Cyber Security Archives - Page 5 of 9

Online Brand Protection: Detection, Inspection, and Destruction

Posted on 16/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Is Your Brand Secure Online?

It takes decade building a trusted brand that is vibrant and customer engaging. As a trusted online brand, your customers expect you to secure their private information and go over-and-beyond in defending them from becoming targets of cyber crooks.

In this era of a developing digital age, brand owners are at a huge risk of falling victim to a multitude of online threats. It takes only a mere moment of negligence and online fraud to leave a brand devastated from its reputation.

If this wasn’t obvious enough, the internet has already become a new arena for brand-related crimes such as identity thefts, virtual crimes, and data hacks. Over 150 brands are hijacked because of phishing attacks, every month. Cybersquatting crimes alone cost over $1 million annually to the brand companies.

Building and maintaining social media accounts, websites, and email campaigns for targeting prospects and clients is highly important to promote a business and a brand on an online platform. These things are highly essential, but they also make brands vulnerable and open to the prevailing cyberattacks.

There are miscellaneous ways to fall victim to unethical online practices and tools that not only affect the brand image but the entire organization. Online brand abuse, brand counterfeiting, cybersquatting, and cyber threat activities are needed to be combated with the right investigation and proper brand monitoring tool to prevent the loss of revenue, secure brand reputation and maintain customer trust.

Time for Online Brand Protection

With innovation and advancement in technologies, there should be proper strategies for domain and brand protection online. Every organization should be vigilant towards the online security of its brand and must make sure that their brand is not being used as a vehicle of impersonation and fraudulent messages.

Cyber fraud comes in an ever-evolving array of various forms. From phishing websites, brand impersonation to identity theft, many comprehensive cybercrimes can cause serious financial loss to an organization.

Brand protection online is critical and it goes beyond setting up firewalls or antivirus software. It requires having employees who are aware of the existing cybersecurity threats and are proactive towards the impending cyberattacks. Along with that, it includes the proactive scanning of public domains and Dark Web servers to identify any evidence of brand counterfeiting.

The main role of online brand protection is to find and shut down fake social media profiles or websites that use your company’s logo or message people in your brand name to steal login credentials and access to your secure networks.

2021’s Top Email Security Practices

Posted on 15/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Why is Email Security Important?

Whether exchanging emails across networks or dumping them in your spam folder, a huge amount of data is sent, received and stored. You may not realize but there are high chances that an unsecured email might have landed in your inbox which can act as a source of data exploitation. Now you wouldn’t want that, would you? That’s why email security is very essential for our daily routine in order to keep a check if any malicious email is accessing our inbox or not. The cybersecurity professionals working in every industry vertical must stay updated with the prevailing attacks possible through emails.

According to ComputerWeekly.com, 82% of organizations claimed to have faced email-based cybersecurity threats in 2018. Whereas, ransomware seems to be the biggest cyber threat in the coming year. The reason being, ransomware attacks that encrypt critical business files and demand for ransom in return are often sent to individuals working in organizations by emails only!

These eye-opening facts call for proper email protection solutions that are needed to be implemented in every organization as a defensive system against invading cyber threats. As far as cybersecurity is concerned, the best solution is using email security tools that incorporate a wide range of security techniques that email accounts and services have. Proceed further for the top 5 email security practices that can benefit your organization from email-based cyber risks.

The 4 Types of Email Security Practices

Never click the “unsubscribe” link in spam emails:

At times, certain emails manage to surpass the spam filter and land in your inbox. For instance, you come across one such certain email and on opening it, you discover that it looks like a phishing email. What would be your first instinct? In any normal situation, users tend to unsubscribe suspicious-looking emails but that is not actually safe!

Hackers are good manipulators and they use such links to fool people into clicking attachment which redirects the targeted users to a phishing site. Apart from that, these links also provide hackers with a back door for access into your system.

Avoid Public WiFi:

Never access emails from a public WiFi because they are less secure and hackers choose public WiFi to steal information by passing through a weak network. Cybercriminals require nothing but a laptop and basic software to hack into public WiFi networks and monitor all the traffic. Accessing emails via unsecured public networks can lead to misuse of user’s credentials and a huge loss of sensitive data. This could also result in further intended targeted cyberattacks that are down the line.

