Title: How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
1 How to Fight Cyber
Threats Like A Pro
2 How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
The principal security agency of Russia the
Federal Security Service (FSB) faced the
largest data leak in the history of the work of
Russian special services on the Internet after
hackers breached one of their IT contractors and
stole and leaked 7.5 terabytes of data to the
journalists. In another case, the credit bureau
Equifax is penalized to pay 650 million to
compensate for the information loss caused by a
2017 data breach, resulting in the exposure of
information belonging to 145 million
people. Cyberattacks have become the biggest
threat to organizations worldwide. The risk
associated with cyber crimes have doubled in the
last six years, with the total damages cost being
projected to reach 6 trillion annually by
2021. We are living in a digitally connected
world where the bandwidth and scope will further
expand as we progress into the future. IoT
devices are on a continual rise, while cyber
breach incidents are increasing at an alarming
rate. In order to fulfill the vision of a
wholly-connected world, the IoT proliferation is
favorable. Thus, it is essential to control and
address the security concerns that it is bringing
along. As per a report, about 61 of the
organizations have experienced an IoT security
incident. Data is the new asset that drives
revenues for an organization in this digitally
evolving ecosystem. This shift in the value from
physical to digital assets has caused the
increase in the number of cyber crimes. Data
protection and cyber security have taken the
maximum priority for the organizational leaders
as they are now realizing the associated value as
well as threats of this data-driven world. It is
time that organizations start considering cyber
attacks as a risk and establish the necessary
risk prevention and management mechanism. They
need to devise a sustainable cyber defense
strategy
3How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
that can protect the organizational data as well
as shield it against the future attacks. Let us
try to understand how leaders should approach
data and cyber threats to establish a robust and
flexible cybersecurity strategy that will
effectively fortify their organizations digital
walls. Intospect Perform a thorough
analysis In a most recent cybercrime incident, a
hacker broke into Bulgarias tax system and stole
the social security, bank, and salary information
of 5 million tax-paying adults in the country.
The same hacker had also penetrated the Bulgarian
Education Ministrys website in 2017, citing the
act as his civic duty. Such hacks into the
government databases raise questions on the
reliability, integrity and security of personal
information in this digital age. Cybersecurity
is no longer just the concern of IT department.
The criticality and impact of cyber resilience
are mandating involvement of the entire
organization to ensure that no information is
leaked out. If businesses wish to attract and
retain their customers, they must build a
credible and trustworthy environment in which
their prospects are comfortable with sharing
their personal data. For doing so, the first step
would require creation of a thorough
organizational profile. Such a profile will help
gain visibility into the strengths and weaknesses
of the organization and allow them to mark the
potential targets, risks, and vulnerabilities
that hackers can exploit. Daniel Wagner, Risk
Consultant and Author, rightly says, Some risks
that are thought to be unknown, are not unknown.
With
4How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
some foresight and critical thought, some risks
that at first glance may seem unforeseen, can in
fact be foreseen. Armed with the right set of
tools, procedures, knowledge and insight, light
can be shed on variables that lead to risk,
allowing us to manage them. By performing a
detailed analysis of organizations
infrastructural and network structure, it becomes
easier to identify those network footprint and
components, and configuration settings and
techniques that might compromise the confidential
information to the hackers. This recceing is
although the first step while devising a
cybersecurity strategy, it is also required that
such analysis is performed on a regular basis to
make sure that the strategy is aligned with any
update made to the organizations
structure. Visualize the threats and stage an
attack Once the organization profiling is
completed, the next step involves identification
of those nodes, elements, and vectors that face
the risk of penetration. These vectors should
then be arranged and prioritized based on their
ease of exploitation and the value of information
that they contain. As per Demitrios Laz
Lazarikos, Founder and CEO, Blue Lava, Inc., at
SecureWorld Philadelphia, A modern cybersecurity
program must have Board and Executive level
visibility, funding, and support. The modern
cybersecurity program also
5How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
- includes reporting on multiple topics
understanding how threats impact revenues and the
company brand, sales enablement, brand
protection, IP protection, and understanding
cyber risk. - A cyberattack simulation should be carried out to
understand how strong the existing systems really
are. Performing security testing and website
vulnerability testing yield insightful results
regarding the cybersecurity solutions
effectiveness. The findings of this simulated
attack will further aid the decision makers to
formulate a better-suited strategy that
efficiently takes care of the identified
vulnerabilities and threat risks. - An effective dealing of cyber threats requires a
proactive approach from the organizations part,
making mature prevention, detection, and recovery
measures absolutely critical. This means
establishment of an Incident Response Service to
deal with a breach crisis on an immediate basis. - An incident response service typically involves
- Discovery It takes an average of 191 days for
organization to discover a breach. This statistic
clearly reflects the robustness of existing
cybersecurity strategies. Without even knowing
that the security has been compromised, it is
impossible to react and respond. - Response Once the breach is discovered,
immediate actions should be deployed to minimize
the impact as much as possible.
6How to Fight Cyber Threats Like A Pro
- Investigate After taking the necessary measures
to contain the data breachs impact, it is time
to investigate the cause of the breach and to
identify the weakness in the system that allowed
the breach. - Remediate and prevent Remediation involves
taking the steps required to seal the compromised
nodes while prevention involves ascertaining that
such breach does not happen again in the future. - An incident response service takes a holistic
approach and is sustainably aligned with an
organizations goals. - Conclusion
- A cyber defense strategy requires commitment of
three critical aspects people, processes, and
tools. A foolproof cybersecurity solution takes
all three of these aspects into picture and takes
care of potential risks proactively. - Cignitis on-point cybersecurity assessment
capabilities support the businesses worldwide in
their fight against cyber crimes. We have immense
experience in serving clients across different
industry verticals and organization sizes. Our
Web application penetration testing uncovers
vulnerabilities in applications and ensures the
application risks are minimized. With a
proprietary cybersecurity framework, our Security
TCoE consists of dedicated teams of security
testing specialists with deep expertise spanning
multiple domains/industries, cutting-edge
technological resources/tools. Connect with us
today. -
- Read Full Blog at
- https//www.cigniti.com/blog/cybersecurity-cyber-t
hreats-strategy/
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