a company finds a security network vulnerability, it releases an update, or “patch,” to fix it.
If you don’t apply these updates, you are leaving a known vulnerability open for attackers to exploit.
Real-World Example: The SAP NetWeaver Vulnerability (2025)
In April 2025, a major flaw was found in SAP’s NetWeaver software, a platform used by thousands of large businesses.
Attackers immediately started using this known weakness to break into the systems of at least 581 companies around the world, letting them upload malicious code and take control.
Phishing That Compromises External Access
Phishing emails are designed to trick your employees. The goal is often to steal the passwords they use for work email, VPNs, or other online company portals.
Once an attacker has a working username and password, they don’t need to “hack” in; they can just log in.
Real-World Example: The Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack (2024)
One of the most disruptive cyberattacks of 2024 started when a cybercriminal group got into Change Healthcare’s network using stolen credentials.
The credentials gave them access to an external portal that didn’t have multifactor authentication.
From there, they launched a ransomware attack that crippled large parts of the U.S. healthcare system and exposed millions of people’s private data.
How External Penetration Testing Protects Your Business
So, how do you find these unlocked doors before an attacker does? That’s the job of external penetration testing.
An external pentest is a controlled, friendly attack where our ethical hackers at 7ASecurity search for these exact types of network vulnerabilities.
By thinking and acting like a real attacker, we can:
- Map out every system you have facing the internet to see what a hacker sees.
- Find and test weaknesses to prove that the risk is real.
- Check if your perimeter security, like firewalls, is set up correctly.
- Give you a clear, step-by-step plan to address the problems we find, starting with the most important ones.
Proper external penetration testing is far more than a simple automated scan. Our experts provide a comprehensive code audit and manual testing to find complex flaws that automated tools miss.
Don’t wait for attackers to test your defences.
