Cybersecurity companies – During 2020, companies faced wide-ranging difficulties involving the pandemic situation and that created their dependence on remote workforces. Accelerated digital transformation policies meant that several businesses found themselves onboarding latest technologies to sustain the organization progression. Consequently, the accelerated acquisition and deployment of these technologies indicated that several businesses required the time aspired to join in extensive customer due diligence.
In 2020, we all quickly became aware of the word “social distancing”, and, repeatedly, this idea had tremendous suggestions for how individuals live, and in how companies think about cybersecurity and company continuity. The survey shows that Google searches for social distancing skyrocketed from a baseline of 0 to 297,000 researches in February 2020, topping at 408,000 searches in March 2020.
This accelerated shift brings a host of security risks for business and we think four trends will take over the cybersecurity landscape for businesses in 2021.
1.Extended Focus on Phishing Attacks
A phishing attack occurs when fraudsters or hackers use a false identity to trick innocent people. With the transformation beyond from on-premises methods and toward cloud-based services, security leaders should not be surprised at this initial forecast. Nevertheless, the statistics underlying it are also distressing than the vision itself. According to June 16, 2020, Microsoft report, cybercriminals aligned their phishing attacks to economic interest and news.
Internationally, phishing attack figures followed COVID-19 pandemic situation. The information measured at trails of various countries across several geographic regions, demonstrating that phishing attacks centred on regional challenges. Shockingly, this occurred in 2019 to the Carle Foundation Hospital. Criminals obtained access to three of the employee’s email accounts through the use of a phishing scam. The ensuing research discovered these accounts provided the imposter access to personal patient medical histories and Social Security information.
What should your business do to shield itself from phishing attacks?
First, watch for unexpected emails and prompt messages. They may originate with strange contents such as “Dear Client” rather than using your name, have incorrect grammar, or have a simple signature.
Second, be careful in clicking links or providing personal information, even if it seems genuine. If in uncertainty, immediately contact the authorities to ensure they sent the email.
And third, set up anti-phishing plugins on internet browsers. These toolbars notify you to platforms containing phishing data.
2. Heightened Ransomware Attacks
Although a subset of malware attacks, ransomware attacks usually restrict client access rather than quietly stealing information in the framework. With ransomware attacks heightened, imposters are taking control over databases, preventing user access. Then the criminals demand money, or a bribe, before granting access back to the business.
Also Read: Privacy: Does It Exist Anymore?
Straight Edge Technology presents ransomware attacks as an extremely common crime in 2021, particularly in small and medium-sized businesses.
Since employee productivity relies on the capacity to obtain cloud-based sources, cybercriminals will possibly proceed to develop these threats and enhance their usage, considering that the fear to manage business continuity will influence more further businesses to pay the ransom. The analysis supports this theory with 46% of surveyed customers requiring companies to pay a ransom if their monetary information is included.
What should your business do to shield itself from ransomware?
First, ensure you keep all your network software and device updated. Outdated software, operators, and other plugins are prevalent security vulnerabilities. If you have a department of IT, you should check with them to ensure that it might not be occurring on your servers.
Second, artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions with valuable data sets that make sure that companies are appropriately examining threat patterns, eventually keeping pace with most advanced methodologies.
3. Database Exposure
It is when a security breach reveals database data to crime or theft.
Database exposure happens in several ways.
Some fraudsters utilize social engineering attacks to gain access to personal information, and others use malware to obtain authorization.
Businesses will use servers to receive client data, SET examines data exposure being a major challenge in 2021. Most businesses databases involve client contact data, monetary records, or identity records such as SSN.
Database exposure is the fuel it becomes for malware phishing attacks which is one of the main problems.
Presently, around 250,000 American and British job seekers have credential data exhibited when two recruitment websites, Genuine Jobs and Sonic Jobs, were not able to set their cloud databases as confidential.
As a consequence, confidential data, including phone number, email addresses, passports, and utility bills, was exploited.
What should your business do to shield itself from database exposure?
First, initially, if you have a private network, retain the physical data in a protected and secured file. Data breach and identity theft can be stopped by secured file and restricted employees are restrained from authorizing it
Second, ensure you have a database firewall and platform application firewall. A locked room protects your physical hardware, and a firewall shields your server on the internet.
Third, it is the responsibility of organizations to make sure that their employees clearly recognise the methods imposters use to fool the employees and target organizations so that they can understand signs of a database breach at the initial stages.
4. Credential Stuffing
Credential stuffing is a cyberattack where stolen account credentials are acquired to access client personal login information. This is mostly done in situations where similar login credentials are given to various platforms or accounts.
With most platforms being digital, the world can expect credential stuffing to be a significant risk in 2021.
Canada Post presently examined some of their client’s account data had been accessed in 2017 by credential stuffing.
Although the correct estimate of affected records was concealed, Canada Post immediately began resetting all their employee’s personal login information.
What should your business do to shield itself from credential stuffing?
First, companies should implement 2FA for logging in accounts. This provides an SMS or phone authentication along with the basic credentials.
Second, use various passwords for each account and software your user’s access. If an account is hacked, the cybercriminals won’t have the authorization to more accounts with similar login information.
And third, don’t share personal data such as passwords with other individuals. If you have a shared account due to a specific reason, always give the login information orally, never through electronic correspondence.
Looking Ahead by Looking Behind
In a constantly evolving digital and physical warning view, ensuring data becomes more important than ever before. Institutions need to attain flexible solutions that give them to continuously monitor, recognise, and alleviate distinct risks in real-time. Which is why institutions should opt for Know Your Customer and Anti Money Laundering (AML) solutions that alleviate prevailing risks while allowing scale as the digital footprint grows. Yet, they also expect to connect the information gap that can endure among CISOs, CIOs, and the foundation of the excellence management unit.
Companies managers can focus on shielding their information technology stack by looking back at 2020 to fill gaps developed by accelerated cloud-first or cloud-only techniques. Therefore we might not understand what tomorrow will present, we do remember what occurred yesterday.