Email Encryption:

Disguising and encrypting email content potentially protects the sensitive data that is sent and received, from being read by anyone except the intended recipient. With email encryption, you can secure your emails over untrusted networks from eavesdroppers or any third person trying to invade in between the email exchange. This security strategy reduces the chance of disclosure of information as well as alter of message content.

Employee Education:

Limit the chances of cyber risks in your organization by providing employees with cybersecurity awareness training tools. Along with the implementation of policies and email security tools to prevent cyber threat postures, it is essential to encourage employees to become proactive in combating attack vectors like ransomware, phishing emails, and cyber scams. Security awareness tools is an AI/ML-based security attack simulation tool that assesses the real-time threat posture of an organization. With the unlimited number of attack campaigns and automated training campaigns, this product builds cyber awareness among the employees in an organization and creates a resilient working environment.

Implementing and working on the above-mentioned email protection solutions will not only keep your data safe but will also be beneficial in the long term. In order to protect your business, it is important to make sure that all your employees are empowered to make email based decisions and are protected from data thefts.

Hackers are everywhere nowadays and they won’t stop holding back from discovering vulnerabilities and exploiting your data. Secure your organization now with a robust email security tool in order to reduce the chances of becoming a victim of the prevailing cyber threats.

India’s 2020 Cybersecurity master plan

Posted on 14/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

The Current Cybersecurity Challenges in India

Every year, the industry of cybersecurity in India faces new challenges and responsibilities to safeguard the growing online data and the digital economy. Did you know the digital economy currently comprises 14-15% of the total economy of India? While with more than 120 recognized ‘data centers’ and clouds in India, the digital economy is targeted to reach 20% by the year 2024!

Moreover, the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and data analytics, has again become a huge challenge for the cyberspace as apart from becoming a more complex domain, it is giving rise to technical issues and the anticipated cyber risks.

However, with the development and introduction of advanced technologies in the market, India is yet to face and tackle new problems in the domain of cybersecurity. This disruptive innovation has brought India to crossroads with a complex network of modern enigmas and unprecedented harm.

Below mentioned are some of the major cybersecurity challenges that our nation is facing:

Email-based and internet-facing applications still remain to be among the top threat vectors.
With people depending more and more on the cloud infrastructure and solutions, human error continues to be the primary source of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
In the research analysis of 50,000 emails, a significant increase in the conversation hijacking attacks by 400% between July and November 2019 was experienced. Therefore, this still continues to be a major cyber risk.
Growing online transactions seems to have generated considerable incentives for cybercriminals.
Phishing and unethical cyber practices have grown a hundredfold in the past few years, making it easier for even non-technical perform hacking.
Cloud, 5G and IoT devices have evolved as among the biggest cybersecurity threats of 2020.

The New Cybersecurity Approach for 2020

Back in late 2019, India was at the target of two cyberattacks in the same month. Moreover, the malware attacks at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant were believed to have happened due to phishing attempts on employees. After experiencing these devastating cyber risks, India is all set to fill the security gaps with the new Cybersecurity Strategy 2020!

With the vision of creating a “cyber-secure nation” for businesses as well as individuals, the Indian government is ready to release the cybersecurity strategy policy in January 2020 with an aim to achieve the target of $5 trillion economy.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, the IT Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney has stated that our country holds an estimated amount of USD 1.9 billion in cybersecurity service enterprises and USD 450 million of cybersecurity products from India. Along with the presence of multinational and Indian entities, engaging in R&D cybersecurity, all in total currently amounts to USD 5 billion worth cybersecurity ecosystem in India. (source: The Economics Time)

The cybersecurity companies in India have come up with innovative and leading technology-based products and services to reduce the prevailing cyber threat postures in organizations across the nation. As a contribution to creating a “cyber-secure nation”, these companies are effortlessly providing the best defensive tools and VAPT services for all the industry vectors.

