With the prevalence of cybersecurity themes in headlines, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed (or perhaps even disheartened) by the security landscape.
Organizations face innovative criminals who are continually fine-tuning their approach, leaving them scrambling for answers on how best to save themselves from being another cybercrime statistic.
Anyone wondering where to begin should familiarize themselves with the biggest cybersecurity challenges businesses face today.
Top Cyber Threats
When developing a robust cybersecurity strategy, it’s crucial to understand the threat landscape. It takes only a single weak point or unaddressed risk for intrepid cybercriminals to strike gold, and these bad actors are growing more cunning and innovative by the day.
Social Engineering
Preying on the naivety or trusting nature of end users, social engineering attacks take many forms.
Regardless of approach, social engineering relies on manipulating, influencing, deceiving, or coercing a target into providing valuable information or performing actions like financial transactions.
No longer limited to emails filled with typos from questionable senders, these attacks have become more sophisticated. Bad actors may research their targets and address them by name and title.
Social engineering is also performed via SMS, phone calls, or social media platforms, showing that cyber-attacks can come from virtually any direction.
Best practice: Ensure staff is familiar with current social engineering trends and that policies and workflows are clearly outlined. All staff should understand the risk of clicking on links or accessing websites and verify all requests from management before taking action.
Ransomware
Closely related to social engineering attacks, ransomware threats are growing in popularity. A ransomware attack aims to access valuable data and then hold it hostage, demanding payment from a company that wants the privilege of having what’s rightfully theirs returned to them.
Ransomware can be sent through social engineering attacks or initiated by clicking on an ad or visiting an infected URL. Hackers may also exploit vulnerabilities, accessing a network and launching their offense.
Best practice: Communicate about the threat of ransomware attacks, including how they arrive and their impact on the company so that staff can remain alert.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)
Another popular approach is distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In this effort, criminals flood a network or system with false requests, aiming to overwhelm devices, systems, or networks and take them offline.
Without rate-limiting and adequate monitoring, a single IP address can result in an outage that stops customers from accessing your products or services.
Best practice: Employ rate limiting and ongoing traffic monitoring to ensure malicious requests are stopped swiftly before they can harm.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Fakes
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have many organizations excited for a new realm of possibility. Of course, cybercriminals’ interests are also piqued as they see new ways to use these new technologies for their gain.
AI and ML can lower or eliminate the need for hands-on efforts, instead learning tactics and launching attacks with a single click. As AI and ML grow more sophisticated, criminals can launch more attacks in less time, broadening their reach.
Not long ago, we could comfortably say that while written and voice communications should be scrutinized, videos were dependable and trustworthy. With deep fakes, nothing can be trusted.
Deep fakes are digitally-altered videos crafted to look as if they come from someone else. These videos are so well-crafted it can be virtually impossible to discern whether they are authentic, genuine, or viable.
Best practice: Similar to the above, ensure strong security practices and staff education with a trust-no-one approach.
Cloud and API Exploits
The rise of the cloud was accelerated in recent years to accommodate new ways of working. With hybrid and remote working environments, cloud applications save the day, making systems and information available to end users no matter where they are.
Unfortunately, cloud ubiquity also means vulnerabilities are just as obtainable.
Cloud and API exploits are commonplace as criminals see an opportunity to access data and entire systems. Organizations must set stringent security requirements, including multi-factor authentication, to ensure logins don’t fall into the wrong hands.
Best practice: Enforce strong security requirements, including multi-factor authentication. Consider requiring VPN connections for remote staff to add another layer of security.
Third-Party Risk and Insider Threats
No company is an island; to varying degrees, everyone relies on third parties for success. That’s why cybersecurity strategies require attention to third-party risk and insider threats to be reliable.
Third parties include contractors, partners, vendors, and suppliers. Anyone with access to internal systems and data needs to be vetted, monitored, and managed for security.
The same holds for supply chain partners, whether they have direct access credentials or not. If a partner or contractor’s login data is compromised, it can prove costly for the entire company.
Insider threats are those that “arise when an organization’s trusted users abuse or misuse their access to sensitive information and assets.” These compromises may result from third parties or a member of your staff and can include stolen data or misused credentials.
Best practice: Thoroughly vet all partners, vendors, contractors, and other third-party entities accessing your company’s data. Define user roles based on strict access privileges, and offboard users as soon as the account is no longer required.
Staffing and Resource Barriers
The threat landscape is rapidly evolving, making it challenging for organizations to keep up with - and ahead of - threats. Unfortunately, resources are often a barrier to safety, whether it’s a financial barrier or human resources such as knowledgeable security staff.
Best practice: Prioritize proactive security measures, including devoting a sizeable budget to strategy and staff required for execution and maintenance.