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Downtime – whether due to system failures, cyberattacks, or other disruptions – can have devastating financial and operational impacts on any business.
Downtime – whether due to system failures, cyberattacks, or other disruptions – can have devastating financial and operational impacts on any business.
Recent figures indicate that there were over 50 significant data breaches in 2023 and there have already been nine major breaches reported in the first quarter of 2024.
According to the Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report:
With such a significant increase in the exploitation of known vulnerabilities, proactive measures must be taken to prevent cyber incidents.
Yet the very agency responsible for keeping end users safer on the web, and who have helped promote the Cybersecurity Awareness Month campaigns each October, have fallen victim to a cyberattack. It was found that Ivanti vulnerabilities in the systems of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) left them susceptible to the attack.
A 180% increase in exploited vulnerabilities is alarming, and while there were major zero-day vulnerabilities that contributed to the dramatic rise, the fact remains that organizations must stay a step ahead. The best way to do that is to find the vulnerabilities in your system – unpatched software, weak passwords, known vulnerabilities – before cybercriminals do.
Blue Bastion, a division of Ideal Integrations, specializes in defensive and offensive cybersecurity operations. They employ a comprehensive managed detection and response service that includes vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. These and similar aggressive efforts help identify and remediate vulnerabilities quickly and effectively.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish legitimate emails from phishing emails, and generative AI will continue to make it even worse. For instance, investigators observed that a phishing campaign targeting the United States Postal Service (USPS) directed nearly as much traffic to spoofed websites as it did to the legitimate sites, through the use of phishing emails and text messages.
As cybercriminals begin to take advantage of AI, phishing attacks are becoming nearly impossible to detect, reveals Infosecurity Magazine. “AI detectors cannot tell whether a phishing email has been written by a chatbot or a human in three cases out of four.” Users of LastPass, a popular password manager, were targeted in early 2024 by attackers who launched an AI-driven phishing campaign that convincingly tricked users into divulging their master passwords.
According to Phishing for Dummies®, Cisco Special Edition, the top five tactics business leaders need to watch for are:
In addition to having comprehensive cybersecurity measures in place that include threat detection, penetration testing, 24/7/365 monitoring, and vulnerability patching, one of the most critical steps every organization can take to combat phishing threats is to provide ongoing awareness training to every employee.
As phishing attacks become more sophisticated, keeping the potential threat top of mind for all employees is essential. An employee may not think twice about a request to update a password for a commonly used website or to submit private information to what appears to be a reliable vendor. Employees blindly trust that an antivirus program will weed out the spam in their digital mailboxes, without considering that an email could be a phishing attack.
Your training needs to be more than a brief presentation or a handout. Cybersecurity training should be comprehensive and provided on a regular basis, to communicate updates and reinforce these best practices:
Your employees can be your biggest risk, but they can also become a strong defense against phishing attacks. Knowledge is the first step in preventing data breaches, and by educating employees regularly, you can establish a culture of best security practices.
In addition to providing employee training, companies must develop a zero-trust culture with policies that prohibit employees from clicking links, opening files, or conducting any financial transactions through email communications. Redundant verification processes should be required for any action, and internal file sharing should be accomplished through a company’s secure, shared drive.
Learn more from Ideal Integrations.
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Just as everyone was getting ready to celebrate Independence Day, a major cyberattack occurred. What made this ransomware attack different from others was that the cybercriminals went after MSPs, via Kaseya VSA – Kaseya’s RMM (remote monitoring and management) tool. By doing so, the perpetrators gained access to many of Kaseya’s MSP clients as well. More than 17 countries have now been impacted.
thinkCSC does not use Kaseya VSA. However, this should serve as yet another wake-up call to every business of every size that the risk is real: No one is immune to cybercrime. Another business is compromised every 11 minutes. And most of the time, the attacks are preventable. So instead of panicking, it’s time to take action.
If you don’t know where you’re vulnerable, you need to assess your risk. Our team can evaluate your existing security protocols and make suggestions for what needs to change to keep you safe. This is the place to begin, even if you already have an MSP partner, to make sure your data and your customers are protected.
Experts have been predicting for years that cyber warfare is going to be the next global pandemic. We’re already seeing signs of large-scale threats disrupting everything from energy and food to medical care. There is no time to waste, no excuses not to act. If you don’t have comprehensive security in place, you are at risk.
Consider what would happen if a data breach occurred at a local bank, an online shopping site, or a social media company. What if the cybercriminals were able to access thousands of usernames and passwords? What if one of these compromised passwords belonged to an employee in your organization? How would that impact your company?
Can you be sure that an employee has not reused a compromised password somewhere within your network? Do you have a password manager and multi-factor authentication in place? Do your employees know the risks and how to minimize them? If a threat becomes evident, do they act swiftly to minimize that threat by changing passwords and enabling 2FA on all of their accounts?
How capable are your employees of recognizing phishing emails? Do they know the steps to take if their data has been involved in a breach? Are they reusing the same passwords from their personal accounts on your business network?
In almost all of the major ransomware attacks that occur, there is a missing security element: a piece of software has gone unpatched; a former employee’s access to the network has not been rescinded; an employee is tricked into wiring money to a hacker because of a convincing email. Employee awareness training can help eliminate that risk.
We all have an opportunity to use these latest threats as a reminder to shore up our security, both personally and within our organizations. There is no more time to lose. The next ransomware attack is already underway. If you’re not sure where to begin, get in touch with our team to talk about risk assessments, employee awareness training, and comprehensive cybersecurity solutions.
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