Our country is fully inclined towards the path of sustainable development but to achieve that, we have to combat various hurdles such as patching up of the existing vulnerabilities in the cyber world. And this can only happen with the proper formation of critical IT infrastructure and consistent partnership between the public and private sectors working as key aspects for a cybersecurity framework.

It is vital to be visionary and recognize the upcoming challenges from the future in order to be fully prepared and preventing our organizations from becoming another cyberattack’s victims. We don’t have to match the worldwide standards in security when we are capable enough of setting up the highest standards in the world!

A tour to Web Application Security Testing

Posted on 13/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

What is Web Application Security Testing?

Applications are the most favorable medium for cybercriminals who seek to steal data or breach user’s security defenses. Being available 24/7 to users, web applications hold high chances of becoming a target for hackers trying to seek access to the confidential back-end data. According to the cybersecurity research, there were more than 3,800 publicly disclosed data breaches, exposing 4.1 billion compromised records. A huge amount of data is stored in web applications. With the increasing number of transactions taking place on websites lately, the need for comprehensive web application security testing must be considered a mandatory step.

But what actually the term ‘Web Application Security Testing’ means? Basically, it is the process of checking the security of confidential data from being exposed to unauthorized individuals or entities. The purpose of this security testing is to ensure that the functionality of the website is not being misused or altered by any user. Apart from that, it also ensures that no user holds the authority to deny the functionality of the website to other users.

In order to have the best web application security practices, it is important to have knowledge of the following main key terms:

Vulnerability

A flaw, weakness or misconfiguration in a web-based application code that empowers attackers to gain a certain level of control of the website or possibly over the hosting server.

Website Spoofing

Act of creating a hoax website to mislead users or target audience of the authenticated website for fraudulent intent.

URL Manipulation

The act of altering or manipulating information in the URL to get access to the confidential information and this information is passed on through the query string.

SQL injection

A computer attack in which malicious code is inserted in a weakly-designed web application and is then passed on to the backend database. As a result, malicious data produces a confidential database query result.

XSS (Cross-Site-Scripting)

A security breach where the malicious scripts are injected into the otherwise trusted websites. This attack occurs when a cyber-attacker uses a web application to send malicious code to different end-user in the form of a browser-side script.

Types of Web Application Security Testing

When it comes to web application security, there are more than one standard ways to perform:

1. Vulnerability Assessment

Done through automated software, this type of testing is performed to scan web applications against known vulnerability signatures. It is the process of identifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities in the web application whereas it provides the knowledge, awareness, and risk background check which is necessary to understand.

2. Dynamic Application Security Test

This automated application security test includes dynamic scanning of a live running web application for analyzing the common vulnerabilities which are susceptible to attack. This process of dynamic vulnerability scanning requires a proper set up of the OWASP ZAP testing standard.

3. Static Application Security Test

SAST solutions analyze the web application from “inside out” in a static form. Under this security application approach, both manual and automated testing techniques are involved. It is helpful in identifying bugs without requiring to execute applications in a production environment. Also, Static Application Security Testing, developers can scan the source code to systematically identify and eliminate existing application security vulnerabilities.

4. Penetration Test

Penetration testing or ethical hacking is the practice of testing web application security in order to identify the security vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited by attackers. It can be performed either automatically or manually. This security testing is best for critical web applications and especially for those that are undergoing major alterations.

5. Runtime Application Self Protection

Under this approach, various techniques are applied to instrument a web application to detect and block attacks in real-time. When an application runs live, RASP ensures to protect it from malicious input or behavior by inspecting the app’s performance behavior.

Does Web App Security Testing Help in Reducing the Organization’s Risk?

Every organization has got either one or multiple website applications, which eventually become the scope of potential data and security exploitation on an extremely broad level. Moreover, with developers working day and night on introducing the latest technology and frameworks with the code deployed, they often fail to think of security as a priority.

Any organization’s web application in today’s date can be easily affected by a wide array of security issues. Cyber attacks like SQL injection, Remote Command Execution, Path Traversal, and XSS can lead to harmful results like access to restricted content, installation of malicious code, compromised user accounts, loss of customer trust, damaged brand reputation and much more.

