Рубрика: Cybersecurity

As cities get smarter through connected networks, they become more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The umbrella term of a smart city is more than a concept, it is a dream. The smart city is a space where everything is connected to each other and is highly dependent on technologies. However, the issue here is that smart cities are short of security measures. When everything is interlinked, the stretch to encrypt and protect the city from cyberattacks falls behind putting people’s personal information at risk.

Smart city is a framework, predominantly composed of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to develop, deploy, and promote sustainable development practices to address growing urbanisation challenges. Today, 54% of people worldwide live in cities, a proportion that is expected to reach 66% by 2050. Citizens engage with smart cities ecosystems in various ways using smartphones, mobile devices, connected cars and smart home appliances. Pairing all these devices with a city’s physical infrastructure and service can cut costs and improve sustainability. People living in smart cities can improve energy distribution, streamline trash collection, decrease traffic congestion, and even improve air quality with the help of high-end technologies. The concept of smart city on an overall outlook is to provide citizens with technologies that save their time and ease their lives. It is also about connecting them to the governance where they can give feedback on improvements. As cities get smarter, they become more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Even though when the government tries to encrypt 100% of the citizen’s personal data, it is nearly impossible to do so. Henceforth, people are ought to take simple measures in order to protect their information.

Technologies used in smart cities

Until recently, governments thought of smart technologies primarily as a tool for becoming more efficient behind the scenes. Now, technology is highly influencing people’s life in smart cities for more than that. Here are some of the futuristic technologies that are shaping the future smart cities.

Information and communication technology

The major goal of a smart city is to have a two-way communication channel. Information and communication technology (ICT) is used to bridge the gap between citizens and government. The communication between laymen and higher authority is what makes a good nation. Smart cities are built in a considerable aspect where a normal citizen can put out his/her opinion to authorities. A big part of the ICT framework is essentially an intelligent network of connected objects and machines that transmit data using wireless technology and the cloud. The governments can further analyse the obligations and address the issue.

Geospatial technology

Smart cities are complex when it comes to developing infrastructure. The cities should have a right plan that is sustainable and acknowledges accurate, concise and detailed data for its improvement. The handy solution to address the issue is to use geospatial technology which could help in building smart cities. Geospatial technologies provide accurate geospatial data and aids in analysing and applying the enormous amounts of data in the best way.

IoT devices

Internet of Things (IoT) plays a major role in connectivity inside smart cities. IoT devices such as connected sensors, lights, and meters can collect and analyse data for better functioning of smart cities. The gathered data is further utilised to improve infrastructure, public facilities, services, etc. Some of its features include keeping a tab on the state of traffic, improving waste recycling, maintaining the quality of water and air, accessing tele-assistance services and get immediate incident management.

Smart crime prevention

Metropolitan cities are densely populated. Henceforth, it is difficult to maintain and track down or capture a law offender. Sometimes, crimes might also go unnoticed due to lack of surveillance, action or witness. Smart cities employ technology to tackle these challenges. For example, airports, railway stations and bus stations have facial recognition technology that detects and alerts officials when it finds criminals in the crime list.

Advantages of developing a smart city

Even though when developing a smart city is a tough job that needs complete organisation of the program and heavy efforts, the advantages that follow are more than rewarding. Smart cities also stand as a sign of development drawing investments from multi-national companies across the globe. Henceforth, Analytics Insight brings you a list of advantages of developing a smart city.

Taking data-based decisions- Since smart cities gather almost all information by connectivity using IoT services, it is easy to take accurate, data-driven decisions.

Better transport facility- Smart cities are designed to tackle traffic issues and give real-time information on bus and train locations. It has improved traffic management system which makes it easy for commuters.

Safe community- Constant connectivity between citizens and government and 24×7 surveillance drastically reduces crimes. If not, it at least helps police officials to track and find the offender.

Cybersecurity issues and how to tackle them

The interconnectivity across virtual and physical infrastructure that makes a smart city work also has its downside in cybersecurity risks. Smart cities are vulnerable to numerous cyberattack techniques such as remote execution and signal jamming, malware, data manipulation and DDoS attacks. Henceforth, it is the responsibility of officials and citizens to secure their data and has encrypted systems.

Connected smart devices should be protected by comprehensive IoT security solutions. Usage of secure boot technology prevents hackers from replacing the firmware with malicious versions, thereby preventing attacks. Every time you connect your smart device connect to the network, make sure that it is authenticated before receiving or transmitting data. A lot of data is generally collected to have an overview of traffic conditions. If officials see security violations in the collected data, they should take action to formulate the overall security policy to quarantine the devices based on anomalous behaviour.

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Securing your personal information has become a daunting task these days. Besides, the COVID-19 crisis has allowed hackers or other cyber-terrorists to exploit the discrepancies found in millions of users’ social media profiles hassle-free.

Due to that reason, cybersecurity issues like identity theft have increased at an alarming rate worldwide. As per the recent study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research, losses related to identity fraud are continuously rising as they have surged by 15% during 2020 alone.

Social media profiles aside, users prefer to conduct torrenting activity by visiting torrenting websites that help them download their desired torrent files on multiple devices free. This is where the issue of identity theft arises as torrent sites infect millions of users through malware.

