Рубрика: Cybersecurity

A recent group poll estimates that millions of workers have switched to work from home models during the pandemic. Without a doubt, this makes it difficult for organizations to protect their data and applications. While it provides a lot of flexibility, remote work blurs the line between official work and leisure time, as employees juggle between work-related apps and personal stuff, including social media and online shopping platforms, increasing the potential for cyberattacks.

That said, human resource and training teams should focus on helping employees prevent cyberattacks as they access emails or social media platforms, especially when using company-provided technology. Even though network firewalls can prevent hackers from accessing company data, apps used by employees can leave them vulnerable. This explains why you should educate your employees about cybersecurity. Use the following tips to ease employee education.

1. Communicate Potential Impact of Cybersecurity Incident

The best way to capture your employees’ attention is by explaining the consequences of a cybersecurity incident on your company. This includes financial losses, fines, and eroded customer trust. Walk them through what can happen if an employee leaves his/her laptop on the bus, access work-related documents over public WIFI, or use a work device to access personal emails. Surprisingly, most employees aren’t aware of the dangers of subjecting your business to these everyday behaviors.

2. Improve Your Cybersecurity Messaging

The first tip in providing effective cybersecurity education to your employees is using the right messaging. In most cases, IT teams use incomprehensible terms that standard employees struggle to understand. Generally, your messaging should be easily understandable, diversified, and relatable.

An understandable messaging should avoid tough tech jargon that can bring confusion and cloud the message. If possible, use simple terms that non-tech or layman workers can easily understand. Your training should also be relatable. For instance, when discussing external threats, make it more about personal computers and not the central network. Employees can easily relate if the dangers are framed to their phones or laptops and not some imaginable server.

Lastly, your training should be diversified. One email that outlines everything might not be sufficient. Considering the number of emails from sales departments, clients, and prospects that employees receive daily, they can easily read the email and dismiss it as just a normal internal memo.

3. Teach Them about Various Types of Cybersecurity Threats

For your employees to spot and prevent a cybersecurity breach, they should have some basic knowledge about the common types of cybersecurity issues and how they present. For this, educate them about spam, malware and ransomware, phishing, and social engineering.

Start with spam, which is the most basic and common cybersecurity threat. Educate them on how they can identify spam content on emails and social media messages. You should also provide training on phishing using real-life examples of phishing scams to help them note the difference between real and falsified emails. Highlight various indicators of a phishing email that make them easily identifiable

Cybersecurity tips for preventing malware, ransomware, and social engineering should also be highlighted during the training. That aside, provide insights on how to spot malicious activities on their devices. For instance, they should be suspicious if;

• New programs or apps suddenly appear on their devices
• Unusual pop-ups when starting, using, or shutting down their devices
• If the device slows down significantly
• Presence of new tabs or extensions in the browser
• If they lose control over the mouse or keyboard

Insist that they should report immediately if they notice any of these suspicious signs. Even if the report is a false alarm, it is beneficial as it helps clear errors in their devices that can affect productivity.

4. Make Cybersecurity Training Part of Onboarding and an Ongoing Conversation

First impressions often determine a lot during recruitment, and cybersecurity shouldn’t be an exception. If you haven’t included organization data security in your onboarding process before, you should incorporate it into the training process. Explain various organizational rules and best practices that employees should observe to maintain data integrity.

That aside, provide continuing training to employees on cybersecurity. You can achieve this using the following tips;

• Make use of different approaches, such as newsletter updates and announcements.
• Make all updates following the KISS rule, which means “keep it short and simple.” This makes it easy for employees to glean and retain the updates even after a long, hectic day.
• Provide updates on current cybersecurity trends. Reach out to your employees every time there is a new malware or phishing scam.
• Make the updates eye-catching. For instance, opt for colorful infographics instead of do’s and don’ts or listing statistics.
• Try cybersecurity tests occasionally if employees are willing to evaluate their knowledge. For this, consult an employment lawyer if there are potential repercussions of doing this.

Bottom Line

Effective cybersecurity education should allow employees to appreciate the importance of treading safely on the internet, especially under work networks or company devices. Good knowledge in cybersecurity is the first line of defense against external threats.

The post How to Educate Employees about Cybersecurity appeared first on Analytics Insight.

Analytics Insight has churned out the top cybersecurity breaches that happened in 2021

The combination of the sudden outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the digital transformation has led to tremendous growth in cyberattacks worldwide. No sector is safe from cybersecurity breaches due to the vast supply of real-time data and potential human errors. The malicious hackers observe the weak links and grasp every opportunity to demand ransomware for confidential data leakages such as credentials, sensitive data, financial records, medical reports and many more. Let’s dig into some top cybersecurity breaches that happened in 2021 to date.