Knowing that such attacks not only make web applications vulnerable but also lead to potential damage to the security, best web application security practices offer to preemptively address the security vulnerabilities and take action against them accordingly.

On the other hand, users now are becoming more aware of securing their data and therefore will trust secured web applications with their personal records and financial details, so it is up to the organization to provide them with robust security.

Therefore, continuous security testing is highly crucial for regularly running web applications in order to mitigate potential vulnerabilities by fixing and improving security. As more secure the web application is, better will be the brand reputation of an organization.

Always remember that web application is 100% secure and it takes only one small vulnerability for a hacker to exploit everything that comes in its reach. With web application security testing tools, one can minimize cyber risks and can have the full trust of customers.

All you need to know about the risk of Cryptojacking

Posted on 12/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Cryptojacking has provided cybercriminals with a new means of filling their pockets at the expense of organizations around the world. And the worst part? Your company may already be a victim of cryptojacking and you might not even know it!

What is Cryptojacking?

Cryptojacking refers to the unauthorized use of someone’s computer for mining cryptocurrency. As cybercriminals keep coming up with new ways of attacking businesses, cryptojacking has become one of the most rapidly growing cyber attack vectors globally.

Instead of holding your company data for ransom or stealing it, threat actors can tap into your organization’s computing power for mining cryptocurrency. The theft of your organization’s computing power through cryptojacking can have tangible financial consequences.

It can lead to the potential degradation in service, loss of income and productivity, higher cloud usage or energy consumption, frequent replacement of hardware and system performance issues.

How does Cryptojacking Work?

Cryptojackers trick victims into clicking on a malicious link that loads cryptomining code on their computer. Alternatively, they can infect an online ad or website with JavaScript code that executes automatically once it is loaded in the victim’s browser.

However they do it, the cryptomining code works silently in the background while the unwary victims continue to use their computers normally. Hackers often use both these methods to maximize their return.

Unlike the other kinds of malware, cryptojacking does not damage the computers or their data. It steals CPU processing resources. Individual users may find slower computer performance just a little annoying, however, organizations with several cryptojacked computers can suffer severe financial losses.

How Prevalent has Cryptojacking been in 2020?

Varonis discovered the Monero cryptojacking malware while investigating a company that was secretly plagued by cryptojacking for over a year. This was one of the biggest recent cryptojacking attacks.
As per CSO Online, 90% of all remote code execution attacks are linked to cryptomining.
According to a report by Digital Shadows, cryptojacking kits are being sold for as little as $30 on the dark web.
According to a report by arXiv, cryptojacking is responsible for 4.32% of all Monero in circulation.
As per a report by ENISA, 2020 witnessed a 30% year-on-year increase in cryptojacking the month of March.

How to Detect Cryptojacking?

Cryptojacking is one of the stealthiest and most difficult-to-detect cyber attack vectors. It can not only have an adverse impact on your entire business operation but can also make it difficult for you to identify which of the systems have been compromised if any.

So, here are a few major things you should keep your eye out for:

Deteriorating System Performance

A decrease in the performance of your computing devices like laptops, desktops, tablets, and mobile devices is the first symptom of cryptojacking. Instruct your employees to immediately report any fluctuation in their system’s performance to IT.

Quick Overheating

Mining for cryptocurrencies is a resource-intensive process, which can cause your computing devices to rapidly overheat, resulting in system damage. A problem may be indicated if the fans of your systems are running longer than they normally do to cool down the system.

Increasing CPU Usage

Regularly monitor and analyse the CPU usage of your systems. If you spot an unreasonable increase, it may be a sign that cryptomining scripts are running on your system without your knowledge.

Undo Changes on Webpages

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for websites where they can insert a cryptomining code. Frequently monitor your own websites to look for any changes to the webpages or the files on the web server.

How to Mitigate the Risk of Cryptojacking?