Therefore, if you are a torrenting freak like us, you should use a trustworthy VPN service like ExpressVPN for anonymous torrenting. Thus, you can protect yourself from the negative consequences of identity theft, such as loss of credit card information, usernames, passwords, banking details, etc., accordingly.

Causes of identity theft

Hackers and other cybercriminals can use different ways to target particular users. Hence, you should not fall for harmful tactics such as phishing and malware that can infect your different devices significantly. This way, you can lose your sensitive personal information and official data too.

Furthermore, you should refrain yourself from using public Wi-Fi networks as hackers can easily access them and manipulate your crucial data to fulfill their illicit objectives.

What should I do to secure my personal data from identity theft?

Fortunately, you can follow different practices that will help you protect your personal information from identity theft appropriately. These practices are:

Use social media wisely

Social media websites or services can harm your online privacy a great deal. In short, you should not overshare your personal data on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. Otherwise, there are chances you can become a victim of doxing as doxers can use your sensitive information and publish it over the web without your consent. Consequently, you can find yourself in hot waters.

Do not download malicious content

If you do not want to be a target of phishing attempts and malware, do not download malicious content on your devices at any cost. Unfortunately, different websites contain malware and other viruses that can negatively impact the performance of your devices if you download them unintentionally.

The downloaded malware or virus can access your personal data including usernames, passwords, etc and monitor your web surfing activities. Above all, it can sell your personal information to third-party marketers.

Ask before submitting personal information at workplaces, schools, and others

Before you provide your personal data at schools, workplaces, businesses, websites, etc. you have every right to ask them why they need your information and how they will protect your information online. There is no harm in asking them about the consequences if you do not share your information with them.

Use strong passwords

You must use password managers like Mitro that helps you in protecting your login details on different websites. Mitro is a browser-based password manager that prevents you from storing your crucial passwords on sticky notes and other documents.

Luckily, you can install Mitro on different web browsers such as Google Chrome, Safari and Mozilla Firefox too.

Secure your laptops, smartphones and other devices through updated software

You should update all your devices regularly no matter if they are personal or official ones. If your devices have been infected by viruses or malware previously, you had better update them via antivirus or other required software to overcome security vulnerabilities. Additionally, it will protect your devices from various cybersecurity threats that might jeopardize your privacy in the future.

Ghostery

Ghostery is another online privacy tool ideal for improving your online anonymity appreciably. It is an attractive browser extension that helps you discover websites that monitor or track your online browsing activities.

Considering the issues of online tracking, you can avoid visiting such websites. Hence, you can surf the internet from anywhere without compromising your privacy.

Virtru

Virtru is another impressive email encryption service like GNU Privacy Guard that encrypts all your incoming and outgoing emails. Interestingly, you can install this excellent privacy tool as browser extension on Chrome and Firefox extensions respectively.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to securing your personal information from identity theft issues, you should rely on a VPN. Apart from this, you should follow the other tips or suggestions described above to take your online privacy next level.

Moreover, you should alway keep an eye on different signs related to identity theft. These can be receiving new credit cards you did not apply for, receiving calls about bills of products you did not purchase, etc.

In short, protecting your personal data online is not a tricky task provided you have followed all the required cybersecurity measures smartly.

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Cyber Range Training: Understanding the basics

Cybersecurity is one of the integral parts of an organizational framework. The more security-savvy a company’s workforce is, the better are the chances to design and implement security strategy both today and tomorrow. And for this the team must be well skilled at detecting and responding to the latest cyber threats. However, in reality, a huge gap exists in cybersecurity based skills.

Besides, most of the companies lack proper funding to train new Security Operations Center (SOC) team. And even if a company has a cybersecurity team, the team members may lack advanced skills in areas like security analytics or forensic investigations, thus putting an additional burden of company to accommodate this deficit. Meanwhile, with rising cyberattacks, it is essential that employees are up-to-date with modern cybersecurity practices. According to recent studies by Cybersecurity Ventures and Verizon, cybercrime will have cost US$6 trillion in worldwide damages by 2021. Protecting enterprise resources is no longer about installing anti-virus softwares, employees must be prepared and proactive. Therefore the one stop panacea to these issues: cyber range.

A cyber range is basically a virtual environment that is used for cybersecurity training and development. It allows a trainee to model IT/OT systems built up of several machines and simulate realistic scenarios including real cyber threats. It is an exciting, immersive and fun way to effectively train an organization’s front-line people. The key objective behind these training sessions is to help IT professionals gain hands on cyber skills within a secure realistic environment. While earlier cybersecurity training programmes were offered mainly to IT professionals of SOC team, anyone can avail cyber range training and simulation programmes to learn about tackling cyberattacks, maintaining and building protocols around a remote workforce and more.

Circadence.com, reveals that active learning helps improve team-collaboration, enhances practical knowledge about application of real-world exercises, thus improving memory retention rates to 75%, compared to 5% through traditional learning method. This is also why providing training via real-life simulations in cyber range also proves effective as it will enable participants to visualize how these threats occur in real-life (e.g. ransomware, man-in-the-middle, SQL injection, and DDoS) and respond to them in a simulated environment, by experimenting with various strategies.

