Should Cybersecurity Experts Worry About Inactive Data and Legacy Apps?

Dormant Data: The Hidden Risk for Your Organization

Inactive or dormant data might not be on your radar, but it should be. This refers to information that’s no longer in use but still stored — things like old customer records, archived emails, historical transaction logs, or backup files. Even though this data isn’t active, it can create significant risks for your organization if left unprotected or ignored. Let’s explore why.

Dormant Data is a Magnet for Data Breaches

Dormant data often contains sensitive information—personal details, financial records, or even intellectual property. Hackers know this and are quick to exploit the fact that inactive data is usually less protected than actively used information. Once compromised, this data can lead to costly financial losses, legal repercussions, and a tarnished reputation. Don’t assume dormant data is safe just because no one is using it—hackers are always looking for easy targets.

The Compliance and Legal Minefield

Regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA don’t distinguish between active and inactive data when it comes to protecting sensitive information. Dormant data that isn’t properly secured could lead to significant fines and legal trouble. On top of that, keeping unnecessary inactive data could violate data minimization principles, making compliance even more of a challenge. Ignoring dormant data is a risk your organization literally can’t afford.

An Unmonitored Vulnerability

Because dormant data isn’t regularly accessed, it often slips through the cracks of routine security monitoring. This creates a perfect storm for attackers—they can quietly exfiltrate sensitive data without triggering alarms. To minimize this risk, dormant data needs to be moved to a secure store that can be easily accessed when needed.

Rising Costs and Inefficiencies

While the security risks are significant, dormant data also has operational implications. Storing excessive data in legacy systems can drive up costs and complicate data management processes. From a cybersecurity standpoint, too much unnecessary data can slow down backup and recovery efforts, delaying responses to potential incidents. Cleaning up dormant data is about reducing risk and streamlining operations.

The Bottom Line

Dormant data may seem harmless, but it’s far from it. By taking a proactive approach—retiring, securing, and minimizing inactive data—your organization can reduce its attack surface, ensure compliance, and improve operational efficiency. Don’t let dormant data be the weak link in your cybersecurity strategy.

Outdated & Overlooked: How Legacy Applications Endanger Your Cybersecurity

Although legacy applications are older software systems, they can still be crucial for supporting essential business functions, particularly when used to retain historical and necessary data. However, these applications can pose challenges and risks related to cybersecurity. Therefore, it is important for cybersecurity professionals to pay attention to legacy applications and understand the unique considerations they present.

Lack of Vendor Support

Many legacy applications are no longer supported by their vendors, meaning they do not receive regular security patches or updates. This situation leaves known vulnerabilities in unsupported software without a safety net, making these systems attractive targets for cyberattacks. Cybercriminals often exploit outdated software with obvious vulnerabilities, significantly increasing the risk of data breaches or ransomware incidents.

Compatibility Issues with Modern Security Tools

Legacy applications often miss out on the benefits of modern security tools, like SIEM systems, endpoint protection platforms, or intrusion detection solutions. This gap can really limit monitoring capabilities. When monitoring or logging isn’t set up properly, these older systems can create noticeable blind spots in an organization’s security setup. Plus, modern defenses such as encryption, multifactor authentication, or secure APIs might not work seamlessly with legacy applications, which can leave them more exposed and affect the overall strength of an organization’s security strategy.

Expanded Attack Surface

Outdated applications often present opportunities for attackers to sneak into a network and find their way to more important systems, which heightens the risk of lateral movement. Since these applications might not follow modern network segmentation practices, they can create unsegmented connections that make it simpler for attackers to reach sensitive areas. Moreover, a lot of legacy systems depend on older libraries or third-party tools, leading to even more vulnerabilities and increasing overall security concerns.

Compliance and Regulatory Risks

Many legacy systems pose major compliance headaches for organizations, and fail to meet today’s regulatory standards like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, exposing companies to fines or legal issues. Additionally, these systems store sensitive data, but their vulnerabilities hinder compliance with best practices. They often lack essential reporting or logging features needed for audits and investigations. Addressing these challenges is vital for protecting your organization’s reputation and avoiding costly repercussions.