It is extremely difficult to detect if and when your computer systems have been compromised by cryptojacking. However, you can take some basic preventative measures to protect your systems and networking systems against this threat. Here are some effective tips to prevent cryptojacking:

Train Your Organization’s IT Team

Make sure your IT team is satisfactorily trained to detect and understand cryptojacking. It should be aware and vigilant enough to catch the earliest signs of an attack and should be ready to take immediate steps to get the situation under control.

Implement Anti-Cryptomining Extensions

Implement one of the many available browser extensions for blocking the cryptominers across the web.

Disable JavaScript

Disable JavaScript while browsing online to prevent the cryptojacking code from infecting your system.

Use Ad Blockers

Cryptomining scripts can be often found embedded in web ads. Use an ad blocker to detect and block any malicious cryptomining codes.

Educate Your Employees

The IT team is not solely responsible for securing the organization against cyber threats. Each of your employees should know what to look out for. Provide your employees with basic cybersecurity awareness training to make them understand the importance of following security protocols set by the IT team.

Instruct your employees to immediately notify IT if their systems are overheating or running slowly. They should also know about the risks involved with clicking on suspicious links or downloading files from untrustworthy sources.

Benefits of Cloud Infrastructure Security

Posted on 11/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

How is Cloud Infrastructure Security Important for an Organization?

Embracing new technologies lead to qualitative growth but simultaneously holds high chances of quantitative data breaches. While adopting cloud technology, it is important to see the security of cloud infrastructure as one of the crucial responsibilities. There are various organizations out there that are still unsure of the security of their data present in the cloud environment.

In 2019, Collection #1, a massive data breach held responsible for compromising data set of over 770 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords. The collection of data files was stored on a cloud storage service and MEGA. Similarly, information of over 108 million bets’ records was leaked by an online casino group. The leaked data included details of customers’ personal information along with deposits and withdrawals.

Following in the same year, a famous food delivery service providing firm was breached, compromising the data of 4.9 million users which included consumers as well as delivery employees. According to SC Media, 2019 has been the year of the highest number of data breaches and this amount of growth rate has never been witnessed before.

These infamous data breaches are proof that storage service providers like Cloud requires consistent security management. When we talk about the security of cloud infrastructure, many enterprises wrongly assume that their data is well guarded and is far away from the radar of cyber criminals. The truth is, these cyber criminals are experts at scraping up the exposed vulnerable data by using unethical ways to look for unsecured databases.

For starters, the term cloud computing infrastructure security refers to the entire infrastructure of cloud computing which involves a wide set of policies, applications, technologies. It also includes controls that are used to protect virtualized IP, services, applications and data.

With companies migrating their large amount of data and infrastructure to the cloud, the importance of cloud infrastructure security becomes paramount. Cloud security offers multiple levels of control to provide continuity and protection in a network infrastructure. It is a highly essential element in creating a resilient environment that works for companies all over the world.

Enjoy the benefits of infrastructure security in the cloud by partnering with leading technology-based private cloud computing security service providers in order to keep the security of the company smooth running.

Here are the five major benefits of cloud infrastructure security solutions:

Data Security

Nowadays, cloud computing servers are becoming gullible to data breaches. Cloud infrastructure security solutions help in ensuring that data like sensitive information and transaction is protected. This also helps in preventing the third party from tampering with the data being transmitted.

DDoS Protection

Distributed denial of service aka DDoS attacks are infamously rising and are deployed to flood the computer system with requests. As a result, the website slows down to load to a level where it starts crashing when the number of requests exceeds the limit of handling. To reduce the attempts of DDoS attacks, cloud computing security provides solutions that focus on the measures to stop bulk traffic that targets the company’s cloud servers.

Constant Support

When it comes to the best practices of cloud infrastructure security solutions, it offers consistent support and high availability to support the company’s assets. Users get to enjoy the benefit of 27/7 live monitoring all year-round. This live monitoring and constant support offer to secure data effortlessly.

Threat Detection

Infrastructure security in the cloud offers advanced threat detection strategies such as endpoint scanning techniques for threats at the device level. The endpoint scanning enhances the security of devices that are accessing your network.