Top Cybersecurity Breaches Happened in 2021

Florida Water System

A cybersecurity breach happened in the Florida water system on February 5, 2021, where a malicious hacker tried to poison the water supply by using a remote access software platform known as Teamviewer. The hacker entered into Oldsmar’s water treatment system twice at 8 am as well as at 1.30 pm. The malicious hacker increased the level of sodium hydroxide and Lye to over 100 times its normal level. Sodium hydroxide is used to control water acidity and remove metals from drinking water whereas Lye poisoning causes vomiting, bleeding, burns and pains. The level got back to the normal range as soon as there was an alert of a cyberattack from an employee to avoid a significant consequence to the Florida citizens. According to the officials, the Florida water system uses a Google Chrome product for remote access in this pandemic while the Oldsmar system uses the Windows 7 operating system.

Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft faced one of the cybersecurity breaches from January 3 to March 2, 2021, where the malicious hackers attacked the on-premises versions of the Microsoft Exchange server by exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities. This popular cyberattack affected nine government agencies as well as more than 60,000 private companies simultaneously. The vulnerabilities are known as CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858 and CVE-2021-27065. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Centre mentioned that the suspected hackers were an unidentified Chinese hacking group known as Hafnium that is state-sponsored and operating out of China to target multiple industries of the US through VPSs (Virtual Private Servers). This led the CISA to issue Emergency Directive 21-02 for all federal agencies to disconnect from the Microsoft Exchange Server as soon as possible. A few days later Microsoft announced a notice to all its consumers to check whether they are compromised with data leakages or not.

Acer

Acer is a popular Taiwanese computer giant that experienced a ransomware attack of US$50 million that set the highest record of ransomware to date around March 21, 2021. The malicious hacker group is known as REvil that gained access to the back-office network of Acer through a Microsoft vulnerability. Acer did not have any knowledge regarding the ransomware attack. The data leakages included financial spreadsheets, bank balances as well as bank communications. REvil and Acer started negotiating with the US$50 million that led to a 20% reduction offer to encourage the company to pay. The delay in payment from Acer would steep the price from US$50 million to US$100 million. The malicious group used stolen corporate data such as customer database with account numbers and credit limits by compromising the company’s network. A post, including an auction list of several Acer data, was uploaded to the REvil’s group’s site.

The US Fuel Pipeline

The US fuel pipeline was also not safe from notorious cyberattacks by a ransomware Russian gang known as DarkSide on May 7, 2021. The malicious hackers had compromised the network of the Colonial Pipeline, locked the real-time data as well as stole around 100GB of raw data to demand a ransom. The Colonial Pipeline put the remaining systems offline for a few days to stop the operational systems as soon as possible. It incurred a huge loss for the US oil and gas pipeline market because the Colonial Pipeline carries around 2.5 million barrels of diesel, petrol and jet fuel each day from the Gulf Coast to the Eastern Seaboard. As soon as the current President, Joe Biden and the rest of the government agencies got involved in this case, DarkSide notified that they did not want to participate in geopolitics and did not need to tie them with a defined government to look for their motives. The CEO of the Colonial Pipeline confirmed that it paid US$4.4 million in cryptocurrency to DarkSide to avoid significant consequences in the future. This cyberattack created history by shutting down the gasoline pipeline system once in its 57-year history.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become one of the attractive sites for notorious hackers to achieve successful cyberattacks. On April 9, 2021, LinkedIn faced a massive data leakage of around 500 million active users. LinkedIn did not accept the cybersecurity breach but claimed it as data being scraped from the platform. The sensitive data included an email address, phone numbers, name, gender, other social media accounts as well as the whole resume. All these databases of people and companies were posted for auction by the group of hackers on their popular website for a four-figure sum. Several hackers are creating high-level profiles on LinkedIn to connect with other potential victims efficiently.

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Bullying has always been an issue of concern for many,. No matter how developed the country might be, it has to deal with certain issues that don’t go away that easily – bullying being one among them. School children seem to fall under the most affected category. Though many might consider it to be regular and not a serious issue, well, it actually is! The kind of mental, social and physical health issues that follow as a result of bullying is no less than torture. One of the most commonly observed behavioral and health issues in the victims of bullying is depression. Not just that. What is alarming here is that serious depression opens up doors to suicidal behavior as well.

Out of the different kinds of bullying, cyberbullying is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Cyberbullying is that kind of bullying that makes use of digital devices such as computers and smartphones. A point about this kind of bullying that is worth noting is the extent of the impact it leaves behind. The impact is prominent for years. Also, nothing can get worse than parents and schools taking a lot of time to notice the signs and take action accordingly.

Well, what continues to bother is an increase in cyberbullying for quite some time now despite the existence of state laws. State laws are formulated to protect individuals against bullying. Therefore, the rise in cyberbullying is what just doesn’t sink in. With internet-based communication expected to rise, it is very much possible that the cases of cyberbullying would see an upward trajectory. Can it get any worse?

