Routers found vulnerable to cyber attacks

knowledge in areas which are typically male dominated. The Boston Education Trust focuses on increasing the number of black female IT graduates.

2. Challenging current infrastructure

Mckinsey’s previous research on the impact of long-term automation trends on work concluded that 7 to 24 percent of those currently employed may need to transition across occupations by 2030 as automation transforms the nature of work. What this means is that women should be gaining broad business skills, such as those of the Boston BSocSci degree, a fourth IR degree.

3. Gender Pay Gap

The ‘gender pay gap’ is the difference between the average wages of men and women, regardless of their seniority. ‘Equal pay’ is about ensuring that there are no unjustified pay differences between employees who perform ‘work of equal value’.

4. Business and workplace

Assess internal culture and behaviour which contribute to the underlying problem. Organisations should identify and better understand how to attract, develop, and retain female talent at all levels.

5. Overcoming Bias

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Current advice is to make sure that your computer and linked cloud services are protected with software and support services to prevent cybercrime attacks. Another vulnerable frontier is the router. The popular Draytek routers among home office users and small businesses have been found vulnerable to malware that allows cybercriminals to remotely take over the router.

While major malware incidents make headlines in the media, router vulnerabilities are not as publicised, but outcomes of the violations could be immensely damaging to businesses. If a router at a business at which access control was managed over the internet, the compromised router would give cybercriminals access to the internal network. Leveraging past insecure firmware updates, criminals could gain access without detection, and tamper with or steal items and documents.

ernment, but they still hold a treasure trove of personal data, and are linked to ‘bigger fish’, making them ideal targets for malicious actors wanting to harvest information for illegal use or for ransom,” Bolzonello says.

that many domestic workers lost their jobs during Covid, and many households have elected either not to re-employ workers full-time, or not to employ domestic workers at all. Women make up 39% of global employment but account for 54% of overall job losses as of May 2020. Kennedy provides the following insights:

1. Education

Investment in education from corporates, educational institutions, and government will provide opportunities for women to gain skills and

Unconscious discrepancies have been inculcated in society for both males and females in terms of which gender is better suited for different types of work and thinking. Boston has slightly more female than male students; this ratio needs to be represented in positions of authority in the workplaces.

Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist once explained “The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist, nor to any one organisation, but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Make a positive difference for women. Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality.

A compromised router also makes it possible for cybercriminals to snoop on non-encrypted internet traffic, redirecting DNS requests to attacker-controlled servers, making it possible for external parties to access unprotected internal resources and devices, particularly those with weak passwords. This leads to credentials theft, intellectual property and competitive information.

This type of criminal access also leads to third parties being compromised, such as clients, suppliers or other entities in a shared supply chain.

Trellix South Africa country lead Carlo Bolzonello says attacks via compromised routers are most frequently targeted at companies with small or medium-sized digital infrastructure, such as independent law firms, private clinics and healthcare facilities, agencies and even news organisations.

“These organisations may feel a false sense of security because they don’t think they are as big or important to cybercriminals as big corporates or gov-

He adds that while the attacks that make the news are usually about big companies, cybercriminals know that these organizations typically have a living security solution in place, with extended detection and response protocols (XDR) in place.

“That is why they are content to turn their attention to small environments that are easier to access, and more likely to pay a ransom because they don’t want to attract negative attention from clients,” Bolzonello says.

Small businesses can access XDR solutions, which integrate security products into cohesive systems, providing a holistic but simple view of threats across a business’s entire technology stack, including its routers.

“The growing shift to work from home, which means that privately owned routers are linking into business networks makes it more imperative for enterprises of all sizes to have a proactive approach to cybersecurity. Every business, no matter its size, needs to protect its technology assets, including all endpoints, mobile, network and cloud workloads,” Bolzonello says.