In the IT world, phishing is not a vague term. For those wondering “what is phishing?” it is an online identity theft. This cyber-attack is carried out by sending spoofed emails in the name of trusted sources like a bank or legitimate companies. Furthermore, the aim of this corrupt practice is to obtain credentials and financial information of the users. But with the rate of rapidly increasing phishing attacks, proper defense against phishing has to be taken.
In the cyber world, phishing attacks have risen up to 65% as compared to the past year. The level of phishing attacks has advanced so well that even top-notch companies have become phishing scam targets.
In order to secure data from any further exploitation, anti-phishing solutions have been introduced lately for defense against phishing. But before taking any step, you must know how to find a phishing email so that you are saved from phisher’s hook.
How Can You Identify A Phishing Email?
Phishers aim user’s inbox for phishing attack by sending various forms of email that convinces a user to:
Click on a link
Enter credentials like username, passwords, etc. on a legitimate-looking website
Install application or software on your device
Open a doc file or many other tricks to lure users
The motive of sending such emails is to trick users to download malware on their devices. By doing this, the attacker would have the ease of remotely controlling the user’s device so as to steal all the important data.
To avoid such attacks, you can follow tips that will help you to protect against phishing attacks.
Guidelines for Best Defense Against Phishing
Updated software and OS:
Always keep the version of your operating system up to date so as to avoid any sort of malware attack for the best phishing protection. Outdated software or operating system hold way too many bugs and hence become an easy target of phishing attacks.
Avoid Password Auto-Fill Service:
Phishers are experts in using platforms to attempt a phishing attack, so it is better to skip a “save password” option if it pops up on any website. This step will help in keeping your information secure from hackers.
Two-Factor Authentication:
It is better to adopt the latest technologies for security purposes if it comes from the right sources. Two-factor authentication is a widely used technique to secure data and financial information from unauthorized access.
Use Google Drive for Suspicious Documents:
In case you find any document sent from an unknown sender or receive a dubious-looking file, ensure to upload it on Google Drive. This would turn document into image or HTML, which in turn would avoid the installation of malware on your device.
Over the last few years, the education sector has become a new favorite target among cyber criminals. From turbulent ransomware attacks to covert data breaches, numerous academic institutions have suffered from various kinds of cyber attacks in recent times.
The introduction and adoption of newer technologies along with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have fueled the situation further. Cyber criminals are attacking educational institutions with tactics and tools that have worked effectively against businesses.
Why has the Education Sector Become a Lucrative Target?
According to an article by CSO Online, the education sector accounted for 13% of all data breaches in the first half of 2017, which resulted in the compromise of approximately 32 million records!
Here are the major reasons for the popularity of the education sector as a target among cyber criminals:
1. Financial Gain: According to research, educational records are worth up to $265 on the black market. The notion of such huge financial gain is more than enough for threat actors to target academic institutions.
2. Valuable Data: Even though educational institutions may not look as lucrative as healthcare companies or private businesses, they serve as a treasure trove of sensitive financial and personal information including valuable proprietary research data.
3. Espionage: Espionage is another reason for cyber criminals to target the education sector. Higher education institutes such as universities and colleges often serve as centers for research and possess valuable intellectual property.
4. Impacting Operations: Several attacks on academic institutions have been carried out with the motive of causing widespread disruption and adversely affecting the institute’s productivity.
Major Cyber Security Threats to the Education Sector
A wide range of cyber threats has been plaguing the education sector for years. Here are the top threats hounding educational institutions around the globe:
1. Spear phishing Attacks: Using spear phishing, cyber criminals have taken hold of several academic institutions, resulting in catastrophic losses. An article by Business Line reported that more than 1000 colleges, schools and universities were targeted by various spear-phishing campaigns in Q3 2020.
2. BEC Attacks: Threat actors have also resorted to BEC attacks for targeting organizations in the education sector. The same article by Business Line also reported that Gmail accounts serve as the primary medium for launching the majority of BEC attacks, accounting for 86% of all BEC attacks on academic institutions.
3. Ransomware: As per the FBI, schools have become the most popular targets for ransomware attacks. A number of colleges, schools and universities have been hit by vicious ransomware attacks, leading to devastating consequences.
4. DDoS Attacks: DDoS attacks or Distributed Denial of Service attacks are very common in the education sector. These attacks offer an easy way for cyber criminals to disrupt operations, especially if the network of the target organization is poorly protected.