With cyberbullying being the subject, this is what famous personalities across the globe have to say.

• Philip Lee of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law believes that cyberbullying is so dangerous that it justifies reduced First Amendment free speech protections. Philip Lee proposes a “foresee-ability approach” to regulate cyberbullying more effectively without giving schools unlimited power to limit students’ free speech.
• Benjamin Holden from the University of Illinois College of Media is of the firm belief that the constitutional right to anonymity makes it difficult for minor victims of online bullying to seek legal redress outside the school system. Holden goes a step further by proposing that the internet service providers should reveal the bullies’ identities.
• Ari Ezra Waldman (North-eastern University School), boldly states that anti-bullying laws alone are not sufficient to reduce “bullying, cyberbullying, and suicidal thoughts among” LGBTQ teenagers. He added that state laws that ban discrimination and promote LGBTQ inclusion could be a better alternative.
• Ronen Perry of the University of Haifa notes that technological advancements that allow supervisors to collect and analyze digital information in addition to increasing civil liability for education supervisors could prove beneficial in addressing the cyberbullying epidemic in schools thereby reducing teen suicide. He came up with this after analyzing how school administrators are limited in their ability to regulate students’ online conduct both on and off-campus by constitutional constraints and federal legislation.

The rising cyberbullying cases are alarming, thus calling for more stringent rules and regulations. It is now time that we understand the sensitivity of this issue and do everything possible to protect the mental, social and physical health of the individuals, children in particular.

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A glimpse through the most common types of cyberattacks businesses face today

Cyberattacks have spearheaded to become more than common over the past few years. Even powerful companies like Adobe, Sony, Target, and others have faced major cyber attacks by cyber criminals and frauds.

A recent study in 2018 revealed that a record-high of 10.52 billion malware attacks were identified in 2018. These statistics do not surprise the cybersecurity experts as they believe cybercrimes might prove to be more profitable than illicit drug trafficking.

Here are some of the most common types of cyberattacks that businesses face today.

1. Brute-force attacks:

In this type of cyberattack, cybercriminals guess the passwords of accounts with confidential information through the trial-and-error method. They try all the combinations of passwords, passphrases, digits, and others until they can unlock the account. Cybercriminals use the brute-force technique to gain access to confidential information and personal details of employees, and even financial and security details of companies.

2. Credential Stuffing:

In these kinds of attacks, the cyber attackers use stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access to the users’ accounts. This process becomes simpler with automation. Vast databases with low security have compromised credentials and once the attacker gains access, the account is hacked and is used to practice fraudulent activities and transactions, misuse or alter the stored data, and other activities.

3. Phishing:

Phishing is one of the most frequent types of cyberattacks. It is the practice of sending e-mails from a fraud source, disguised as a reliable one to gain confidential and personal information. These e-mails are generally accompanied by a file or a link to an illicit website that tricks the receivers into downloading malware, which reveals their personal information.

Another type of phishing is spear phishing. It is a targeted attack where the criminals thoroughly research their victims and send personalized images, messages, or e-mails that attract the victims’ attention. These types of attacks are difficult to recognize. Hence prevention against these attacks becomes tough.

4. Cross-site Scripting:

It is a type of technical attack where the attacker picks out a website with injectable vulnerability, meaning the attacker injects the webserver with a malicious code. It automatically sends the malicious injection to the victim’s browser, and as soon as the script is executed the browser sends a cookie that is used by hackers for session hijacking. After that, the cyber attackers monitor the victim’s keystrokes to get confidential passwords.

5. Spyware:

Freeware tools are the chief sources of spyware attacks. When the victims download a freeware tool, the spyware attached to it is also downloaded. Attackers use this tool to access the victims’ systems and gain confidential information.

6. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS):

DDoS attacks are initiated to overwhelm the network with enormous volumes of unwanted traffic. The traffic exhausts the bandwidth connectivity, making it impossible to respond to basic security requests. Generally, a network of botnets is used to initiate DDoS attacks.

7. Man in the Middle:

A wide and unprotected wi-fi connection is used to carry out a man-in-the-middle attack. When free wi-fi is offered to customers in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, and other public places, an attacker uses the network to gain access to the victims’ sessions.

The post Alert! These are the Most Common Types of Cyberattacks Businesses face appeared first on Analytics Insight.

The best way to reduce the risk of cyber threats is by using AI solutions and strategies.

AI is revolutionizing many industries across the globe like manufacturing, retail, pharmaceutical, and IT, but it is also reinventing cyberattacks. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the remote work culture and rapid cloud computing have encouraged hackers to come up with innovative solutions to break into online networks. These cyberattacks pose a severe risk to worldwide security. According to a report by MIT Technology Review Insights, in association with Darktrace, an AI cybersecurity company, “Offensive AI risks and developments in the cyberthreat landscape are redefining enterprise security as humans already struggle to keep pace with advanced attacks.”

