Establishing operational resilience in the face of cyberattacks has become a top priority for organizations. As a core component of the IT infrastructure, Active Directory (AD) must be at the center of that process. But who is responsible for ensuring Active Directory is both protected and can be recovered quickly when a cyberattack occurs? In many organizations the answer is not clear, which can lead to missteps in detecting, defending against, and responding to cyberattacks.
Even if you are not mandated to adhere to any particular regulations, it still makes sense for your business to be proactive in managing risk. All frameworks include guidance for good cybersecurity hygiene, such as effective inventory and asset management, contingency planning, personnel security, system access control, and staff awareness and training, to list a few. To prepare for the aftermath of a cyber incident, frameworks provide incident response guidelines you can follow to recover and try to limit the damage. Establishing a framework can not only help your organization follow best practices but also bring rigorous cyber discipline to your organization.
For many years, the focus on securing OT environments has been on the imminent danger of a cyberattack upon critical infrastructure, in other words, SCADA/ICS attacks. Most of the concern has been on nation state actors like China, North Korean, Iran and Russia directly attacking and destroying our infrastructure.
While cybersecurity attack methods are rapidly evolving, it's more often than not a misuse of administrative privileges and weak or stolen credentials that are enough to breach any critical infrastructure. Let's take the attack on the water treatment plant for example—all it took for the unidentified perpetrator was one unprotected password to access and handle the control systems remotely. Time and again, incidents like this prove that when passwords are stored in secure vaults and are subject to standard security practices, the chances of getting hacked are far lower.
COVID made “flatten the curve” a household phrase in 2020, but did you know the concept also applies to vulnerability exploits? It turns out that what’s past is prologue in exploit trends. By tracking which attacks are being exploited the most, organizations discover important information to help proactively determine their vulnerability and risk. But it is also important to track attacks where activity has increased the most within a specified timeframe. It only takes one critical exploit to cause significant damage and, once inside the network, the attacker will need to move laterally and probably deploy additional exploits. That’s why understanding which exploits have the greatest likelihood of arriving on the network’s doorstep helps organizations prioritize patch management and risk assessment. This remains top of mind as cyber adversaries continue to maximize vulnerabilities, as we have recently seen with DearCry ransomware, for example.
Communication was already a challenge in the security industry with widespread teams or lone personnel in siloed locations. Now that COVID-19 has virtually eradicated in-person interactions and many team members are only working remotely, it is all the more difficult to keep everyone synced. The entire face of security communications has changed, escalating the need to find alternate ways to connect with the growing remote workforce. Internal and external communications are merging as security companies struggle to manage disconnected teams. Remote work now requires mobile communication delivery at an unprecedented level. Security professionals are discovering faster, more effective ways to communicate with simple, plug-and-play digital solutions.
Integrated solutions using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) bring expanded functionality and enhanced security to swinging doors and turnstiles
While artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an integral part of business operations in myriad market segments around the globe, security applications have been slower to adopt it into the mix. However, the added health risks organizations now face from COVID-19 have forced both security solutions providers and users to rethink how AI can help mitigate those risks.
Enterprise security teams need the ability to see, and they need good sound—sound that is clear, intelligible, and understood, every time. Only then can security teams acquire actionable business intelligence, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate safety and security risks. What are some examples within enterprise security where “good sound” and high-definition audio can help security teams to reduce security risks?
Almost every American adult knows that cyberattacks and breaches are ubiquitous and have primarily targeted companies and government entities. They might even know that the single most common breach these days is ransomware, a malicious process by which hackers dismantle computer systems and don’t fix them until a ransom is paid. Few, however, are aware that ransomware is targeting a new set of highly vulnerable victims en masse. In recent months, the majority of successful ransomware attacks have struck K-12 schools nationwide, casting a whole new light on the number of Americans highly susceptible to a cyberattack.