5. Data Breaches: Since academic institutes hold a huge cache of valuable information, data breaches have always been common in the education sector.
Recent Cyber Attacks on the Education Sector
As mentioned above, many educational institutions worldwide have been hit by cyber attacks in recent years. Here are some major cyber attacks witnessed by the education sector over the last couple of years.
1. In March 2021, the London-based Harris Federation suffered a ransomware attack and was forced to “temporarily” disable the devices and email systems of all the 50 secondary and primary academies it manages. This resulted in over 37,000 students being unable to access their coursework and correspondence.
2. The Division of Structural Biology at Oxford University fell victim to a cyber attack in February 2021. It was involved in extensive COVID-related research and access details for several of its systems were spotted online.
3. The University of Northampton was hit by a cyber attack in March 2021 that led to the disruption of its telephone and IT systems and servers.
4. The University of California, San Francisco paid a ransom of $1.14 million after the NetWalker ransomware locked down multiple servers of its School of Medicine in June 2020.
5. Birmingham college was hit by a ransomware attack and had to ask all of its 20,000 students to stay at home for a week. It had not even been two weeks since they had returned to the college following an extended lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
How to Protect Educational Institutions Against Cyber Attacks?
Whether it is due to the lack of resources and budget or the absence of stringent security policies, academic institutions have been unable to protect themselves against cyber attacks in the past.
With a myriad of cyber security issues hounding the education sector, it is about time for these institutions to take the appropriate precautions and get ahead of threats. So, here are some effective measures you can take to shield an educational institution against cyber threats.
1. Implement a robust Identity Access Management (IAM) system to prevent anyone from obtaining unauthorized access to the network.
2. Conduct periodic Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) to detect and fix any exploitable vulnerabilities in your organization’s cyber security infrastructure.
3. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all the applicable endpoints across the enterprise networks to add an extra layer of security to your organization’s cyber security framework.
4. Train all the employees in the basics of cyber security to generate awareness about various cyber threats and the best ways to deal with them.
5. Enforce cyber security best practices like a strong password policy. Make sure your employees are aware of the consequences of not following the practices and understand their responsibility in keeping the organization safe.
Cyber security in the education sector is essential for about a hundred reasons, the most important one of them being to ensure the safety and privacy of students. So, take the necessary measures now and keep your organizations protected against cyber threats.
When it comes to the cybersecurity of any organization, phishing simulator should be considered as a top choice to train employees. A phishing simulation tool works as a proactive defense against phishing attacks for employees when it comes to the cybersecurity of an organization.
Phishing email test for employees is essential as they are the first choice of target of cyber attackers. Employees sit on the front lines of the ever-evolving email-based phishing threats, which makes them an easy target. In fact, phishing emails account for 94% of ransomware and have cost $132,000 per business in email compromise incidents.
In a report by a research lab, almost half of the emails are spam emails whereas, if there were 124 billion business emails exchanged every day in 2018, there is a wide scope of spoof emails to wade through and cause a potential for disaster.
Hackers have become more sophisticated and prevalent in their strategies in attempting phishing attacks. Users are required to be aware of the prevailing cyber threats and must be trained accordingly. Phishing email for employees helps them in making them proactive in recognizing malicious emails.
Reasons Why Employees Fall for Phishing Attacks
In the cybersecurity statistics of 2019, it was found that spear-phishing, under which cybercriminals choose specific targets, still seems to be the most preferred way that hackers choose to deploy cyber-attacks on organizations.
While employees are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain of an organization, they tend to easily fall victim to email-based phishing attacks. Here are the three reasons that state why employees easily become the target of phishing attacks:
Lack of knowledge regarding the phishing threat
They are less proactive and reactive when it comes to cybersecurity
Insufficient backup office processes
Most often, phishing emails come in disguise of a legitimate source which makes it more easy for cybercriminals to target users who generally do not pay close attention to such emails. According to a survey conducted on employees, around 60% of the respondents agreed on promptly opening emails from their boss. Phishers, on the other hand, find this as an exploitable vulnerability in employees. Regardless of scale and size, organizations must implement some standards and provide phishing training to their employees to avoid the near future cyber risks.
What is the Best Tool for Phishing Training?
As cyber-risks are increasing day by day, companies and organizations are battling hard to keep up with their defenses. It’s high time for the organizations to provide phishing training to their employees so that they become more vigilant and strong against phishing attacks.