Further, since there is no limit on the number of time one can undertake cyber range training, participants can commit practicing to improve their expertise and gain thorough hands-on experience so that they are ready to respond when a threat occurs. It will also augment their reasoning and analytical skills as they understand how to detect, assess, and respond to an actual cyberthreat based on their interactive hyper-realistic cyber range training. Moreover, these training events help build resiliency and agility too. Also, since these trainings are repeatable, in case if anything goes wrong with the cyber range environment, it can be quickly and easily reset or recreated so that trainees can continue their practice.

At the end of the training, cyber range participants receive a certificate of attendance according to the levels and types of courses they complete. The levels and types like entry-level or specialized, single or multi-stage attacks, are selected from catalogue provided by cyber ranger vendor. Trainees can also request for full-fledged advanced assessments to review performance and assess skill levels. In addition to that one also receives expert feedback from security leaders and specialists with decades of experience in real-world response and threat intelligence. This provides the opportunity to benchmark an organization against the most mature firms and perform a gap analysis on opportunities. Apart from businesses, cyber range is also offered at military and government agencies and private seminars too.

To surmise, business organizations can opt for cyber range training to evaluate their cyber capability, test new procedures, select new hires, train their team about ways to counter cyberattacks virtually, before they are introduced to face real cyber threats. The experience and knowledge gained at cyber range training can help security leaders to devise strategies for urgent action, workforce succession, technological improvements and more.

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Cyberattacks are among the top 10 risks

The scale and seriousness of cyber disasters as of late has caught the consideration of business leaders far and wide. Cyberattacks are among the top 10 risks, regarding the likelihood and seriousness of impact, in the World Economic Forum’s most recent Global Risks Report. In the US, 53% of CEOs are incredibly worried about the effect of cyber threats on their development prospects, as indicated by PwC’s Global CEO Survey.

Numerous companies have increased investment in their prevention, detection, and response capabilities. However, they time and again end up in recovery mode after an attack, if ransomware is the offender, wishing they had prepared and actualized better recovery options.

The ability to recover from adverse events –, for example, a ransomware attack and getting back to ordinary activities is alluded to as “cyber resilience.” Achieving more significant levels of cyber resilience is a need for any business that depends on access to data. When workers can’t access information, regardless of whether it’s stored on the network or on their own company-issued devices, the outcome is more than lost efficiency. Downtime and system interruptions can influence your associations with partners and customers.

It could make you miss out to a significant contender during a critical period of negotiations, and result in harmed reputation and lost credibility. When downtime happens over and again, it channels IT assets and removes IT staff from other key needs. That is the reason when you gauge the true expense of downtime, you need to factor in something other than the hourly expense of users who are straightforwardly affected. It’s likewise why there’s reasonable support for putting resources into a comprehensive business cyber resilience strategy.

Here are a couple of cybersecurity strategies that organizations should embrace to make their operations more secure and resilient.

Advanced Antivirus

There’s no uncertainty, cybercriminals can be shrewd and efficient. As organizations become more powerful at recognizing likely dangers, hackers have adjusted their strategies to dodge network firewalls and different safeguards. These avoidance procedures have made it important for organizations to deploy internet security with threat intelligence to distinguish malicious attacks that in any case look favorable. An advanced business antivirus solution utilizes inventive innovation to detect, block and remediate (by isolating) pernicious attacks that sidestep other, less refined antivirus solutions.

Lead catastrophe drills.

A hypothetical disaster drill (otherwise called a tabletop simulation) leads you to practice and perfect your company’s response to a cyber disaster. A powerful disaster drill should be interactive, realistic, and moderately stressful for participants. Drills should give workers a superior thought of their roles and responsibilities in a cyber disaster, and more prominent trust in their capacity to respond. Utilizing reasonable situations that are more uncertain will uncover response gaps. Tending to those holes will improve the reaction to, and recovery from, a real disaster.

Security as a Service (SaaS) orchestration

Organizations need to put resources into a comprehensive and cost-effective Security as a Service (SaaS) solution. Having a platform-based Cloud Content Security provider that incorporates email, web, next-generation firewall, endpoint security, and multi-factor authentication services will empower them to bypass cyber threats.

With the quick moving labor force and the persistently evolving environment, there is a requirement for enterprise-grade smart solutions that give access to a comprehensive smart perimeter security proposition that is vigorous, adaptable and can be readily deployed. With service providers presenting new capacities, companies need to remain side by side of the developments and must have a positive cybersecurity plan to implement these market leading threat protection solutions.

Backup Policies

Organizations owe it to their customers, stakeholders and partners to have a cyber resilience plan set up that tends to the full scope of data loss scenarios, including malware, incidental or malicious deletion, hardware failure and natural disasters. Since recognizing and remediating data loss can be tedious, it’s important to have copies of files and data for business continuity.