Because cyberattacks have become more sophisticated with time, professionals are researching ways to use AI to combat these threats. Attempts are being made to integrate AI into existing security systems as AI has the ability to identify and predict security threats. According to a report by Capgemini Research Institute, 69% of organizations agree that AI is crucial for security as traditional methods are unable to curb the issue.

Deploying AI into the Battlefield

Artificial intelligence can identify suspicious activities throughout a company’s technology and its user tasks. To safeguard various software, AI-powered antivirus software can detect network anomalies. When a malicious software is launched in a network, AI antivirus software can detect it and prevent assets from exploitation.

When a new technology is adopted by an organization, managing user behavior becomes critical as a wrong move can result in detrimental damage. AI has the capability to assess the behavior of network users. When a new user logs in, AI abilities can identify fraudulent activities and can disable the user, and notify the administrator.

According to a Forrester survey, 88% of cybersecurity experts believe that AI-powered attacks will grow in the coming years. On a day-to-day basis, organizations deal with several new loopholes. While conventional management techniques take time to address elevated loopholes, they are essential for managing and controlling identified vulnerabilities. AI methods like User and Event Behavioral Analytics can analyze baseline behavior of the servers and help these traditional techniques strengthen the security.

Traditional network security methods take time to develop cybersecurity policies based on an organization’s network topology. For this, using AI to understand network traffic behavior will enhance network security. AI’s analytical and monitoring skills can enhance the efficiency of the infrastructure, and lower the price of system maintenance. Traditional security methods depend on indicators of vulnerability to identify attacks. While this approach works against known attacking agents, it is ineffective against new attacks. Combining AI with existing traditional methods will improve the tracking rate and give an added advantage.

Setting up AI Cybersecurity Strategies

It’s unfortunate that AI is accessible to hackers for attacking organizations that build its processes for good. To reduce the risk of threats, security experts should plan for AI software that can foresee potential threats, choose the right solution, and implement it on the identified malware. Organizations that heavily rely on artificial intelligence technology need to assess how AI attacks will impact existing AI systems and create strategies accordingly. Natural Language Processing can also be used to collect data on previous and current cyberattacks and improve privacy features.

The post Disruptive Showdown: AI-powered Cyberattacks will be Controlled by AI appeared first on Analytics Insight.

Migrating Your Mindset: 5 Security Challenges When Moving to the Cloud

Do you know if you’re managing your cloud’s security efficiently, or even correctly?

The creation of the cloud changed the way organizations functioned, offering on-demand access, vast scalability, better business continuity, and a number of other benefits — including no longer needing to rely on costly physical data centers.

But even though more companies are migrating to the cloud, they’re still thinking in terms of traditional data center security. They haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that cloud security needs to be handled in a much different way with a much different approach. This is going to be a challenge for teams as cloud becomes more business critical and as they begin to think about their Cloud Security Posture Management, or CSPM.

For an on-premise data center, adding logs to a monolithic management tool like an SEIM and securing a network perimeter would’ve been the standard approach. For many companies early on in their cloud adoption journey, this is the approach they took with their new environment: Set up a network in the cloud that’s “controlled by IT” and start dumping cloud logs into a SEIM.

But there’s too much activity and too many points of access to the cloud for this to be a usable solution. Logs are point-in-time records, not the continuous monitoring that cloud needs — so while logs are necessary, they don’t provide a complete picture, and may not always be helpful. The secure perimeter also changes with cloud from the enterprise network to identity and access (IAM), which requires a different approach altogether. Simply relying on logs also isn’t comprehensive or agile enough to keep up with the variety of services, frequency of deployments, and users all touching multi-cloud environments.

In other words, the model has changed, so the approach has to change, too. Securing your cloud means having deep visibility into every configuration, every asset, and every change, and the ability to continuously identify risks. But teams often struggle with making the shift. Here are some common challenges I’ve seen teams who are new to thinking about CSPM encounter, and ways to turn those challenges into opportunities.

Challenge 1: Shift in mindset

The biggest challenge teams will have when it comes to cloud security will be to stop approaching it like they approached data center security in the past. One of those mindset shifts is understanding that security can no longer just be up to the security team in a silo. In the cloud, infrastructure is deployed as code and automation is central, meaning security must be “baked” into the entire development lifecycle. The challenge will be getting everyone to understand their roles and responsibilities across the product lifecycle.

Leadership needs to create a plan to shift organization from an on-premise mindset characterized by top-down control and rigid policy gates to one oriented around user empowerment with smart policy guardrails that balance agility with control. This can be accomplished through strategic planning, brainstorming, collaboration, and buy-in, not only across teams but from senior leadership as well. This shift in mindset will also require team members to have a more comprehensive understanding of how security needs to be woven into the entire deployment process as well.

