Today’s major cybersecurity threats
Ransomware, data theft, production disruptions, software supply chain attacks and blackmail. This is what the IT threat landscape looks like in today’s hyperconnected world. And, depending on the context and environment, multiple vectors can be exploited at once.
Organizations of all sizes can be targeted, including corporations, governments, utilities, critical and industrial infrastructures, as well as personal computers.
What motivates attackers?
Their goals include extortion (data or money), destruction (systems, data or infrastructure), political and economic disruption (competition, cyberwarfare and international conflicts, market control), espionage and taking control of resources to ensure their persistence.
Even though a single vulnerability is enough to give attackers a way in, organizations and individuals should look to defend the entire attack surface, including all people, processes and technologies. To successfully safeguard your systems, you need to automate your security processes.
Being connected to the Internet means being present on an international battlefield. In this environment, passwords are practically useless when used as a sole line of defence. Enabling multi-factor authentication is the minimum requirement.
Cybercriminals work with organized groups within a burgeoning market that has unlimited resources financed by ransom payments.
Specialized groups will infiltrate your systems and establish persistent accesses. These accesses then get sold on the dark web to other criminals who use them to attack networks or send phishing emails.
They launch low-cost mass attacks to spread ransomware to as many people as possible
Social engineering is used for more targeted offensives, like scams to influence presidential campaigns. Initiatives like this require in-depth knowledge of the environments and can enable criminals to reach different objectives.
Looking for easy access, attackers prey on bad practices. They may try to convince unwitting personnel to do things that ultimately put your IT security at risk. Or they’ll look for systems that haven’t been updated and have easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities, so that they can take control of the systems and steal data.
To defend themselves, organizations need to protect their infrastructure and endpoints to prevent lateral movement, where one workstation infects another. They also need to implement automated security solutions and advanced email filtering to reduce pressure on individuals. Providing personnel with cybersecurity training is also essential.
In short, organizations need to adopt best practices and support them with proper planning and documentation. Read more about our cybersecurity solution.
Automating incident detection and response
Automating incident detection and response makes a big difference, especially now that so many people are working remotely and perimeter protection is no longer possible. Home networks aren’t adequately protected. Each system should have its own detection and response capabilities, as a simple antivirus isn’t enough.
Most often, cybercriminals are based in other countries, which makes it hard to take legal action against them. To compound matters, proving who was behind a cyberattack is extremely complex. As a result, the old adage applies: prevention is the best medicine.