Supervision of Compliance

In order to protect data, the entire infrastructure requires to be working under complaint regulations. Complaint secured cloud computing infrastructure helps in maintaining and managing the safety features of the cloud storage.

The above-mentioned points are clear enough to state how beneficial and vital is cloud infrastructure security for an organization. There are very many high-profile cases that have been witnessed in past years relating to data breaches.

To overcome the loopholes present in the infrastructure security in the cloud, it is extremely important to keep the security of cloud storage services as a high priority. Engage with the top-class cloud computing security tools to get better results and have the data secured.

Astounding growth of Cybercrime in 2021

Posted on 10/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

As organizations around the world continue to trudge through the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercriminals keep coming up with even more menacing ways of dragging them down. According to research conducted by Cybersecurity Ventures, cybersecurity experts have predicted that cybercrimes will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually by 2021. With the pandemic serving as a catalyst, cybercrime is expected to soon become the world’s third-largest economy.While the ongoing pandemic has forced an unprecedented number of people to work from home and forgo the security of a well-developed IT infrastructure, cybercriminals have marked the unwary employees as the target of choice. Organizations were compelled to innovate and adapt so swiftly that the security didn’t get enough time to catch up, leaving businesses vulnerable to the cyber threats looming across the horizon.

Statistics on Current Cyber Threat Landscape

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden transformation to remote work culture, cybercrimes have risen like never before and are expected to rise even more as we move towards 2021. Following are some outrageous statistics showing just how severely these cyber attacks are affecting the global economy:

As per the research conducted by Cybersecurity Ventures, within months of the first lockdown due to the pandemic, more than 4,000 malicious COVID-related sites popped up across the internet.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, a cyber attack incident will occur every 11 seconds in 2021. This is nearly twice the rate in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times what it was in 2016 (every 40 seconds).
As per Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybercrime is expected to cost the global economy $6 trillion annually by 2021, as compared to $3 trillion in 2015. This will soon make it the world’s third-largest economy, after the United States and China.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that ransomware damages will cost the world $20 billion by 2021, which is 57 times more than what it was in 2015 ($325 million). This makes ransomware the most rapidly growing kind of cybercrime.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, 91% of cyberattacks are launched through spear-phishing emails, which infect the organizations with ransomware.

What can Organizations do to Stay Secure?

As the rise in cybercrime is showing no signs of slowing down, it is essential for organizations to take the necessary precautions to avoid suffering any losses. The three most critical aspects of any organization include its people, processes and data. By focusing their resources on protecting these three elements, organizations can arm themselves against all kinds of prevalent and emerging cyber threats.

Protecting People:

The best way of protecting your employees against cyber attacks is by educating them about the prevalent cybersecurity threats. Owing to cybersecurity unawareness, employees can unintentionally cause data breaches, leaving your company at risk. A report has revealed that implementing cybersecurity awareness training amongst employees significantly reduces human error, mitigating up to 90% of cyber risks.

With the dramatic increase in cyber risks due to the transformation to remote work culture, providing your employees with cybersecurity awareness training has become more important than ever. An organization cannot protect its finances, assets and reputation from cybercriminals without spreading awareness amongst its employees.

Protecting Processes:

It is essential for an organization’s IT department to continually monitor, review and update all organizational processes. Employees should be made aware of the consequences of installing applications or software in their systems without the knowledge or approval of the IT department.

Any known vulnerabilities should be constantly monitored by the organization. Companies can provide protected and locked systems to the employees working remotely. This can be an effective way of restricting them from installing any malicious software.

Protecting Data:

An organization must have a firm grasp on the data that it holds, processes and passes on. As per a recent study, companies share sensitive and confidential information with more than 500 third parties. The first and foremost step an organization should take is to conduct an inventory and ensure any information is shared strictly on a need-to-know basis.

Secondly, make sure to encrypt all sensitive data including employee information, all business data and customer information. This ensures that the data becomes useless in case it falls into wrong hands. Also, always create regular backups of all your data and store it securely outside your network.

As the rise in cybercrime is showing no signs of slowing down, individuals and organizations alike are equally at risk. Therefore, it has become extremely important to take the necessary precautions and keep essential cybersecurity tips in mind for defending yourselves and your organizations against these threats.