Challenge 2: Not prioritizing security early on

Unfortunately, many teams don’t think about security, and sometimes even overall governance, until it’s too late. Whether they don’t have the budget, think they don’t yet have the scale, or it’s just not top of mind, procrastinating on cloud security can expose an organization to breaches, non-compliance, and other high-risk issues. On the flip side, organizations might have initially taken too heavy-handed of an approach and implemented such strict controls that it prevents them from fully realizing the promise of cloud and DevOps in the future.

Thinking about cloud security should happen early, which includes implementing not just the right tools, but also the right processes and people. And it’s never too early to start, because security needs to be woven into your process from the beginning. The goal is not just to establish a process, but to make sure it’s agile enough to incrementally scale with the needs of an ever-changing cloud environment.

Challenge 3: Lack of education

Launching a real CSPM program to monitor your cloud environment is one critical approach to cloud security. But organizations often rely on just the technology, thinking that simply having a CSPM or relying on vendor capabilities will be enough — which leaves their team under-informed about the proactive role they need to play. Organizations wanting to keep on top of their cloud security need to prioritize constant education and upskilling, not just around traditional security applied to the cloud but also around industry best practices and cloud fundamentals, too. Identify team members willing to go deeper and pair them with industry experts within the organization, or take advantage of free educational tools from the major cloud providers to keep your team’s knowledge base wide and ever-evolving.

Challenge 4: Thinking you’re covered with CI/CD

Organizations often get lulled into believing they have their cloud security covered because they’ve built controls into their CI/CDpipeline, rightly thinking that if they can discover problems in the pipeline they’ll be able to ensure a perfect deployment. In reality, this is just never the case, as changes often happen outside the pipeline, cloud providers make configuration updates, templates can get updated without going through the right procedures (humans aren’t perfect), or a number of other undocumented alterations — making it impossible to keep track of it all.

In order to mitigate this, have a plan for continuous monitoring of your cloud in addition to your pipeline controls, so that you’ll not only have visibility into what’s in development and has been deployed, but you’ll be able to see what’s changing outside your pipeline so you can create a response plan for that drift, too.

Challenge 5: Not knowing the security baseline

Finally, many organizations just don’t have a handle on what assets they have in the cloud or across multi-cloud environments, if they’ve been configured correctly, if they’re in compliance, or if they’re secured. This means that organizations can’t take advantage of the many benefits of scale in the cloud if they don’t have visibility into what they have in it and how it’s changing over time.

Start by defining a set of standards for your organization for what goes in the cloud — CIS and NIST are industry standard frameworks that can guide your security posture — then, use CSPM tools to gain visibility into your entire cloud environment to measure your assets against that baseline to ensure that you catch current and future drift, and can remediate any issues quickly.

Challenges Become Opportunities for the Future

As with launching any new initiative or adopting any change, cloud security will require a different mindset, some new skills, and a commitment to implementing a thorough and effective CSPM approach. There will be challenges, but embracing cloud security early on in your cloud journey will not only keep your organization safe, it’ll provide insights and benefits across your entire enterprise.

Author: John Grange, co-founder and CTO of OpsCompass

John Grange is a seasoned entrepreneur and is currently co-founder and CTO at OpsCompass, a leading SaaS product for managing compliance and security in clouds like Azure, AWS, and GCP. He has 15 years of experience building products and companies including co-founding a top 5 global Microsoft ASP.net hosting provider (now Managed.com) and creating SaaS products in areas diverse as healthcare (Layered Health) and marketing tech (Layeredi). John’s passion is identifying those mega trends that truly impact how technology can be leveraged and then building the necessary tools to help real customers use that technology to create business value

The post Top 5 Cloud Security Challenges Teams Face in 2021 appeared first on Analytics Insight.

A spectacular increase in the demand for altcoins in the year 2021 comes as no big a surprise. As more people are inclined towards alternate sources of income, the cryptocurrency market has seen demand like never before. Though Bitcoin has always managed to draw eyeballs from everywhere around, there are other cryptocurrencies as well that stand the potential to make it into your investment portfolio. All other cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin are referred to as altcoins. Now that a good number of big players in the market are other investors are showing keen interest in altcoins, it makes every possible sense to have a look at the top 10 altcoins to buy. Keep reading!

Ethereum

Ethereum came into existence way back in the year 2013. Since then, there was no looking back for this cryptocurrency. Right from being the second largest and one among the highly traded cryptocurrencies across the globe to being the foundation behind the smart contract platform, this cryptocurrency managed to grab attention. Now that Ethereum has laid the foundation for decentralized finance (DeFi), it deserves every bit of attention.

Stellar (XLM)

The last couple of weeks saw an impressive surge in the price of this cryptocurrency. This is a consequence of the recent partnerships that Stellar has dived into. 2021 turned out to be great for Stellar as the price rose from a mere $0.3 to $0.77 in no time. This leaves us with predictions that the price would increase in the days ahead and hence investing in it right away would be a good decision to make.