Recognized as the “Top-10” most innovative product of the year in 2017 – DSCI NASSCOM, this tool has proven to be the best phishing simulator for its remarkable features. This product comes with the following six simulation attack vectors:
Phishing
Ransomware
Risk of Removable Media
Cyber Scam
Vishing
Smishing
It is a complete suite of cybersecurity solutions in one product and holds the best features such as unlimited security attack simulation cycles, automated training campaigns, email-based phishing simulation attacks, hack record of employees to reduce cyber risks in an organization. If it’s better to be safe than sorry, then why not invest in the right tool at the right time?
In today’s world, cyber security infrastructure and awareness are prerequisites for the smooth running of almost every industry. It is mainly because cyber attacks have the potential to negatively affect an organization’s efficiency and output. Cyber security awareness is even more essential for small businesses as they are being plagued by a variety of cyber threats including cryptojacking, ransomware, phishing, password tracking attacks and advanced persistent threat attacks (APT).
The major reason for the presence of small businesses in the cyber criminals’ target range is the low complexity of their cyber security infrastructure. Reportedly, the most common challenges faced by a small business emanate from employees’ negligence. With limited resources and less complex infrastructure, generating awareness is the only way for small businesses to safeguard themselves against cyber threats.
According to National Cyber Security Coordinator Rajesh Pant, “To know how to defend yourself or your organization, it is important to understand how the attacks happen and what methodology do cyber attackers use to harm organizations.”
Risks Faced by Small Businesses Due to Inefficient Cyber Security Management
Gauging the vulnerabilities and leakages in any particular department is difficult until and unless it is put to test. In absence of such introspection, a small business risks losing a lot of valuable time and money. The major risks faced by small businesses include-
Cyber attackers can steal an employee’s credentials to carry out a number of criminal activities like identity theft and targeted spear-phishing attacks. They can also use these stolen credentials to access your company’s corporate network.
A compromised cyber security infrastructure can lead to a data breach and the loss or exposure of sensitive information.
Successful payment frauds or theft of sensitive bank details and passwords can result in substantial monetary losses for the company and its employees.
Recovery from a cyber attack including the costs of cleaning up the systems can serve as a huge financial hit.
Damaged reputation and the loss of customer base are other major consequences of suffering a cyber attack.
Upping the Ante
Adopting the best cyber security practices has become a vital step for all small businesses to stay afloat. The following are some effective measures that small business organizations can take to secure their data and systems-
Deploy cyber security awareness tools where employees are subjected to a cyber attack drill and their reaction towards such a dummy attack is recorded and analyzed. These dummy attacks involve different attack vectors and customized templates to generate cyber security awareness.
Regularly upgrade the already existing cyber security infrastructure to a more complex one.
Use VAPT services to identify the vulnerabilities in your organization’s cyber security infrastructure and correct them as soon as possible.
Remove the software and hardware that is no longer in use to prevent it from getting corrupted. Along with this, update the already existing software regularly.
Employ cyber security experts who are equipped with the knowledge of dealing with cyber attacks in minimum reaction time.
Restrict or ban the use of removable media in the organization to secure its digital infrastructure.
Make sure the data is encrypted while posting any of it online, allowing only authorized users to access it.
Restrict data access to a bare minimum for preventing data breaches and insider threats.
According to the trends observed globally, small business organizations bear the major brunt of cyber attacks as they don’t have sufficient reactionary capacity to defend themselves against such attacks. As recovering from a successful cyber attack can be an uphill task, cyber security awareness for the employees takes a front seat in such respect along with the review of the organization’s level of preparedness and reaction time.
With the significant rise in the use of digital systems over the years, there has been a rapid increase in cyber frauds around the world. Cyber criminals have grown much more sophisticated, making it more complicated for organizations to defend themselves against cyber threats.
As technology advances, we rely even more heavily on the internet today. Everything we do can be done online including work, entertainment, shopping, and banking. The internet has made doing everyday tasks considerably easier.
However, it has also led to a drastic rise in cyber crimes around the globe. Seeing how Indians have started doing online banking transactions more now, the number of online banking frauds in India has increased substantially.
According to the RBI’s annual report, bank frauds of ₹100,000 and above have more than doubled in value to ₹1.85 lakh crores in FY20 as compared to ₹71,500 crores in FY19. Also, the number of such cases has increased by 28% in the same period.