Ransomware attacks: 40% surge in Q3 2020

Posted on 06/03/202126/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

This year cyber attacks have increased many folds as compared to previous years due to new security challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The third quarter of the year has seen a huge surge in ransomware attacks. Globally, a total of 199.7 million ransomware attacks have been reported in the third quarter of 2020.

According to cyber security experts, ransomware attacks have increased 40% to 199.7 million cases globally in Q3 of this year. Below we have mentioned some staggering statistics which will give you an insight into the present situation:

The US observed 145.2 million ransomware hits in Q3, which is a 139% year-over-year increase.
The cyber security researchers have detected new ransomware, Ryuk, with 5,123 attacks in just Q3 2019.
Ryuk ransomware attacks have increased to 67.3 million in Q3 2020, which is 33.7% of all ransomware attacks this year.
Though ransomware attacks have gained pace this year, malware attacks have fallen significantly. Cyber security researchers have recorded 4.4 billion malware attacks in a year-over-year comparison through Q3 – a 39% drop worldwide.
The experts have detected a 30% rise in IoT (Internet of Things) malware attacks with a total figure of 32.4 billion attacks globally.

The above data shows a considerable decrease in malware attacks but that does not imply the disappearance of malware attacks. Because, this is just a recurring downturn that can easily adjust itself in a short amount of time, as per a cyber security report.

The Strategy Behind Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is a form of malware that is installed into victims’ computers through malicious emails. It encrypts the victims’ data for which victims need the decryption key. The cyber attackers demand ransom, which can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands, payable in Bitcoin, for the decryption key.

There are a number of attack vectors through which ransomware can gain unauthorized access into victims’ databases. One of the most prominent ways used to access victims’ computers is phishing emails and email attachments. Cyber criminals make these emails look trustable and trick the users to open them. Once these emails are opened and attachments are downloaded, the attackers take over the victims’ computers.

Five Protective Actions Against Ransomware Attacks

By following essential preventive measures, you can easily keep the ransomware attacks at bay. All you need to do is to be careful about what you perform on your computer. Let’s walk through some “must follow” cybersecurity practices:

Avoid clicking untrustable links: Never click on suspicious or untrustable links, attached in unsolicited emails.
Build your data-backup: Create a separate data-backup in an external hard drive that is not connected to your computer, so that you don’t have to pay the ransom if a ransomware attack happens.
Don’t disclose your personal information: Never disclose your personal information if you receive any call, text, or email which is asking for your personal details like banking information or any account information. Always verify the source of those contacts as cybercriminals steal personal data first to misuse it for malicious campaigns or financial frauds.
Use content scanning and filtering software: It is advisable to use content scanning and filtering software on your mail server to prevent a ransomware attack. The software helps in reducing the likelihood of a malicious email reaching your inbox.
Security awareness program for employees: As an organization, you would always want to secure your confidential data from all types of cyberattacks. Therefore, it is important to conduct a cyber security awareness program among employees that will disseminate detailed knowledge of attack vectors and how to reduce the chances of ransomware attacks.

Rising Web Application Attacks in India: A Concern

Posted on 05/03/202125/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Accelerating rate of cyber-attacks is no more an unfamiliar situation for us. Web application based cyber attacks are the most common. Akamai Technologies , a content delivery network, released a report in 2017 for quarter 3 which mentioned India at 7^th position in the list of top 10 targeted nations for web application attack.

As per recent figures, i.e. for the data from 8^th Nov 2018 to 15^th Nov, 2018, India still continues to be among top 10 marked nations for web application based attacks.

Countries	Attacks
Russia Federation	18,754,282
United States	15,512,265
Ukraine	5,176,643
Netherlands	3,606,021
India	2,724,440
Canada	2,101,396
Sweden	1,896,300
Germany	1,845,175
Bulgaria	1,538,136
United Kingdom	1,455,023

Source: Akamai Technologies State of the Internet Report

As per World Bank, the number of secured servers in India is 10,350 which, when put against 500 million internet users, is a clear indication of the need for better and secure infrastructure to be able to support the data surge.

