Cyber threats have become more sophisticated, destructive, and dangerous in evaluation. Anyone can be a victim of cyber threats in this decade. Businesses top this list of potential cyber threats. Nowadays, all types of organizations, big and small, can face cyber attacks.
Modern cyber threat refers to cyber attack methods based on modern technologies like cloud, IoT, crypto, etc. Cyber attacks are becoming more powerful as technology updates. Modern cyber threats can affect our physical life by leaking personal information, creating financial crises, etc. Here are some examples of current cyber threats:
- Ransomware: A ransomware attack is one of the worst attacks any business can imagine. It encrypts a business’s data and then demands a ransom to decrypt your data. Just like criminals blackmail people after kidnapping their loved ones, there are some pure evil Ransomware it will calculate and enumerate your data first, then delete those original files and create fake files based on that data, then ask for ransom which is a total fraud. This fake ransomware is slightly rarer than the real thing. But it is very common for business infrastructure to be infected by ransomware.
- Sophisticated Social Engineering: Cybercriminals are more creative than any other criminals. And mixing their creativity and technological vulnerabilities, social engineering has become an infamous threat to business organizations.
- Spyware: Business organizations that have many competitors or work on government projects or important companies whose data and assets may be valuable to hackers can be infected by spyware. Most state-sponsored hackers spy on important companies of other states through spyware. This is a very sophisticated attack.
- Data breach: Data breach is a buzzword now. Data breaches have become so notorious that even tech giants have faced them. 15 Biggest Data Breaches. A data breach not only drives your customers away from your business but can also expose your business to law enforcement and enforcement.
As there are threats, so there is also prevention of it.
Tips To Strength your business security
Businesses are prime targets for attackers because they can make high profits by attacking business infrastructure. As businesses evolve in the use of technology, businesses are becoming more insecure due to technological vulnerabilities. If business owners do not secure their businesses against modern cyber threats, they stand to lose everything through cyber attacks. Most business owners feel that their business is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. There are ways to strengthen your business against cyber threats. Here are a few of them:
- The first step in strengthening your business infrastructure is to test the security of your organization’s IT systems with the help of a pentesting expert. A pentesting expert will check all kinds of possibilities to hack your system. He/she will report every type of security vulnerability in your IT system before it is known to anyone else. He will also fix them to secure your IT infrastructure. You can check this article to learn more about pentester and the pentesting process → The Process Of Pentesting: How Experts Pentest Your Application.
- Is your organization’s payment method following the PCI DS (Payment Card Data Security) standards? Make sure that your business organization’s payment method follows the compliance of PCI DSS. The purpose of following PCI DSS compliance is to secure payment data from cyber threats.
- Just as it is mandatory for bikers to wear helmets to protect their heads from accidents, it is also mandatory for companies to back up their data to protect against cyber attacks. Just as bikers need to check that their helmets are sturdy, organizations need to sanitize their data before backing it up.
- Did you know that employees can also be vulnerable to cyber-attacks? They can be socially engineered to perform malicious actions unknowingly, or they can be hacked by hackers, and hacked or socially engineered employees can expose your business to cyber threats. An organization needs to train its employees against the latest cyber threats. To ensure their safety.
- Every organization needs to work with external files. But using external files can be dangerous for organizations due to cyber threats. Organizations can use a well-reputed anti-virus program to check those external files if they are affected by malware. In 2017, malware called WannaCry cost the cyber world billions of dollars due to the havoc it wreaked on the cyber world. It’s terrifying, right? An organization needs to check external files before they use or store them.
- Secure your office network, and attackers can breach your office network and hack your entire IT infrastructure. A reputable firewall can protect your network, but it simply isn’t enough. An organization must check its office network against any type of cyber threat. This is very important because hackers can spy on an organization’s network, steal data from computers. They may even use methods like MITM, a more effective social engineering method, to gain access to the organization’s online application system.
- Check for insider threats, what would an attacker do if they had any access to your business’s internal network, or maybe a disgruntled employee or hacked employee? Many business owners ignore insider threats. This is a big mistake. A study by the Ponemon Institute found that the average cost of an insider attack is 15.38 million. A pentester can simulate an insider threat for you.
- Multi-factor authentication adds another layer of security to your system access methods. Most organizations use only a username-password method for login systems, which is not sufficient, but using multi-factor authentication will provide an additional layer of security. Example: After providing a username and password for an online application, you will receive an OTP code from the cloud to your personal device or mail, which you need to enter in that application to access your online system, for a physical computer, after providing a username and Password You need to scan your biometric to gain access to that computer.
- Encrypt important data before using or storing it, like payments, people identification, etc. Working with bare sensitive data is very risky. Encrypt credit card numbers, social security numbers, and any other sensitive data for security purposes.
- Mask your entire data with encrypted sensitive data so that even if your data is leaked by hackers, it will be of no use to them. Masking methods are another layer of security against data breaches. And the critical information is double-way masked, so the security will be very strong. An organization must develop its own data masking program, which contains a unique pattern for data masking by trusted developers.
Are these steps enough to fortify a business organization against modern cyber threats? The simple answer is that your organization’s security system will be in good shape, but security is a continuous thing, not a one-time product. An organization must constantly monitor for cyber threats against its IT infrastructure.
“Security is a process, not a product.”
— Kevin Mitnick
An organization must constantly monitor its security. Every day attackers are finding new and new methods to attack IT infrastructure. A business needs to test its IT infrastructure for every update made to its systems.
In conclusion, the risks of cyber threats have increased, but there are many ways to prevent them. Business organizations must take those steps to secure their infrastructure. If you need any help, RedNode is always available for you.
