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Cyber attacks have now become serious threats to all technology users including business owners and their employees. Attackers have become more relentless. They use automated tools to probe and expose vulnerable business computers and networks. For this reason, business owners use tools like online e-verify databases to protect themselves against fraud. After all, cyber attacks are expected to cause trillions of dollars in damages around the globe by 2021. As such, it’s become critical for everyone, especially SMBS and enterprises, to secure their respective devices and infrastructures.
Attack methods have also become diverse so companies now have to invest in a number of solutions to deal with these threats. Gartner projects explain that over $124 billion will be spent on cybersecurity this year. Given the amount that you might end up investing in these solutions, it’s important for you and your organization to know how well they work or if they actually work at all.
Conventionally, this can be done through penetration testing. You can also employ “red teams” or white hat security experts to try and breach your networks using the same tactics hackers would use. Alternatively, breach and attack simulation (BAS) services are now emerging . They provide business owners with an automated and self-service means. You can use this service to check for anything from a simple hack all the way to advanced persistent threats. Before you test your security, however, you need to revisit what threats are out there and what measures are now available to mitigate them. In this post, you will learn the top tips to help you secure your company’s data.
Know The Latest Threats
One of every hacker’s main goals is to profit quickly. To maximize their efforts, they look to launch wide scale attacks and affect as many victims as possible. Unfortunately, they now also have the means to do so.
Modern malware can now perform sophisticated actions such as going through user files for sensitive information or taking full control of devices. If you want to protect your sensitive business information, stay up-to-date on the latest malware security tips. Attackers can also implant ransomware that encrypts users’ files and hold these files hostage until a ransom is paid. They can now use the devices they compromise to earn cryptocurrencies by implanting crypto mining malware in victims’ computers.
Attackers are actively targeting companies’ own networks to access their valuable data. They can directly hack servers and clouds to steal entire databases, hijack web applications in order to skim information from transactions. Personal and financial data is sold on the dark web and is also used to launch future attacks.
Social engineering attacks like phishing are also still widely used, counting on careless users and causing a lot of damage to infrastructures from within the network. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks can overwhelm server and network capacities rendering the victim’s servers or web applications inaccessible.
Any one of these attack methods can deal a significant blow to your business, the loss of data wreaks havoc to a processes, downtime leads to decreased productivity and further losses as well. Since data protection regulations now require companies to disclose breaches, falling victim can also irrecoverably damage a company’s public image and reputation.
Secure Your Infrastructure
Fortunately, cybersecurity firms have come up with various solutions to mitigate these threats. Antiviruses have long been considered the most basic protection you can have on your computer. Professionals have updated the security tool, benefiting businesses that are trying to improve their cybersecurity. Antiviruses now work beyond plainly detecting and removing malware and function as comprehensive endpoint security solutions. They can now actively monitor processes on systems and prevent the execution of potentially malicious tasks. Furthermore, they can actively notify users should they be doing something risky such as clicking on suspicious links or visiting dubious websites.
A host of network and cloud protection services are now also available to prevent data breaches. Firewalls and DDoS mitigation solutions can monitor requests being sent over networks and prevent malicious traffic from reaching its target. Breach attempts are prevented by firewalls and access controls. More advanced solutions even use artificial intelligence to scan for anomalous activities within infrastructures and automatically deploy measures to prevent incidents.
Businesses can also centrally manage their devices using access control and group policies. By using IT management platforms, it’s even possible for administrators to automate the patching and updates of systems and applications across the network – a key practice to ensure that all known vulnerabilities to systems and applications are effectively patched.
Check Your Security Measures
These solutions all claim to prevent and mitigate various cyber attack methods. However, their real-world effectiveness varies especially when taking into consideration the specific contexts in which they are used. Faulty configurations and misuse will diminish the effectiveness of any solution you adopt.
Fortunately, there are ways to check how well your defenses can hold up against cyber attacks. The conventional way is to actually launch attacks on your infrastructure. You can perform penetration tests that would probe your network for vulnerabilities. Testing tools can be configured to exploit these vulnerabilities by attempting to breach systems, extract data, or even deploy payloads. Red teaming can be also be done to perform more focused and deliberate attacks which may include social engineering attacks or even physical attacks from within the network. Keep in mind that you should perform security checks on a wide variety of online platforms. For instance, businesses who update their social media security prevent business cyber attacks.
However, not all companies have the resources or expertise to perform these tests which makes the emergence of BAS services a welcome development in enterprise cybersecurity. BAS services can be used to launch simulated attacks on your infrastructure. These attacks can mimic malware, phishing, and breach attempts on endpoints and web applications without actually causing harm. These can even be scheduled and automated to ensure that security measures get periodically tested. BAS platforms also provide comprehensive reports based on the results of these tests and recommended action for you to take. Using these results, you can then reconfigure your security to address vulnerabilities or even replace poorly performing solutions.
Fight Complacency
Cyberattacks can happen anytime so you must always be mindful keeping your infrastructure secure. It helps to have security policies that cover all aspects of computing within the organization and employ measures to protect all endpoint, networks, cloud components, and human resources.
However, adopting these solutions shouldn’t lull you into complacency. Even with measures in place, it important to actually test the effectiveness of these solutions and improve upon any weakness that you can find in your infrastructure’s security.