Scheduled backup with file versioning is fundamental for moderating explicit kinds of malware, like ransomware. With backup and file versioning, you can recuperate a spotless adaptation of a document as it existed before the disease occurred. The scheduling feature is significant since surrendering it to customers will ultimately lead to data loss. Scheduled backup with file versioning can mean the difference between paying a huge number of dollars in payoff, and full recovery with no ransom payment.

Cyber Awareness

Organizations are needed to implement IDS (intrusion detection services) and instruct their labor force digitally. They need to discuss routinely with their workers on cyber security protocols and create training programmes on information security and protection issues. The training projects can incorporate identifying phishing attempts, using a secure VPN and using end-to-end encrypted collaboration tools.

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The increase in cyber-attacks has threatened the security of the organizations globally. Regularly six out of ten organizations are encountered with an unprecedented situation of cyberattacks. Despite the robust security measures adopted by organizations, cyberattacks have increasingly permeated across the industry. A report by Accenture titled, “Innovate for Cyber Resilience” states that most organizations spend 10.9% of their IT budgets on cybersecurity programs. Despite this on an average, organizations are faced by 27% of security breaches every year, with 11% involving direct attacks. As per a report by IBM the average total cost of a data breach accounts to US$ 3.86 million.

The United States of America is listed amongst the country bearing the maximum cost of US$8.64 million with such data breach and cyberattacks, whereas healthcare is counted as the most expensive industry with an average loss of US$ 7.13 million every year. The average time required for identifying and containing a data breach is 280 days. This implies that most organizations do not have sufficient amount of inputs for preliminary detection of cyberattacks.

Since the year 2020 has been the most straining across organizations, the incidents of cyberattacks, security breach and data breach has also manifolded. Owing to the COVID 19, as organizations shifted to remote working, they are rendered to face an increase in cyberattacks and data breaches. Reports suggest that the cyberattacks, including ransomware and malware, have expedited by more than 200 billion this year. A Verizon report points out that 71% of security breaches are financially motivated, whereas 25% takes place with a motivation of espionage. The 52% breaches feature hacking, 28% involves malware, whereas 32-33% are performed through phishing and social engineering. In 2019, the global average cost of the data breach was recorded to be US$3.92 million.

Cyberattacks, not only impacts the financial module, but the reputation of organizations also gets threatened. With no possible relief from COVID 19, the remote working norm amongst organizations will continue. Hence, it is imperative to observe the trends that will shape the cybersecurity framework in the coming year so that organizations get readily prepared for it.

Rise of Cyber Terrorism

Cyber terrorism is usually aimed to either carry out extortion or targeting the government or government institutes for the personal agenda. Over the past years, cyber terrorism has been promptly rising, thus threatening the democracy of many countries. The incident of Marsek is a well-regaled example of cyber-terrorism. With an increase in the civil war amongst many nations, cyber terrorism will be the most challenging issue that the governments will be required to tackle.

No Relief from Data Breach and Exploitation

Data is the most important asset to understand the peculiar details about organizations. Over the past year, data breaches were amongst the top listed challenges faced by the organizations. Due to COVID-19, most organizations plan to embrace the new normal permanently. This implies that most networks will remain either less secure or insecure, thus posing no remedy from data breach and cyberattacks. It is estimated that the incidents of cyberattacks and data breach will be significantly exploiting the global market.

Increase in the Number of Cybersecurity Investments

Due to COVID 19, most organizations have realized the need for a robust cybersecurity system. An Accenture report says that 68% of organizations have realized to have advanced cybersecurity tools. Most organizations feel that artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation are the best tools to thwart cyberattacks and data breaches. Henceforth, 84% of organizations are either planning or have already invested in AI-driven cybersecurity tools. The report by Gartner has predicted the worldwide information security market to reach US$170.4 billion in 2022.

More Demand for National Security

With the changing geopolitical diaspora, the nations will be scaling up the cybersecurity measures to thwart cyberattacks. A report by Microsoft indicates that almost 89% of the cyberattacks gets carried out to harm the sovereignty of a nation. With changing dynamics, countries will be proactively engaging into national security agenda.

Educational Institutes will be the Next Target

There is no certainty about how the year 2021 will unfold for the educational institutes. The probability that schools, universities and colleges will go back to the normal functioning is unprecedented. As online teaching is the only option to continue providing education during the COVID-19 outbreak, and with no possible security measure deployed, the educational institutes will get targeted by hackers.

Security: The Healthcare Institute’s Priority

Undoubtedly, the COVID 19 outbreak has pushed healthcare institutes to take extra measures to secure their network. As reports suggest healthcare to be the most targeted sector by the hackers, many institutes will proactively deploy measures across the system that can protect the patient’s data and scale-up overall security.

Advancements in Cyberattack Methods

With many AI-driven tools available, the method of carrying out an attack will get enhanced. Most hackers and attackers will focus on getting undetected while carrying out attacks.

The post Aiming for Robust Cybersecurity: Top 7 Cybersecurity Predictions for 2021 appeared first on Analytics Insight.

How to Map out and Navigate Uncertainty in 2021?

The chief information security officer (CISO) is the executive responsible for an organisation’s information and data security. Although the role has been rather narrowly defined along those lines in the past, today, the title is often used interchangeably with CSO and VP of security, indicating a more expansive role in the organisation.