Even at the earliest attempt, it will take a few years to remedy this problem. And still, it won’t guarantee an organizations’ safety. According to recent research, 75% of cyber attacks are web application based. Improper coding can stem serious concerns in web applications security. Such vulnerabilities allow attackers to gain direct access to servers to extract sensitive data from the database. In a framework where hackers have access to such sensitive data; with a bout of creativity and some human error, any web application can be susceptible to web attacks.

A web application can be secured by performing a vulnerability assessment and penetrating testing. , Anteelo is an end-to-end cyber security firm provides a complete suite of manual and automated VAPT services.

Workplace importance of Cyber Security Awareness

Posted on 04/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

For every organization, it is always necessary to maintain proper cyber hygiene. It is also vital for companies to remind their employees of the ongoing danger of cyber violations. Employees unintentionally cause data breaches because of cyber security unawareness which further results in increasing cyber risks. This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cyber risks have increased many folds. These rising risks can be attributed to the companies’ resorting to the work-from-home (WFH) policy. Cyber security experts have warned that it is high time to prioritize security awareness training during this Cyber Security Awareness Month. Security awareness training not only prevents workers from placing the company at risk but also makes them the first line of cyber defence the organization.

The Importance of National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The world began to realize in October 2004 that cyber security is becoming a never-ending issue. Although it had been established in 2004 to raise cyber security awareness, it became a critical part of our life. This is how Cyber Security Awareness Month came into existence.

Every day millions of online users are hacked and their data is stolen from their devices. They are unaware of how to properly protect their web-equipped computers, so the National Cyber Security Association (NCSA) is helping to raise awareness on this issue.

Every year the NCSA tracks threats to the cyber security of America. The non-profit association pays attention to all aspects of vulnerabilities, from big public offices to individual home users. Anyone on the Web needs to learn how they can comfortably enjoy their cyber experience maintaining online safety.

The NCSA helps to raise understanding and awareness during Cyber Security Awareness Month, through brochures and blogs to workshops and security awareness training programs.

Six Plan of Actions for the Cyber Security Awareness Practices

1) Building Constructive Attitude among Employees: It is of utmost importance to create a strong, constructive attitude towards cyber resilience among employees. Use stories to allow people to see how cyber security integrates with their lives. Encourage uplifting stories that enable people to take control of digital lives, work, and home, and to enjoy humor. Why is it so important? Because happy people will hear what you have to say more often! Use them all year round and get more involved in the role of cyber security in their lives.

2) Start Interaction between IT and Employees: 75% of employees claim that they either generally or nearly always obey their IT department’s advice. IT teams just have to make sure that they consistently provide these directions to start interaction between the IT department and employees.

3) Personnel Investment in Addition to Products: Businesses need to make efforts to flexibly and continuously improve the cyber knowledge of their employees. Therefore, organizations should invest in their personnel apart from brand promotion and product manufacturing.

4) Concentrate on Reducing the Threat and Making Training Fun: Sessions of educating the employees must be amusing. Customize preparation and integrate team humor in the cyber security awareness content. Lessons must be related to the individual life of the trainees. Using personal home safety and privacy examples can be related to their day-to-day office work and organization.

5) Customize Roles Specific Training: Each employee should be equipped with the know-how and skills required to recognize specific roles and react appropriately. In an organization, there are different roles of employees, department-wise. Therefore, customizing role-specific training will help to build robust threat intelligence against emerging and common cyber threats.

6) Make Cyber Awareness Practical and Accurate: Management must take up and protect the value of cyber security by direct communication with staff. When talking about the WFH policy, as an organization you must ensure that workers know how their behavior at home can also have an effect on the business. Explain the point of view of hackers. How can a person be a target? Which information may be of use to an intruder on social media accounts or other information that is accessible? What effect does it have on the organization or mission? Be specific to businesses, staff,, or the community regarding their safety impacts.

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The Importance of National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Six Plan of Actions for the Cyber Security Awareness Practices

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