TECHNOLOGY
COVER STORY
Active Resistance Against Cyberattacks Through Robust Solutions and Best Practices The cover story helps readers understand the trend of cyberattacks, the impact of breaches, required strategies, and the need to inculcate best practices to create active resistance against cyberattacks.
C
PROTECTION OF CRITICAL SYSTEMS FROM CYBERATTACK
ybersecurity is one of the most often used terminologies in almost all industries in the context of rising cyber threats, including the exploitation of software vulnerabilities, ransomware attacks, and malicious intrusions in enterprise networks. While digital transformation and cloud business are taken to a new level, the “zero trust” approach becomes a widely appreciated strategy from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large corporates. The time is crucial for cybersecurity professionals and services providers as intruders simultaneously exploit vulnerabilities in software or network systems and make use of the latest technologies to hijack. Reports suggest that office suits, IoT devices, and other communication agents in the enterprise networks are repeatedly found vulnerable when it comes to resisting breaches. Apart from that, the use of AI-powered cyberattacks also became common practice. Most of the cyberattacks, such as ransomware and malware attacks, are motivated by financial interests. Such attacks are designated to steal personally identifiable information (PII), Social Security information, and credit card details from servers. The stolen information is generally gets sold in underground digital marketplaces. But then, attacks happened on government enterprises and utility service networks are contemplated the political and diplomatic interests.
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FEBRUARY 2022
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting IT and network systems from potential cyberattacks; it guards data and sensitive information also from digital attacks. Today, an enterprise requires to install multiple agents in its IT system and educate its workforce to combat breaches that originate outside the organization. Cyberattacks at an enterprise not only cause loss of trust in partners but also bring a bad reputation in the industry especially if the breach is specific to personally identifiable information (PII) of customers. Therefore, enterprises have no choice but to stay upfront in protecting their critical systems. The average cost of a data breach was USD 3.86 million globally in 2020. The cost includes: • Expenses of discovering and responding to the breach • Downtime • Revenue • Reputational damage
MOST KNOWN CYBER THREATS Even though enterprises and cybersecurity professions establish strong measures against outside breaches, attackers find ways to exploit in-house weaknesses focusing on remote access tools, work-from-anywhere environments, etc. The following are some of the known cyberattacks:
MALWARE
They are malicious software variants, such as viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware and they can be mostly detected using antivirus tools. However, malware presence in the computer can give unauthorized access to systems.
RANSOMWARE This is a type of malware that locks down files or data and threatens to erase or destroy the data unless a ransom is paid to the cybercriminals who designated the attack. Recently, ransomware attacks have targeted state and local governments across the world.
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