Ambitious security professionals looking to climb the corporate ladder may have a CISO position in their sights. 2021 will see new opportunities in the industry, but new and damaging threats are expected to emerge. Let’s look at top predictions of CISO in 2021.

Rise in Malicious Insider Activity

Malicious insider activity increases during times when people are facing challenges and economic uncertainty. At an event, Dr Jessica Barker, Cyber Security Consultant and specialist in the psychology and sociology of cybersecurity said, “We have to recognise the fact that there are circumstances at the moment, and looking into the near future that may influence a rise in malicious insider activity.”

AI-related Threats

As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) play a greater role in developing technology capabilities, AI and ML-related threats will likely grow, such as the poisoning of training data sets and model corruption. With ML relying on cloud-based data sets, visibility and security of goings-on outside the traditional perimeter will be essential.

Remote Working will continue

Permanent work-from-home will provide the final push for many organisations that have so far ignored the growing irrelevance of perimeter-based security controls. 2021 will witness consensus agreement that security requires to follow the data and the fortunes of security traders will hinge on their preparedness to deliver security and data protection from the edge rather than legacy security housed within an appliance.

SASE will converge

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture will be required to support a holistic zero-trust implementation, and these requirements will be the cornerstone for any future workforce digital transformation, offering full visibility, control and enablement for a secure cloud transformation.

Network and Security Strategy

As more organisations consolidate and move away from appliance-based security technology, IT and security departments will realise the cost savings and operational efficiencies the move to the cloud brings.

Organisations following a cloud transformation framework model such as Secure Access Service Edge could save cost average between 20% and 40% in 2021.

As organisations continue to adapt to cloud, employees are no longer on a corporate network, and so the operational investment must move with the data. The traditional legacy network and security stack become less relevant, while IT and security departments will become closely aligned.

More Attacks on Financial Institutions

Financial services institutions such as banks and other firms that are responsible for the security of consumer financial data must remain vigilant in their cybersecurity efforts throughout 2021. The high value of financial data, including Social Security numbers, banking details, and so on makes it a lucrative target for cybercriminals.

Financial services organisations are not breached as frequently as other industries like healthcare, but when they are breached, these incidents tend to be much larger and more detrimental than those experienced by enterprises in other industries. For instance, even though 7% of breaches in 2019 took place at financial services organisations, 62% of all records leaked in that same year were from financial companies.

COVID-19 accelerates Digital Transformation

If looking at 2020 from a technological point of view, we can discern a silver lining. There were rapid digital transformation efforts across industries organisations strove to comply with stay indoors orders.

Digitalisation has been an ongoing objective for countless organisations since the early 2010s. If stay-indoors orders were never enforced due to the coronavirus outbreak, many organisations would not have been embraced digitalisation yet. 2020 has stimulated 5G to keep remote workers connected. Companies expanded the use of AI and ML-infused analytics to grow their businesses and increased cloud adoption to enable businesses to achieve simplified innovation, faster time-to-market, easier scalability, and more.

International Partnership

The GAIA-X project is a great initiative for the European Union and will help boost new business models and smart services to all organisations operating in the region. Additionally, service providers will also get the opportunity to further incorporate together through a federated infrastructure ecosystem. Further development of the new digital benefits will highlight the importance of security services and controls. Organisations will generally require making sure their security program aligns with data infrastructure initiative.

Data Governance moves to the Cloud

Today, organisations are using data protection controls like DLP to manage their cloud applications and infrastructure. These controls will mature and be used to better align with data governance best practices next year. These include automation of inventories of cloud-managed apps and infrastructure aligned with Cloud Security posture Management with an automated system of record and record of processing for the organisations extended GRC and regulatory requirements. These best practices will automate data protection and privacy requirements that also support the latest data protection regulations and ensure data transfers are always supported by a valid data transfer agreement.

Privacy Regulations will grow

Due to the rapidly growing digitalisation and data breaches, we expect to see wider adoption of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET’s) allowing companies to share data with third parties for aggregation and analysis, without requiring sharing the raw data between the several parties, hence meeting the various privacy requirements.

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The rate of industrial cyber-attacks has grown exponentially, with data breaches in the first half of 2019 alone exposing 4.1 billion records.

Cybercrime has reached such magnitude that if the financial losses were converted into GDP, it would constitute the world’s third-largest economy. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that the global loss due to online attacks reaches a staggering $6 trillion by 2021 and up to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025.

According to Gartner Research, the ever-expanding worldwide information security market is forecast to reach $170.4 billion in 2022.

The most prevalent types of cyberattacks are phishing, social engineering, whaling, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, malware, and ransomware. While specific industries are more susceptible to particular cyber threats resulting from the industries’ outdated IT infrastructure, especially public healthcare suppliers, specific online industries bear the brunt due to their business models and digital infrastructures.

DDoS, malware, and ransomware are particularly adept at targeting online industries, with 71% of the breaches financially motivated. We’ll touch on the online sectors considered to be prime targets.

1. Gaming

Statista forecasts that the global video game market will be worth more than $138 billion by 2021, which led to this online industry becoming the most targeted by cyber attacks.