However, the financial sector has been putting consistent efforts to secure the systems and users. But malicious actors are duping people over the internet by various means to steal their money or sensitive information.
Reports on Recent Online Frauds in India
According to a report by Hindustan Times, India has lost a total of ₹615.39 crores in more than 1.17 lakh cases of online banking frauds from April 2009 to September 2019. The occurrence of these frauds is spread over a decade. But the banking industry is witnessing a significant rise in the number of online banking frauds.
“There was a concentration of large value frauds, with the top 50 credit-related frauds constituting 76% of the total amount reported as frauds during 2019-20. Incidents relating to other areas of banking, like an off-balance sheet and forex transactions, fell in 2019-20“, said RBI.
“₹129 crores have been lost in just the last three months of 2019 and a total number of 21,041 such cases were registered in these three months”, said Anurag Thakur, MoS, Ministry of Finance in Lok Sabha in reference to a recent online fraud in India.
How to Prevent Online Banking Frauds?
Consumers aren’t the only ones facing online fraud. With the increasing number of data breaches and fraudulent emails targeting retailers and organizations, businesses are increasingly at risk of online fraud.
Becoming a target or a victim of such fraud does not only bring disruption to business operations. It also causes the organization the loss of customers’ trust, brand reputation and sensitive data.
So, it is critical that organizations adopt certain cyber security measures to avoid learning an expensive lesson, which can often lead to more grievous consequences.
Best practices to Prevent Online Banking Frauds:
Keep financial data separate
Organizations must use a separate system dedicated to performing financial transactions and backing up the data in an external drive regularly. Moreover, restrict or limit access to financial information and data.
Know who is asking
Banks never ask for personal information over the telephone, emails, or text messages. Therefore, avoid sharing PINs, passwords, or your organization’s financial information without proper verification.
Keep it secret and safe
Create a strict password policy to avoid the risks of password sharing at work. Also, never leave files containing access to the financial information in an unsecured place. Moreover, make sure to always leave your computer locked when unattended.
Manage user authentication
Restrict email address/IP locations to allow only authorized users to make transactions on behalf of the organization. Make purchases only on authorized and legitimate websites and review the organizational financial statements regularly.
Cyber awareness training
Educate employees about cyber security awareness. It helps in simulating cyber attacks to check the number of vulnerable employees in your organization and train them accordingly.
Providing this training makes the employees familiar with the attacks and give them the knowledge of what needs to be done when such attacks occur.
Where to Report Online Frauds in India?
In case you failed to take the precautions and become a victim then it is urged to immediately register a complaint with the local police or cyber crime authorities.
Also, the moment you realize that a suspicious transaction has been done from your bank account or your debit/credit card, inform the respective bank immediately.
Scams and online banking frauds have been constantly evolving and rapidly increasing over the years in India. Organizations should come up with more comprehensive and complex cyber security measures to protect the business and the customers.
Moreover, every industry should embrace a culture that following cyber security protocols is not a necessity but mandatory.
Cybersecurity attacks are evolving, getting more sophisticated, more frequent, and spreading worldwide. It seems like not a day is passed without an organization suffering a data breach or a customer of a bank losing money from the account through stolen credentials.
While most industries worldwide are affected by the imminent peril of cybersecurity threats, the banking industry is one of the prime targets. After all, the sector deals with what the attackers want the most, ‘money and personal information’.
Cyberattacks: The Roaring Trade
Cyberattacks on financial firms have become a flourishing money-making business for cybercriminals. As per the report from a cybersecurity firm’s research, cyberattacks against banks spiked by a massive 238% from the beginning of February to the end of April 2020.
In 2017, financial firms saw the highest volume of cybersecurity attacks over any other industry. This threat landscape is widening as it is getting more sophisticated and diverse. The annual cost of cyberattacks in the banking industry has reached $18.3 million per enterprise.
We have witnessed cybersecurity attacks making headlines for several years. Some of the most headline-making cyberattacks have been the DDoS attacks. These attacks flood customer-facing bank websites with traffic and take them offline or attacks on the Swift based money transfer systems, among others.
We have also witnessed big banks suffer these attacks over a decade. Recently, hackers stole $81 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh. In fact, last month, a powerful DDoS attack struck Hungarian banks and telecom services. It was the most powerful and one of the biggest cyberattacks Hungary had ever encountered.