Data Security Risks

Legacy systems often come with significant data security challenges that make them easy targets for attackers. For starters, many older applications store or transmit data without encryption, leaving sensitive information vulnerable to interception or theft. On top of that, legacy systems frequently house dormant or inactive data that, while no longer in use, may still contain valuable or sensitive information. If this data isn’t properly secured, it becomes a prime target for cyberattacks. To complicate matters further, many legacy applications lack modern access control mechanisms like role-based access control (RBAC), which can lead to misuse or unauthorized access. Updating these systems or securely archiving dormant data isn’t just about keeping up with technology—it’s about protecting your organization from unnecessary risks.

Operational Risks

Legacy systems often come with a host of reliability issues that can create significant risks for organizations. These older systems are notorious for their high failure rates, which not only disrupt operations but can also expose sensitive data during crashes or downtime. Recovery from these incidents is often more complex and time-consuming, as legacy applications lack the streamlined processes and tools available in modern systems. Adding to the challenge, legacy systems are typically tightly integrated with other applications or hardware. This interdependency means that a security incident or failure in one area can quickly cascade into larger disruptions across the organization. Addressing these vulnerabilities is crucial for maintaining operational stability and protecting sensitive information.

Increased Cost of Security Management

Securing legacy systems feels like juggling, needing manual workarounds such as compensating controls and isolation within a segmented network. These processes are time-consuming and require specialized expertise, driving up costs. Maintaining and securing legacy systems is expensive due to niche knowledge demands. Instead, resources spent on outdated systems could fund strategic cybersecurity initiatives that enhance overall security.

Insider Threat Potential

Legacy applications often fall short when it comes to security, especially in the area of user access. Many older systems lack advanced authentication methods, which leaves them vulnerable to insider misuse or credential theft. To make matters worse, these systems frequently grant users excessive permissions, opening the door to accidental or malicious insider threats. If something goes wrong, the situation is compounded by inadequate logging capabilities, making it nearly impossible to detect misuse or conduct effective forensic investigations. Addressing these gaps is crucial for safeguarding sensitive data and reducing the risk of insider threats.

Impediment to Digital Transformation

Holding on to legacy applications can hinder modernization efforts, blocking the adoption of secure technologies such as cloud computing and zero-trust architectures. Migration risks increase if older systems lack security, raising concerns about potential data breaches. Additionally, legacy systems waste resources and create inefficiencies, stalling organizational improvements and innovation. Modernizing your technology stack and retiring legacy systems is essential for competitiveness and security.

Increased Likelihood of Supply Chain Attacks

Legacy systems often come with hidden risks that can compromise an organization’s security, particularly when it comes to third-party components. Many of these systems rely on outdated third-party libraries or services, which increase the likelihood of supply chain attacks. Over time, these dependencies are frequently forgotten, leaving unmonitored and unsecured entry points that attackers can exploit. For industries like healthcare or energy, the stakes are even higher. Legacy systems in these sectors often underpin critical infrastructure, making them high-value targets for cybercriminals.

The Bottom Line

Legacy applications may serve critical business functions and hold essential data, but their outdated nature makes them a significant cybersecurity concern. By addressing these risks proactively, cybersecurity professionals can protect their organizations from breaches, ensure compliance, and pave the way for modernization efforts. Ignoring legacy systems is no longer an option in today’s evolving threat landscape.

In Summary

When you retire legacy applications and archive data that is no longer active, it will lead to some positive changes. Not only does this boost the organization's security, but it also helps streamline operations, ensure compliance, and manage costs better.

One of the most vital strategies a cybersecurity professional can do is to reduce the attack surface. Retiring outdated systems eliminates vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit, such as unpatched software or unsupported frameworks.

From a data security standpoint, archiving or securely deleting inactive data reduces the volume of sensitive information that could be targeted in a breach. This also results in a much smaller attack surface, which means fewer entry points for cybercriminals, and simplifies security management.

To ensure you’re staying ahead of compliance guidelines, archiving inactive data is crucial for meeting regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA by retaining only essential data and ensuring secure storage or disposal.

infoCorvus recognizes the importance of these issues and is ready to help. Our approach to phasing out obsolete applications and handling inactive data ensures that you cover all essential elements to shield your organization from the potential risks tied to outdated software and dormant data. Please feel free to visit our ROAD landing page to see how.