In addition to the market size, the gaming industry is an attractive target due to its unregulated market of in-game purchases and rare items. Not forgetting that the speed at which technology progresses leaves the sector susceptible to identity and access management challenges, policy violations, misconfigurations, and threats. Furthermore, attackers have identified gamers as a niche demographic with disposable income and a penchant for in-game purchases.

According to cybersecurity leaders Imperva, the relatively security-immature gaming industry accounted for 35.92% of the total DDoS attacks in 2019. Research has found that gaming represents such a large percentage of these particular attacks due to players’ willingness to pursue drastic measures to win.

A 2020 lawsuit brought forward against a purported DDoS-for-Hire service by game developer Ubisoft highlighted an instance where players could use DDoS to win multiplayer online games. This tactic’s reasoning lies in the fact that once a player loses connectivity, the player that remains online is victorious.

DDoS only accounts for a portion of attacks with additional cyber threats such as phishing, malware, and social engineering used to steal gaming accounts and passwords. From here, hackers can sell gaming accounts, game-related artifacts, or trick gamers into launching third-party software entirely unrelated to the game.

2. Online Casinos

The online industry most frequently targeted after gaming is the online gambling industry. This industry boasts a 2020 market size of $59 billion and is primarily technology-driven, with new advances rapidly integrated into online casino platforms to outperform rival online casino operators.

Compared with gaming, online casinos have faced significant industrial cyber attacks over the years. Still, they have come out on top due to the industry’s maturity and acknowledging the dramatic repercussions a successful attack could pose. The industry has taken heed of any potential cyber risks and acted accordingly to safeguard its platforms. The introduction of cryptocurrency as a form of payment further protects players’ identities and personal information as blockchains are virtually impossible to hack.

Successful cyberattacks are far and few between, although SBTech, an iGaming, reported a ransomware attack in March 2020. The company shut down its global data centers for more than 72 hours, leaving its customers without consumer-facing websites. The company successfully prevented any data breaches despite the attack with zero data compromised.

Fortunately, online casinos employ stringent safety protocols and incorporate sophisticated bank-grade encryption to keep players’ personal and financial details secure. DDoS attacks are frequent, with the online casino industry experiencing 32.25% of the global DDoS attacks in 2019, but most online casinos have reacted to this threat by implementing Cloudflare DDos Protection.

Online casinos approved and reviewed by industry regulators have the know-how and high-tech to safely deal with these attacks.

3. Computers and internet

Cloud services have come under severe threat, with research from DivvyCloud indicating that data breaches that resulted from cloud misconfiguration costing businesses nearly $3.18 trillion in 2019.

A Trustwave Global Security Report released in 2020 detailed that the volume of attacks on cloud services more than doubled (a 250% spike) from mid-2019 to mid-2020.

Before 2019 the main reasons for server hacks were to exfiltrate sensitive corporate information, set up DDoS infrastructure, or other cybercrime variances. Investigations detailed in Aqua’s 2020 Cloud-Native Threat Report have revealed that the vast majority of recent attacks on cloud servers aim to mine crypto by taking control of the servers by planting malware that hackers upload to public registries.

Taking control of cloud services has become so competitive that malware now incorporates complex techniques that effectively disable rival malware on the same hacked system.

4. E-commerce

According to Deloitte’s 2020 annual forecast, E-commerce holiday sales would reach $196 billion in the festive season, resulting in a 35% increase year on year. The incredible revenue naturally attracts hackers that have pivoted from outdated POS (Point of Sale) malware to web-skimming.

IBM’s X-Force Exchange, a threat intelligence platform, indicates that e-commerce threats have increased fourfold since 2018. The vast majority of the online threats now originate from seven to 12 groups collectively referred to as Magecart, with the term synonymous with web-skimming.

Web-skimming utilizes malicious JavaScript code into e-commerce checkout pages, sending payment card data directly to the attackers.

According to RiskIQ, a Leader in Attack Surface Management, an average of 425 Magecart incidents occurred every month in 2020.

5. Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges and startups are high-value targets for industrial cyber attacks. Successful breaches can result in massive financial losses from cryptocurrency and user database theft.

Hacker access to user databases is exceptionally problematic for investors as exchanges store large user databases containing sensitive personal information, including user-submitted documents used to verify their identity with crypto exchanges. These documents often take the form of government-issued ID, selfie, or proof of address, which could put investors at risk of targeted attacks and identity theft.

Cryptocurrency exchanges suffered massive losses in the last two years, with $170 million stolen from Italian-based Nano in 2018. The same year, a Korean crypto exchange Coinrail reported losses of over $40M in tokens following a hack.

The popular crypto exchange, Binance, reported a loss of more than $40 million in bitcoin after a well-orchestrated hack in 2019.

In 2020 Harvest Finance lost $24 million after a hack, while a cyberattacker stole roughly $150 million in crypto stored in hot wallets from KuCoin.

Final Word

Cybersecurity issues are becoming an everyday concern for online industries. Recent studies and cybersecurity reports detail an exponential increase in data breaches and online attacks from various sources, with these attacks accounting for billions in global financial loss.