As fast as the organizations are adopting new-age technologies, hackers are constantly finding ways to penetrate and target exploitable security vulnerabilities. Thus, making it evident that cybersecurity attacks are increasing rapidly every passing year.
A Strong Barricade For The Assets
Banks not only store money but also gather network activities and personal information of the customers. Information that includes names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and dates of birth. This data has inherent value and can be used for other malicious activities such as identity theft, which can often lead to more disastrous and grievous consequences.
In today’s world, cybercriminals are getting advanced with modern technologies. They develop custom-built malicious code that is not necessarily picked up routinely by antivirus protection. So it is very important for the sector to address the modern times demand.
The banking industry needs to realize the assets they have in store and what mechanisms might be used by attackers to get into their organization. They need to identify the weak points and the measures needed to strengthen the IT infrastructure, based on the risk assessment to defend against those potential threats.
It is high time to shift from passive cybersecurity to active cybersecurity, which is switching from what is largely reactive to embracing the white hacker to test the strength of IT infrastructure security. Regardless of how sophisticated the attack is, it mostly starts by trying to trick the employees into doing something that jeopardizes the system.
Therefore, the industry should not only focus on the systems but also get the employees to take the measurements to defend the loophole. Making the employees understand the approaches that these attackers take and what can be done to minimize the exposure to that risk.
According to a report by Deloitte India, cybersecurity attacks are getting complex each passing day and to prevent these threats banks will also need to hire Chief Risk Officers. The officers who are experienced in taking responsibility and lead the firm with military-level cybersecurity solutions to identify the modern sophisticated cyberattacks.
Having a CRO (Chief Risk Officers) will help the firm in managing the operations to prevent cybersecurity threats. It can also fill the responsibilities, including identifying, evaluating, reporting the threats and monitoring the external and internal cyber threats to the firm.
Methodology For Mitigating The Threat
It’s about time for financial firms or any industry to stop relying on the obsolete IT infrastructure. Instead, they should adopt cybersecurity measures that are more complex and sophisticated than ever before to prevent prevailing and emerging cyber threats.
Here are some basic steps the financial firms can implement to minimize the risk of a cyberattack:
Identify and classify the assets- It is important to identify and categorize the information assets, based on its level of sensitivity, value, and criticality to the bank. Information assets including various categories of data that are highly-restricted, confidential, internal use, and the public.
Risk assessment- It is advisable for every bank to prepare a cybersecurityrisk assessment, and implement a cybersecurity protection plan to address those threats identified in the risk assessment procedure. This helps the organization to mitigate the factors that cause disruption in running a smooth business operation.
Identify threats and vulnerabilities– Threat and vulnerability can be subjected to a person, an organization, weaknesses in the system or the network. So it is not a necessity but mandatory for the organization to identify these threats and vulnerabilities through penetration testing in order to patch the weaknesses that can be exploited to gain access and affect the system.
Analyze risk- As mentioned earlier, the bank has the assets that the hackers sought for. So, analyzing the risk to these assets based on the impact or criticality is a way to go for an organization. The process should occur on a regular basis to identify any new potential threats.
Educate employees- All employees should be aware of the threats and consequences of ignoring it. For instance, they should be aware of the hazard by clicking a malicious link or opening an attachment from an unknown person. So, it is crucial to provide cybersecurity awareness training for the employees with tools that helps in raising awareness to prevent cyberattacks. It is particularly important because most of the cyber incidents are the result of “human error.”
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.
Top 3 Online Brand Protection Solutions
With the help of the right tools in the right place, protect your brand online along with your digital assets against brand infringements. Here are some simple tips and brand protection solutions that an organization must implement and follow:
Website SSL
Website Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security standard that creates an encrypted link between the web server and browser or a mail server and mail client. With website SSL, customers can more easily determine whether they have landed on your legitimate and official website or not. Websites that hold private data must have this implemented so that customers are aware of the information that is processed through that site is encrypted and authenticated.
Brand Monitoring
Make sure that no negative publicity of your brand is existing on the web and is not leaving a wrong impact on your customers. Proactive brand monitoring on the web is a smart way to identify and check the fraudulent cyber activities taking place against your brand.
Take Down of Phishing Websites
According to Webroot, around 1.5 million phishing websites are created every month. Brands on an online platform need to stay protected from cyber fraudulent activities like brand infringement and phishing websites/mobile applications.
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.
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.
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.
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