Why cyber security is everyone’s business

The accel­er­at­ed shift to online over the past 18 months has been a boon to many busi­ness­es and a life­saver for some. But with the rise in online activ­i­ty has come an equiv­a­lent increase in cyber­crime. With staff hav­ing to rapid­ly adopt remote work­ing, the lines between busi­ness and per­son­al tech­nolo­gies have become blurred, weak­en­ing organ­i­sa­tions’ defences against the crim­i­nals. Attacks are var­ied and more sophis­ti­cat­ed, rang­ing from mal­ware and ran­somware attacks to denial of ser­vice, domain spoof­ing and more.

“The pre­em­i­nent threat, for at least the last year, has been ran­somware,” explains Mimecast’s head of risk & resilience, e‑crime & cyber inves­ti­ga­tion, Carl Wearn, describ­ing a com­mon attack where com­pa­nies’ sys­tems are infil­trat­ed and tak­en over by crim­i­nals who either shut down access or threat­en to leak cus­tomer data unless paid a ran­som – hence the name. The com­mon per­cep­tion of such crim­i­nals is a lone wolf, hack­er or organ­i­sa­tion with a polit­i­cal aim. The real­i­ty is much more ordi­nary. “The vast major­i­ty of ran­somware attacks are oppor­tunis­tic. It’s lucra­tive for the crim­i­nals and vic­tims are reluc­tant to report it because of the impact on their brand rep­u­ta­tion.”

But while the temp­ta­tion might be to keep qui­et and pay up, the threat to busi­ness and brand rep­u­ta­tion doesn’t end there. “Not report­ing it is a hin­drance for law enforce­ment. In many cas­es, they are able to get some, or even all, of the mon­ey back from the crim­i­nals. But com­pa­nies fear the result­ing pub­lic­i­ty will mean they are either open to a copy­cat attack, or that they might lose their cus­tomers’ trust from hav­ing fall­en vic­tim in the first place,” Wearn explains.

Despite the grow­ing num­ber of insur­ance prod­ucts claim­ing to pro­tect against cyber­crime, pay­outs are by no means a giv­en and, in some cas­es, the pres­ence of cov­er­age may actu­al­ly encour­age an attack. In most instances, com­pa­nies should take sim­ple steps to pro­tect them­selves against cyberthreats.

Cloud stor­age has become increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar over the years and for good rea­son – it’s flex­i­ble, com­par­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive and gen­er­al­ly secure. But it’s impor­tant to be secu­ri­ty con­scious with any cloud stor­age or back­ups, as these can be tar­get­ed for encryp­tion, like any­thing else.

Organ­i­sa­tions should make sure they have fall­back email and archive capa­bil­i­ties. “With a solu­tion in place, even fol­low­ing an attack, you can con­tin­ue to use email and car­ry on once you have restored from back­up. With­out that back­up, once an attack has hap­pened, it’s clear­ly too late,” Wearn warns.

Then it comes down to basic IT hygiene. Com­pa­nies can take very basic steps to pro­tect their sys­tems. A strong pass­word regime, for exam­ple, where reg­u­lar changes are enforced, is the first line of defence. Aware­ness train­ing is a key ele­ment here as employ­ees must be aware of their role in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. Mul­ti­fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion as stan­dard is an addi­tion­al lay­er of pro­tec­tion that is sim­ple to insti­tute. Seg­ment­ing net­works so they can be cut off from the rest of the sys­tem and quar­an­tined can pre­vent attacks esca­lat­ing.

Com­pa­ny cul­ture also plays an impor­tant part. “It’s not uncom­mon for senior staff to insist on hav­ing admin access to appli­ca­tions but this just intro­duces more weak­ness into the sys­tem,” Wearn sug­gests. “Resist the temp­ta­tion to bow to job titles and restrict access to only the peo­ple who know how to keep those sys­tems safe.” Busi­ness­es should be insist­ing on a sep­a­ra­tion between work devices and tech­nol­o­gy for per­son­al use.

Increas­ing­ly, organ­i­sa­tions are look­ing to lever­age cyber intel­li­gence across mul­ti­ple sys­tems. Mime­cast uses spe­cif­ic APIs to help sys­tems col­lab­o­rate and share knowl­edge of threats across the secu­ri­ty ecosys­tem. Ulti­mate­ly, resist­ing mali­cious actors online comes down to a joint effort between busi­ness, employ­ees, spe­cial­ist ven­dors and con­sul­tants and law enforce­ment.

Wearn con­cludes: “Take the time to research and col­lab­o­rate with cyber­se­cu­ri­ty experts and select ‘best of breed’ solu­tions to pro­vide lay­ered secu­ri­ty that suits your needs best. Imple­ment aware­ness train­ing for all users. Secu­ri­ty is everyone’s respon­si­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly now we are all embrac­ing a hybrid work­ing mod­el.”

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