Recognizing and mitigating cybersecurity threats can prevent financial loss, data disruption and reputational harm. A successful threat management program includes regular monitoring using automated tools as well as taking a holistic approach to minimize the attack surface.
Common attack vectors for IoT devices and harvesting account credentials to sell on the dark web include malware, social engineering (phishing attacks), cloud misconfiguration (data leakage), and misconfiguration mismatch. Threat actors also frequently target these devices with IoT attacks and harvest account credentials to sell on dark web.
Preventative Measures
At every turn, news headlines report of another major cybersecurity breach impacting millions of individuals’ personal information. While large businesses increase efforts to defend against cyber attacks, criminals increasingly target small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which tend to have limited resources available for responding to security breaches.
As such, SME leaders must take proactive measures to mitigate any associated risks. Here are a few preventive measures they can put in place:
Establish a network firewall that restricts only necessary traffic for your business to mitigate against risks from man-in-the-middle attacks, password hacking and phishing emails. Doing this will reduce unauthorized access from man-in-the-middle attacks, password hacking or phishing emails.
Train your employees on cybersecurity best practices. This should include teaching them to recognize phishing scams and what steps to take if they receive suspicious emails. A comprehensive security program should include strong password systems, regularly updated antivirus software and protective software programs as well as remote storage for backups to reduce any data breaches impact.
Be sure that the latest versions of both your operating systems and application software are installed, particularly cloud apps which may receive frequent upgrades. Doing this will protect against hackers exploiting out-of-date vulnerabilities that hackers might exploit.
Consider installing secure boot, which ensures devices only load verified software. This can prevent attackers from exploiting unsigned scripts, device drivers and operating system firmware to compromise devices and deliver malware.
Develop a disaster recovery plan that covers data protection, offsite backups, system reconstitution and configuration changes – this should form part of your overall cybersecurity strategy and should be regularly evaluated to detect any gaps or weaknesses.
Consider implementing two-factor authentication for any sensitive data stored on your system or in the cloud, to prevent brute-force attacks that attempt to guess passwords until one works. It is also essential to encrypt all backups regularly to protect from ransomware threats and theft of data.
Detection
Cyber threats to an organization may originate both internally and externally. Malicious employees could engage in system sabotage or data theft; unwitting workers might click a malicious email link or download malware. Malware is the primary cyber threat, and includes viruses, worms, Trojans and spyware. While viruses inject themselves into applications for access to operating systems via vulnerabilities in software systems, worms exploit software vulnerabilities to gain entry. Trojans pose as harmless programs like games or email attachments before installing themselves on devices. While malware typically enters through untrustworthy websites, emails or unwanted downloads, it could also come through compromised privileged accounts.
Organizations seeking to detect cyber threats should conduct a risk analysis to assess all physical and logical assets that attackers could target, as well as any attacks surfaces hackers may exploit to access critical data. A comprehensive risk evaluation includes reviewing known assets like servers and software; untested assets like apps imitating your company name; unknown assets that mimic your brand; social engineering attack surfaces (attackers can target employees to trick them into divulging confidential data); as well as social engineering social engineering attacks surfaces where attackers try to induce employees into giving out confidential data by means of social engineering techniques used against employees to gain entry to secure networks to gain access critical data from networks and servers in an enterprise network environment.
Assessment should also evaluate the security posture of external vendors whose products and services are utilized by a company’s infrastructure, since vulnerabilities in third-party tools can create gaps between an organization and its infrastructure, potentially leading to breaches. To safeguard against this scenario, companies should require third parties to meet minimum security standards that stay up-to-date.
On the basis of their risk assessment results, organizations should create a cybersecurity threat detection plan that incorporates both passive and active measures for threat detection. Passive methods might include firewalls, anti-virus software and intrusion detection systems while active threats can be detected using threat intelligence solutions that monitor network traffic for signs of malicious activity such as Flowmon Security Intelligence which provides a complete picture of threats at early stages. Flowmon offers security intelligence which analyzes all activity across their network to provide early warning of emerging threats even when these are undetected using traditional signature-based detection tools.
Response
As soon as a threat is detected, it’s time to implement a changed cybersecurity response plan. At this stage, the expertise gained by cyber risk mitigation specialists becomes essential. An effective cybersecurity incident response (IR) plan provides tools needed to detect and deal with threats such as ransomware, data breaches, DoS attacks, malware and more.
First step of a cyber incident response should be identifying both the source and extent of a threat to your organization, which includes determining which systems are critical to business operations, how they’re being utilized, as well as any third-party vulnerabilities such as those found in vendors’ software systems used for business operations.
These details should be used to compile a comprehensive list of cybersecurity risks known as a cyber risk register. From here, key risk indicators and exceedance thresholds can be set, which should be updated on an ongoing basis to monitor and keep it accurate. Once prioritized risks have been identified and prioritized accordingly a GRC platform could help centralize and document them all for you.
Even with all of your preventive measures in place, it is possible that a malicious actor could find their way into your network. Therefore it is crucial to remain alert and keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary activity on your network – investing in user behavior analytics such as Varonis can quickly recognize unusual activity and alert you before it has the chance to cause harm.
Manufacturers can safeguard themselves by raising employee awareness of what to look out for and how they should respond in the event of an attack. Smaller companies should especially devise and implement an incident response plan designed to minimize its effect on their bottom lines should an attack occur.
Prevention
Cyberattacks come in various forms and can wreak havoc on your reputation, cost you money or threaten your health and safety. While data breaches and ransomware extortion may be among the more prominent threats, other attacks that could have serious repercussions for you organization, your family or community must also be considered serious risks.
Cybercriminals are constantly searching for ways to steal or compromise personal data. You can decrease the risk of attacks on your devices by adopting some basic security strategies.
Staying current with device software and systems updates is one of the best defenses against cyberattacks. Many cyber attacks take advantage of vulnerabilities in outdated system or device software; therefore, make it a priority to regularly apply updates to your operating system, hardware and other applications.
Limiting access to company devices only to trusted employees is another effective way to protect against unauthorized cyberattacks. Controlling physical access to laptops and handheld devices is essential in keeping these tools from falling into cybercriminal hands; you should also reset these devices back to factory settings before discarding them.
An organization should establish and enforce a stringent password policy across all devices within its domain to prevent password theft, which occurs when threat actors obtain real credentials of users and mix them with fake credentials to gain unauthorized entry to systems and devices.
Other types of cybersecurity threats include tampering with industrial control systems, vehicle hacking and cryptojacking attacks by hackers who can use these techniques to steal cryptocurrency and gain access to personal or company data; additionally they could disrupt essential services like transportation or power grids using such techniques.
Another key strategy in protecting against cyber attacks is creating a comprehensive disaster recovery plan (DRP). A DRP should cover offsite backups, system restoration and configuration changes as well as processes for handling any suspicious activities or files that come your way. Creating one will significantly lower the risk of experiencing significant business disruption due to cyberattacks.