Additionally, research suggests that a vast majority of online industries are poorly-equipped to handle the constant onslaught of attacks in an ever-changing technological arena, with many companies maintaining poor cybersecurity practices and unprotected data at severe risk of breaches.

As mentioned, numerous online industries have suffered colossal losses due to ineffectual security precautions, with company cultures forced to incorporate prevention and security best practices for fear of further repercussions. However, the fight is far from over as hackers continually change their strategies and target industries ill-equipped to defend their assets.

Fortunately, many high-risk online industries refuse to succumb to any type of cyberattacks and invest vast amounts of time and resources in safeguarding their platforms and data, which bodes well for its users and investors.

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Rapidly evolving technologies put cybersecurity at risk

Recent years have seen a host of new cybersecurity threats putting businesses’ cybersecurity strategies at risk. Cybercriminals today are capitalizing on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to breach data and confidential information. Combining AI technology can be an obvious solution to such threats if it is used correctly. It improves the capabilities of security professionals in assessing, examining and understanding cyber threats.

Artificial intelligence performs smarter detection and decision, and credited to its intelligence, it can help companies in their efforts against cyberattacks. By integrating this technology, cybersecurity professionals will have additional resources to tackle vulnerable networks and data from cybercriminals. AI technique brings improved insights while lowering response times.

In a recent Capgemini report, 42% of companies had seen a rise in security incidents through time-sensitive applications. Further, the report unveiled that two out of three organizations have plans to adopt AI solutions by 2020.

Promise of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity

Businesses are taking every possible step in a bid to combat cyberattacks. However, with the fast-paced digital revolution, it is hard to predict what new threats will emerge and how to address them. Artificial intelligence plays a crucial role in cybersecurity, analyzing data from a large number of cyber incidents, and using that data to detect potential threats. This technology performs it well by identifying user behaviors and all sorts of abnormalities in the network.

Artificial intelligence helps security experts with automated techniques that assist in addressing whenever cyber threats are detected. Alongside evaluating massive amounts of data, this technology allows the development of existing systems and software to reduce cyberattacks.

Reinventing Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity threats have always been a critical concern for businesses of all sizes and types. These threats not only disrupt companies’ financial aspects but also impact their reputation and customer locality. An AI-powered system can help under-resourced security operations analysts to stay ahead of threats. It also enables analysts to respond to threats with greater confidence and speed.

According to the Capgemini research, building up cybersecurity defenses using artificial intelligence is imperative for organizations. It found that 75% of surveyed executives reported that AI allows their organization to respond faster to breaches, while 69% of organizations think this technology is necessary to respond to cyberattacks.

Incorporating AI technology into a business’s existing cybersecurity systems can enable effective solutions to the ever-growing cyberattack landscape. But it is not as easy it seems. In an article, Naveen Joshi, CEO and founder of Allerin, writes some ways to be followed. These include biometric-based login techniques, using predictive analytics to detect threats and malicious activities, enhancing learning and analysis through NLP, and securing conditional authentication and access.

There are a growing number of companies coalescing artificial intelligence in cybersecurity to provide smart security solutions to their customers. For instance, Seattle, Washington-based technology company Versive utilizes artificial intelligence to identify critical risks in routine network activity and help security teams to get ahead of any sort of attack is detected. Cybereason, a cybersecurity analytics platform that provides threat monitoring, hunting and analysis, uses AI techniques. Its AI-powered hunting technology interprets whether or not an organization is under attack. Furthermore, SparkCognition, an Austin-based company, provides AI-enabled operations, security and automation solutions to a broader range of industries.

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In today’s fast-paced and digital world, the frequency of cyber-attacks has increased in terms of volume and complexity. This is why leveraging cybersecurity practices are becoming more critical than ever. According to Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, cybersecurity is the art of protecting networks, devices, and data from unauthorized access or criminal use and the practice of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.

Cyber-attacks are often targeted at accessing, manipulating, or destroying sensitive information, extorting money from users, or interrupting business processes or research programs (like during COVID-19) by exploiting vulnerabilities. Basically, these cyber-attacks can either be data breaches aiming to steal personal data, intellectual property, trade secrets, and information relating to bids, mergers, and prices. Or it can be DoS (denial of service) attack that can disable systems and infrastructure. Mitigating threats due to cyber-attacks is the need of the hour since they not only disrupt business operations but also wreak the national economy. To counter cyber threats, conventional methods like anti-malware software installations or login audits are no longer sufficient. Hence CISOs and security experts, and researchers are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to augment existing cybersecurity software that can help in timely predictions, detection, and prevention.

Analytics Insight predicts that the global market of cybersecurity will grow at a CAGR of 8.1% from US$153.9 billion in 2019 to US$227.4 billion in 2023. North America with a share of 41%, is the leading region for cybersecurity worldwide. The market in the region is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.5%, from US$63.7 billion in 2019 to US$95.6 billion in 2023. Europe with a market share of 30% is predicted to rise at a CAGR of 7.7% from US$45.5 billion in 2019 to US$65.8 billion in 2023 stands to second. With a share of 23%, the Cybersecurity market in the Asia Pacific region is forecast to rise at a CAGR of 8.4% from US$35.3 billion in 2019 to US$52.8 billion in 2023. The market in ROW with a share of 6% is predicted to surge at a CAGR of 7% from US$9.5 billion in 2019 to US$13.2 billion in 2023. At the same time, cybersecurity solutions are forecast to witness a growth percentage of 16.1%, in funding, expanding from a meager US$6.2 billion in 2019 to US$11.1 billion in 2023. Also in a bid to stave off cyber-criminals, businesses will be more eager to spend on adopting cybersecurity measures and strategies as we become more and more technologically reliant than ever before.

