What cyber threat trends and techniques are companies facing?
And how can they mitigate these threats to protect their business?
[3 minute read]
Organisations across the world face a range of cyber threats on a daily basis. But there is a pattern in the techniques which cybercriminals use. These can include taking advantage of internal weaknesses, gaining access using compromised user credentials, external ransomware attacks, or exploiting external tools to identify vulnerabilities. Penetration testing allows us to assess the vulnerability of an organisation at a single point in time before a cybercriminal uses the same methods to gain access and impact the business.
Looking at the commonalities in internal vs external threats allows us to understand where businesses should focus their attention to proactively mitigate these threats.
Internal Threats
A recent survey by our partners at AT&T Cybersecurity found that 29% of organisations say that phishing attacks are the threat that keeps them up at night the most. With any workforce acting as the first line of defence against phishing attacks, it’s imperative that companies are educating employees to be able to identify malicious emails and malware.
These phishing attacks typically aim to deliver a malicious payload or potentially social engineer the recipient to make payments or share personal information. The average phishing success rate is still at about 21%. As the web continues to evolve and become more secure, malware authors are getting more creative about how they package and deliver their payload. While links are still a major delivery method, the last few years have seen the emergence of malware hiding in document files, most notably downloadable PDFs.
With 9/10 cyberattacks beginning with a phishing email, phishing prevention has become a top priority for organisations wanting to protect their networks and sensitive information. Many companies are turning to managed phishing services to protect against malicious emails and familiarise staff with the dangers of phishing.
External Threats
The last two years have brought an acceleration of digital transformation in order for organisations to move into new ways of working and provide better flexibility and business continuity. As a result of this, 58% of business leaders are most concerned about cloud security threats and feel uniformed about where their vulnerabilities might be.
Commenting on this, Scott Goodwin, COO and Co-Founder of DigitalXRAID commented: “To help organisations get ahead of the digital transformation game, it’s essential for businesses to focus their cyber security efforts around new cloud deployments. Businesses should work directly with external managed security services partners to identify potential ‘blind spots’ in the company’s overall security defenses. This can help proactively secure vulnerable platforms and systems before a malicious cyberattack can take place.”
While there is an element of security provision from the cloud provider, organisations are ultimately responsible for keeping their business secure. Typically configuration issues within cloud environments and a prioritisation of functionality over security leaves companies vulnerable to cyberattack. By implementing cloud security services through a skilled security partner, organisations get peace of mind that assets and data stored in the cloud are safeguarded against leakage, theft and loss.
Unfortunately, 2022 has brought the reality of nation state attacks to every country in the world. We’re seeing firsthand the devastating effects these attacks can have. Prior to 2022, there was a relatively low level of concern about this external threat, however today all organisations must be looking to protect their networks from the fallout of cyberwarfare. Even smaller businesses, who may incorrectly rely on being ‘too small to be attacked’, need to take action. Working with a managed security service partner (MSSP) to provide the business with consistent threat monitoring is a core part of a solid cyber security strategy. An MSSP can bring added benefits of aggregate value, understanding the wider threatscape and providing better protection than an in-house team with a limited view.
Protect the business
The nature of cyberattacks is ever changing, driven by evolving cybercrime ecosystems and increasingly using multiple vectors to attack a single target. However, the basic methods by which cybercriminals continue to successfully attack businesses are largely the same.
Human error will always be a frontline vulnerability in any cyber security approach. And even the most advanced security systems can have vulnerabilities if left unaddressed. Organisations need to recognise that attacks are not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’. At the very minimum, the business must have playbooks and critical incidence response procedures in place to minimise recovery times and business disruption. However, to have the visibility to be able to detect and mitigate internal and external cyber threats before they cause any damage, outsourcing a fully managed 24/7/356 Security Operations Centre (SOC) is key. This is the only way for businesses to keep on top of the ever-present threatscape.