LINK-USD

It is an Ethereum token that powers the Chainlink network. Talking about Chainlink, it is “a group of independent blockchain oracles that provide data to a blockchain.” Currently priced around $17, it holds the potential to become a leading crypto standard among decentralized oracle networks.

Uniswap (UNI)

This is yet another Ethereum-based decentralized app that aims at exchanging Ethereum tokens through liquidity pools. Uniswap is more than just a decentralized exchange. It aims to address the issues that arise as a result of liquidity as well. Priced in the range of $16 and $17, this one is surely worth an investment.

Neo (NEO)

Next up on the list is Neo – a new economy where digitized payments, identities and assets come together. Back in the year 2014, Neo was known as Antshares, and was believed to be China’s first-ever public blockchain. With its price varying between $30 and $32, it has left no stone unturned in impressing the investors.

Zilliqa (ZIL)

No wonder, scalability has always been an issue of concern in the blockchain ecosystem. On that note, Zilliqa emerges out to be a public blockchain that is actively mitigating any future scalability problems that may arise in the ecosystem. ZIL, which is quite economically priced, is used to process transactions on the network and execute smart contracts.

Litecoin (LTC)

Drawing a lot of similarities from Bitcoin, this cryptocurrency has been everyone’s favorite since its launch. One of the features of these altcoins that sets them apart from the rest is its processing speed. It is way faster than Bitcoin, hence the attention. The kind of growth this altcoins have seen over the years has left the investors with a lot more expectations.

Aave (AAVE)

With a trading volume of over $250, Aave has grabbed attention for all the right reasons. This being a decentralized finance protocol thereby allowing people to lend and borrow crypto, both – lenders, as well as the borrowers, are benefitted. The lenders earn interest by depositing the digital assets and the borrowers use their crypto as collateral.

Dogecoin

With celebrities like Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg and Gene Simmons laying a crucial role behind Dogecoin receiving mainstream attention, this altcoins surely had to find a spot in the top 10 altcoins to buy. This cryptocurrency had come a long way and the legacy is bound to continue for years.

VeChain (VET)

This altcoin that was launched in June 2016 aims to create an ecosystem that solves problems related to supply chain management. It makes use of distributed governance and Internet of Things (IoT) technology for this. For the kind of potential it holds, it is truly worth investing.

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Are you trying to keep up with the pandemic in terms of data security and privacy? You’re not alone. Just over a year ago, Covid-19 threw countless businesses around the globe into a mad scramble to implement hybrid solutions to maintain some semblance of regular operations. We finally see the light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel, but the way people work seems to have changed permanently as supporting remote work became necessary for many companies. While many have considered work/life flexibility and time-efficiency of not having to travel to work every day a blessing, there’s more to such a shift than meets the eye.

The problem with hybrid work models facilitated by the cloud is that they need proactive and thoughtful implementation. It’s essential to understand how security features in the cloud work and to implement them properly. One can’t simply drop data into the public cloud storage and head for the hills. Without proper security measures and risk assessments, not to mention regular infrastructure maintenance, cyber threats pose a genuine risk to your company’s and customers’ data and employee credentials and privacy.

Regardless of whether your team works on-site or remotely and whether you handle primarily internal or customer data, the security considerations are the same. Key among these considerations is the fundamental division of responsibility in the public cloud, where the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud, and the customer is responsible for security in the cloud.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your cloud provider is responsible for ensuring your data is secure. Your cloud provider’s security responsibility ends with ensuring that their data centres are secured from unauthorized access, that servers, storage, database and networking hardware are free from intrusion, and that any managed services they offer are patched and maintained. Beyond that, it’s up to you as the cloud customer to ensure that you use the tools they provide correctly to keep your data and applications safe.

Let’s work through some of the top cloud security measures a typical business should consider.

Identity and Access Management Tools

If you want to protect your data while making it accessible to your employees, try a siloed approach. In this model, identity and access management (IAM) user permissions and overall organizational account structure are managed based on job function. This segmentation leverages the principle of least privilege, where users have access only to the resources and actions they require to perform their job and nothing more. That way, if a bad actor infiltrates your infrastructure or credentials are compromised, the threat is contained to a limited scope.

Encryption and Firewalls

Encrypting your data in transit and at rest wherever possible will provide an additional layer of security for your data. You can achieve this with TLS/SSL encrypted communications and server-side encryption powered by a cloud-native tool like Key Management Service in AWS or by implementing client-side encryption.

Be sure to use firewall and network ACL features to control communications within your network and VPN connections to help remote workers access the company’s resources securely, whether at home or on public WiFi.

Configuration Management

Use cloud configuration management tools to maintain and monitor the state of your configuration, notify you of changes, and facilitate restoring the state to what it should be.

Password Policies

Ensure you have robust password policies that require complex passwords that expire after a specific period and can’t be reused. Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) so that an email address and compromised password aren’t enough to access an employee account in the cloud.