Apart from growing cyber threats, the key enablers of the cybersecurity landscape are increased demand for cloud cybersecurity solutions, demand for regulations like the general data protection regulation (GDPR), and new products of cybersecurity which are developed using artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies. However, there are certain emerging bottlenecks that also need to be addressed first. These are proliferating rate of ransomware, rising IoT threats, misuse of artificial intelligence to create new forms of cyber threats, blockchain risks.

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People have to follow a 360 degrees approach to ensure that a data breach doesn’t take place

The Internet has blurred the line between reality and imagination. More futuristic technologies are emerging in the modern era of artificial intelligence (AI). The advanced thought of buying products online through immediate payments methods is a reality now. However, online payments security is becoming a serious issue. Online purchase of goods, solutions and services has revolutionised eCommerce, opening countless opportunities to entrepreneurs worldwide. Unfortunately, keeping the passwords, financial and other personal information safe is increasingly becoming critical. Online frauds are on a historic rise lately. According to a shocking statistics from Juniper Research in 2016, up to 70% of all types of credit card frauds are mainly the card not present (CNP) transactions. The number of online transactions in 2020 is roughly double or even triple of that in 2016. In such a case, you must protect your data during all aspects of business operation including online transactions. In order to secure data, people have to follow a 360 degrees approach to ensure that a security breach doesn’t take place internally or externally. Analytics Insight has compiled top 10 practices that keep hackers away while doing online transactions.

Top 10 security practices to encrypt your data during online transaction

Avail advanced anti-malware program

Encrypting the data to 100% security is near impossible. However, we can take enough small steps to keep the door shut for hackers. Use advanced anti-malware programs in your system or laptop. It will protect both classified and unclassified attacks on your computer, and other digital devices you are using. More than simply using an anti-malware program, you should make sure that it is updated constantly and is ‘on’ always. The anti-virus scanner should be able to flag mutated malware threats as well.

Make sure the password is good enough

Password is the key to online transactions. But the hidden truth is that it is also a key for hackers to enter into your system and collect personal information. Henceforth, it is mandatory to have strong and unbreakable passwords (not something like MAGA2020). Use hard-to-guess passwords that contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. Make sure that you use different passwords for online accounts.

Data encryption is a must

Encryption is a method to conceal the information in the string of codes that appears as random data which is complex to decode. Encryption is one of the methods which is essential for the safety and security of transmitting data. Data encryption is available to safeguard emails and other important information. This protects the private data from easily leaking through online transaction.

Anti-theft your device

Steeling personal information or data from a stolen mobile has been in the league for a long time. However, technology has updated its grounds. Today, you can erase all the information from your mobile or any device if it goes missing. Norton Mobility Security allows you to perform ‘factory reset’ to completely wipe out your data in the lost device. This includes your confidential contact list, messages, call history, browser history, bookmarks among other personal information.

Never use public wi-fi or a public computer

Currently, almost every entity provides free wi-fi facility. But to be frank, they are not very secure. Public wi-fi and public computers have fewer security features than a private network. Henceforth, never attempt to online transactions while you are connected to a public wi-fi or working on a public computer. They are one of the loopholes hackers use to get data.

Use a virtual deal room for sensitive transactions

Most of the company’s information gets public while they share it on the so-called safe source Dropbox or Google Drive. However, a much better decision is to use a virtual deal room to share company-related sensitive data. A virtual data room or a data room allows you to handle a wide range of confidential documents without the need for a physical data room.

Deal only with reputed sites

Doing payments on an unfamiliar site is as dangerous as opening a link that shows not secure sign. Never ever directly do transactions to any site unless you know about it. The advanced security features used in payment processors like PayTabs will prevent your financial information from getting into wrong hands.

Overwrite deleted files

Deleting critical information on a computing device rarely means it is truly deleted. Often, this data exists on disk and can be recovered by someone who knows the tactics, basically hackers. The only way to make sure that deleted data are gone is by overwriting it. There are online tools available to streamline this process.

Prefer virtual keyboards

Hackers are not just on the computer screen, they are also spying your keyboard. There are malware and viruses that can make a log of what you type on your keyboard. Henceforth, it is safe to use a virtual keyboard when doing online transaction.

Review company policies on cybersecurity

Most of the cybersecurity attacks take place because of employees. A lot of staff involved in the transaction process is unaware of the company’s cybersecurity policies. Therefore, your employees should have due diligence to maintain existing policies surrounding issues of cybersecurity. Meanwhile, your workers should also review what platforms you are planning to use. This will make them understand how to use the platform appropriately.

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