All businesses, large or small, continuously face threats from a variety of sources. It takes expertise to manage your approach to vulnerability in the constantly evolving work environment.
- Since there are always new types of malware, how will your business cope with the detection gap?
- Is your firewall up to date?
- Your employees require cloud-based software to operate business functions. Do you have the latest patches for this software?
- What exactly are your business security requirements?
Intrusions through New Business Devices
Do you use the IoT (Internet of Things) in your enterprise? For example, do you have sensors in your meeting rooms to adjust the temperature or lighting for the PowerPoint presentation? Are you able to locate an available conference room that is not being currently used as indicated by sensor technology? Does your building include a smart refrigerator or TV? Are there wireless routers or security cameras in your building? Many plants have smart sensors that notify and regulate the deployment of parts. At present, your answer could be no, but very shortly, the IoT devices will enter your environment.
With the introduction of this new wireless technology comes many opportunities for hackers. For example, the devices are often manufactured in China and sent across the world with lax security settings, making them easy to connect to your network using the default settings. It is essential that the parameters be upgraded to maintain an optimal level of security.
“At the high end of the scale, Intel projected internet-enabled device penetration to grow from 2 billion in 2006 to 200 billion by 2020, which equates to nearly 26 smart devices for each human on Earth. A little more conservative, IHS Markit said the number of connected devices will be 75.4 billion in 2025 and 125 billion by 2030,” informs TechTarget.
These devices share information through an IoT gateway in the cloud to make the data quickly available when you need it. The availability of the data makes using these devices appealing but opens the possibility of a security breach. Specifically, the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) transfers data from machine to machine. “But just like any other UDP-based protocol, CoAP is inherently susceptible to IP address spoofing and packet amplification, the two major factors that enable the amplification of a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack,” explains ZDNet.
Governments are struggling to set regulations for these devices, but the response time is slow while the manufacturing pace and change are at lightning speed.
Business Email Vulnerabilities
- How will your employees determine if a business email signed by the CEO is real or fraudulent? You can expect that new tactics will need to be set into place to prevent any phishing schemes or malicious attacks. You will need continuous training on cybersecurity methods to keep your business safe. Your employees deserve to know the changing face of the scams so that they can exercise judgment based on the latest trends. Don’t let them be caught off guard.
- Stolen passwords should be prevented. “Wombat Security’s 2019 State of the Phish report shows that credential compromise increased by more than 70% since 2017. Research from Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) shows a 98% rise of compromise of web-based email accounts using stolen credentials – seen in 60% percent of attacks involving hacking a web application,” according to The SSLStore. It will be vital for your employees to use hard-to-hack passwords. With a few simple guidelines, these passwords can be easy to remember but hard to hack.
- Email and document sharing can now be protected with technological solutions. Did you know that the sender’s identity can be verified? Sensitive email conversations can be encrypted and decrypted to safeguard the information contained in the correspondence. There are security protocols that allow data to be shed securely among identified participants.
Typical Response to Ransomware
“In an email from Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos, the expert sees ransomware becoming more targeted, and attackers only focusing on major targets, like businesses and government agencies, the ones most likely to pay ransom demands,” forecasts ZDNet. It may surprise you that small and medium-sized businesses often elect to pay the ransom as it is far more cost-efficient to outlay the amount demanded instead of launching an investigation into the crime. However, paying a ransom should be just a fallback strategy. Wouldn’t it be wiser to be prepared for your business security requirements by engaging expert assistance to prevent the attack in the first place?
The Cloud
While the use of the cloud increases, so does the concern over information security in the third party’s hand. “When asked about the greatest threats to applications running in the public cloud, the single most common response (66.5% of IT professionals) was sensitive data uploaded to the cloud,” outlines a report from McAfee. While not all threats result in the loss of sensitive data, the operating time lost in dealing with the breach can be substantial.
Timely Installation of Patches
The software companies have changed their policy recently concerning patches. They no longer ship out the patches automatically. This is a cost-cutting feature in their business plan. Your business must have someone guiding you through the process of updating patches where required to prevent leaks in your security system.
AI is a Hacker’s Tool Also
Just as the cybersecurity firms are engaging in the latest AI (artificial intelligence) technology, so are the hackers acquiring these techniques. With this tool, the attack on a system can be endless as the AI capability increasingly learns about your system. Also, with AI capabilities, the software will change its own program so that it can hide in plain sight. With the speed of adaptation, having a blacklist is rendered ineffective. “Not only are attacks more likely to be successful and personalized, but detecting the malicious piece of intelligent code and getting it out of your network is likely to be much more difficult, even with AI security in your corner,” reports Raconteur. Is your firewall, equipped with the latest techniques to resist a barrage of attempts to breach your security?
How do you Respond? Get Defensive
These are just some of the latest issues of your business security requirements. It is without a doubt that you and your staff are fully engaged with your core concerns. You do not have the time or the knowledge to deal with this sort of problem. The fast pace of the cybersecurity world demands the skills and knowledge of a professional firm. Don’t be caught unprepared. Hiring among the best cybersecurity firms such as NST will relieve you from worrying about the damage a breach can cause. Send us email today!