Private and Hybrid Cloud

Suppose you have data that’s too sensitive to store outside your premises, such as financial or health records. In that case, you can keep it in your on-premises “private cloud” infrastructure and enable encrypted communications between that data store and other cloud services you use. This kind of architecture is often referred to as “hybrid cloud.”

Threat Detection, Monitoring, and Alerting

It’s a good idea to invest in threat detection solutions. Suppose someone’s trying to penetrate your digital defences, for instance, by attempting to brute force passwords or using old, compromised ones that you’ve already changed. In that case, you want to detect and respond to the threat as early as possible. AWS Guard Duty is a service that assists in this regard by continuously monitoring your environments for unusual activity and threats to your accounts.

Log Aggregation and Analysis

To assist with auditing and analyzing incidents, it’s essential to store your application, network, and server logs in a central location that can’t be tampered with by anyone in the organization and employ a tool like Sumo Logic to analyze the data.

Regular Patches and Maintenance

Of course, keeping up with patches to minimize the risk of emerging threats to server software is an imperative cloud security measure. The same goes for configuring automatic vulnerability scans. Work with your IT provider or in-house technicians to regularly perform comprehensive security and systemwide audits, which are handy for identifying any outdated processes, compromised passwords, and other security risks.

The Tip of the Iceberg

We’ve only just scraped the surface of what’s required to keep your cloud infrastructure secure, but these tips are a great start. You’ll find security whitepapers and other resources on the support websites for all the major cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Amazon Web Services. Arm key people in your organization with a clear understanding of where your responsibility for the security of your cloud environments begins and ends. You’ll be positioned to face these risks head-on with a well-rounded, future-facing and proactive cloud security approach. You’ll enjoy peace of mind, and so will your employees and customers.

Author: Nelson Ford, Founder and Principal Solutions Architect at Pilotcore.

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While technology advances and its applications become widespread, the need for investing in cybersecurity increases. Cybercrime groups are increasing in number, and they are targeting businesses of all sizes across various industries. This is alarming, considering that the rate of detection in the U.S. is as low as 0.05 percent, according to the 2020 Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum.

Most cybercriminals target both small and large businesses, and an attack will impact your business for months. In a 2019 report of CyberCrime Magazine, an average global cost of a single breach is about $3.62 million. And 60 percent of small companies are likely to go out of business within six months after falling victim to a cyber-attack or data breach.

Top security threats for businesses

If you haven’t thought of cybersecurity for your enterprise, now is the time to do so. You need to protect all of your data from theft, damage, or getting ransomed, which can include establishing proper database security protocols in place, along with other technology and behavioral optimizations.

In 2021, the top types of attack include:

• Ransomware – hackers lock the information/computer of the victim, and ask the victim to pay a ransom. It can spread from visiting infected sites and opening phishing emails.
• Malware – malicious form of software designed to harm computers. It can invade computers through internet downloads, external hard drives/USB, and physical hard drives.
• Social engineering – the attacks depend on social interaction with employees who unknowingly become manipulated to reveal confidential data.
• Phishing – belongs to social engineering attacks. In phishing, hackers use false identities to trick individuals to download malware, divulge classified information, or visit malware-laden sites.

Ransomware – raking in money by exploiting a security weakness

Out of the four major threats to businesses, ransomware is the most prevalent, according to a Cybersecurity Ventures report. In 2021, the frequency of attacks is projected to be every 11 seconds. The projected cost of ransomware attacks in 2021 is about $6 trillion. The same report estimates that by 2025, cybercrime will cost businesses around the world about $10.5 trillion each year.

Moreover, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission of the U.S. points to ransomware as the fastest growing and the most damaging form of cybercrime.

Top ransomware attacks in 2021

In a ZDNet article, it was mentioned that 292 organizations fell victim to just six ransomware groups. From January to June 2021, they have already raked in over $45 million in ransom money.

Recent major cyber-attacks that made the news are the attacks on Colonial Pipeline and the JBS branch in the U.S. These companies are not the only ones. Some of the high-profile ransomware attacks are the following:

1. Brenntag is a chemical distribution company that was attacked in May 2021. Responsible for the attack was DarkSide, the same gang that targeted Colonial. They managed to steal 150 GB worth of data and demanded $7.5 million in bitcoin. The company negotiated and ended up paying $4.4 million. Unlike Colonial, the payment is yet to be recovered.

2. Acer was also attacked in May 2021 by REvil. The gang found a vulnerability on a Microsoft Exchange server and exploited it, managing to access the company’s bank communications, bank balances, and financial spreadsheets, which they posted on their dark web page. They demanded a ransom of $50 million, the highest ransom amount to date.

3. Quanta, a computer manufacturer in Taiwan and a major business partner of Apple was attacked by REvil in April 2021, demanding a $50 million ransom. The company refused negotiations, and the gang shifted to Apple. They leaked Apple product blueprints they stole from Quanta and threatened to release other sensitive information. But it seems it was called off by May, and the cyberattack was never mentioned by Apple.

4. AXA, a European insurance company was attacked by the Avvadon group, which announced that they were able to access 3 TB of data from the company. What was ironic was the company announcing that they will cease reimbursing ransomware payments.

How to secure your data

While there is no surefire method to ensure data security, you can reduce the risk of cyber attacks by following some proven methods.

Use strong passwords. Using weak passwords is one of the most common reasons for the occurrence of a cyber attack. Use a password manager and ensure that everyone does not use a single password for multiple accounts.

Update your software. Eliminate vulnerabilities in your software by setting them to update automatically.

Minimize data transfers. Train your employees, especially those working remotely, to stop transferring business data to personal devices.

Download files carefully. Another thing to teach your employees is to stop downloading files from unverified sources. Likewise, they should understand that clicking links in emails from unknown senders is risky.

Maintain regular data monitoring. It will be easier to identify leaks when you monitor your data regularly. You can install a data breach monitoring tool to alert you when there are suspicious activities.

Create a breach response plan. A formal plan can help you manage potential breaches, making your organization ready to respond when an attack occurs so that you can minimize the damage.

Benefits of investing in cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is now a business problem, as the recent attacks proved that any type of business can be exploited by cybercriminals. Investing in a cybersecurity program is now imperative. This move can give your organization a more comprehensive edge in staying safe, especially when you get your entire organization to participate in cybersecurity training.

When you integrate IT support and cybersecurity, you’ll gain these benefits:

1. Protection for remote working employees by securing sensitive information, and removing the risks of them being vulnerable to adware, malware, and phishing attempts.

2. You boost productivity by eliminating the risks of cyber attacks and potential work stoppage. With the right cybersecurity training, you increase the employees’ knowledge of cybersecurity, which makes them inclined to work better.

3. Customers’ confidence and trust in your business increase because they know that you are protecting their confidential data. They feel safe when doing business with you.

4. You improve your revenue. Investing in cybersecurity training, cybersecurity tools, and IT infrastructure will pay huge dividends in the long run. You prevent cyberattacks and avoid paying claims by customers and fines to regulators. Further, you comply with the data security regulations of your state and the federal government.

Summary

It’s critical to invest in a cybersecurity program to ensure that your organization will not be vulnerable to a cyber attack. Use a comprehensive cybersecurity platform that will protect all your data onsite or in the cloud. Updating your backups regularly, storing them offline, and providing training for your employees will help mitigate cyber attacks.

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The implementation of Artificial Intelligence, into cybersecurity, may become one of the popular AI trends in 2021 to have a proper defense against cyberattacks from malicious hackers and ransomware gangs. But, these ransomware gangs are improving their techniques to reach a whole new level of cyberattacks from behind the curtains. The ransomware gangs are utilizing virtual machines to hide these vicious cyberattacks. It is becoming impossible for victims to detect and trace the gang or hackers within a short period of time. It is one innovative trick to allow cyberattacks to run their payload inside these virtual machines after bypassing the advanced cybersecurity software.

The process of using virtual machines to achieve cyberattacks is being used by several ransomware gangs across the world. The tangible benefits of these virtual machines are becoming popular to go for blackmailing or phishing despite the strong cybersecurity of reputed companies. The ransomware gangs having a small foothold on an infected host can download or install the virtual machine software easily. It will share the host computer’s storage space with a virtual machine for proceeding to encrypt confidential files from the virtual machine. The host’s antivirus software cannot reach these virtual machines to detect the execution of current ransomware. After finishing the encryption process, the virtual machine is discarded seamlessly. This is another popular benefit for ransomware gangs because the virtual machines discard an enormous volume of vital forensic evidence to prevent any further investigation.

An open-source virtual machine software, known as VirtualBox is popular among ransomware gangs in recent times. The investigators are failing to recognize the ransomware that is discovered running in a virtual machine. There are incidents where the investigators found out that a gang tried to run Conti and MountLocker ransomware on a host computer running Windows 7. Some ransomware gangs used RagnarLocker in Windows XP. Multiple cyber-criminals use a pattern of naming multiple files such as aa51978f.msi or s3c.msi that usually end with .msi. They also create a file name like runner.exe and utilized the go-ps library for process enumeration.

This new technique is showing that cyber-criminals or ransomware gangs want to stay one step ahead of getting detected by high-end cybersecurity. They are using dual-use tools to stage cyberattacks on multiple targeted networks. These kinds of cyberattacks are an imminent threat to all types of businesses. Thus, it is recommended to follow the precautionary measures to avoid consequences— ensure not to view intrusion detection as an option, use security tools for monitoring all virtual environments and integrate hypervisor monitoring into the whole system.

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