#CyberSecurity Archives - Page 5 of 5

Why Banks Need Cyber Security?

Posted on 08/01/202018/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

Do you know the frequency of sophisticated attacks on the banking sector is increasing day by day? If so, then the need to develop a comprehensive cyber security program is vital. The banking sector has always been susceptible to banking related and financial frauds. Subject to the technological advancements, the banking systems are now connected to the internet and have migrated from the physical centers to computer systems and to other platforms like mobile phones.

Although this, like every other technological change, is a development that is aimed to make life easier for the masses, it (like every other technology) comes with disadvantages.

Lack of Cyber Security in the Banking Sector

The biggest disadvantage that the banking sector has been facing subject to being digitized is being vulnerable to cyber attacks. Since the banking platforms are available online, any flaw in their application risks the chance of getting exploited by anonymous attackers throughout the world.

That is, digitization of the financial services industry has opened the gates of anonymous incursions and hence, to myriad information security threats. In order to prevent fake transactions, the banking platforms have taken several security measures like incorporating advanced analytics; but not being in compliance with the set mandatory safety norms hinder the successful implementation of the same (that is, although the measures have been enforced, they fail to provide complete protection).

The last quarter of 2016 witnessed the largest data breach in the history of India’s banking system when about 3.2 million debit cards, belonging to some of the major banks, got hacked using a malware (virus) infection.

Another incident of banks being targeted by the cyber attack was reported at the beginning of 2017 when three Indian banks belonging to the Public sector got infiltrated in order to create fraudulent trade documents. The SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) systems associated with these banks were discovered to be compromised with the purpose of creating fake documents.

This was not the first time that the SWIFT systems got breached. The Bangladesh Bank Heist that took place in February 2016 occurred because of compromised SWIFT systems as well, and so did a number of other attacks.

Consistently increasing and more streamlined attacks like these (the ones mentioned above) make the banking sector one of the most targeted domains and since it is one of the most crucial ones (dealing with the finances of a country), it is imperative that banks opt for cybersecurity (both at basic and advanced levels).

Cybersecurity for Remote Work: 10 Ways to Boost It

Posted on 01/03/201921/06/2021 by Tushar

Many companies use cloud-based platforms that enable their employees to work remotely, whether from home or out in the field. While this brings benefits to both the company and its employees, it does create challenges which need to be addressed for the company’s systems and data to remain secure. Here, we’ll look at the best practices to ensure cybersecurity for your remote employees.

1. Vet your employees

If you are going to keep your data and systems secure, you need to know that the people who have access to it are trustworthy. Vetting employees can highlight anyone with a background that makes you think twice about giving them access. This doesn’t merely relate to someone’s criminal history; it also means looking at employees who have a record of flouting the company’s IT policy.

2. Train your employees

All employees can pose a security risk if they do not understand how to keep your system and data safe. While most companies undertake cybersecurity training for their staff, there are differences between using an in-house system which is not connected to the internet and a remote system which is. If you have recently begun to implement remote work, you will need to update your training to cover the new procedures and best practices that your employees need to follow.

3. Store remote user data securely

If a hacker gets hold of information about your employees, such as their usernames, passwords and privileges, it makes it very easy for them to undertake even wider and more damaging hacks. For this reason, the data you keep on these employees should be stored very securely.

4. Provide your own devices

While many companies operate a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, this gives you far less control over security. As the device your staff access your system with is also for personal use, you are unable to manage how that device is used or even who it is used by. If your employee lends their laptop to their child who unwittingly clicks on a malicious link, your data may be put at immediate risk.

Although it is more expensive, providing your own devices means you can set up firewalls and security settings in-house, install antivirus and internet security, and ensure that the employees are obliged to follow security protocols when using the devices.

5. Know where devices are

One of the biggest issues with remote work is that lots of devices get lost. Even the UK government lost over 2000 devices in the year up to June 2019, nearly 800 of which belonged to the Ministry of Defence. For this reason, devices must be fitted with a location finder, be securely locked and, where possible, be set up for remote deletion.

6. Secure internet connections

Where your employee connects to the internet can also be an issue. Public wi-fi hotspots, for example, can be easy to hack into and this makes it possible for data transmitted across them to be stolen. Although you may insist employees do not connect from an insecure connection, you can further increase security by preventing company data being accessible when the device is not logged into a secure network.

7. Encrypt data and emails

Encryption prevents data from being stolen when it’s in transit or at rest, so even if a hacker gets to the data, they will not be able to access it. Using VPNs, SSL and TLS are important ways to protect your data, as are Personal Signing Certificates that encrypt emails and their attachments.

8. Two-factor and multi-factor authentication

No matter how unique and strong username and passwords are, on their own, they are not robust enough to guarantee that whoever is logging in to your system is who they say they are. Adding further levels of security, such as a passcode sent to a user’s mobile phone or a biometric fingerprint scan, offer a far greater degree of authentication that can prevent hackers from getting access.

9. Control access privileges

Limiting what employees can access on your system also limits what a cybercriminal can access if they hack into an employee’s account. By setting privileges so that employees only have access to the information they need to carry out their remote work, you minimise the risk of data being stolen or the system being taken down.

10. Use a secure cloud provider

Your cloud provider can provide significant help in keeping your system and data safe. At Anteelo, our team can develop and implement a security policy that meets both your internal and regulatory requirements. We use next-gen FortiGate firewalls with built-in intrusion prevention systems and in-flow virus protection, while also offering extensive VPN features, server and network monitoring, personal signing and SSL certificates, application firewall configuration, DDoS protection, email security, industry-leading remote, encrypted backups and more.

Conclusion

Remote work provides companies with opportunities to save money, improve collaboration, offer flexible working conditions and cope with crises like Coronavirus. However, it is critical that systems and data remain secure. Hopefully, the ten points raised here will show you ways that such security can be put in place.

In 2019, new cyber security threats are predicted to emerge.

Posted on 23/01/201919/06/2021 by Tushar

Cyber security remains a major issue for all organisations and 2019 will continue to prove challenging. Expect to see more large-scale data breaches, new forms of malware and the continuing plague of ransomware attacks. In addition, we need to prepare for threats to Internet of Things devices and attacks on infrastructure, such as banking and payment systems and public transport. Perhaps more worrying than these are the unknown, emerging threats that are on the horizon. Here weâ€™ll look at four you should be wary of.

AI versus AI attacks

Artificial intelligence is being increasingly used by all manner of businesses and in a wide range of ways. Crucially, it is a key tool for cyber security firms which use AI models to find better ways to defend our systems.

Unfortunately, AI is also available to cybercriminals who now use it to counteract the work done by security companies. This is carried out using a generative adversarial network (GAN) which creates a situation where two neural networks compete against each other to discover the AI algorithms each is using. If the cybercriminals discover the algorithms being used by cyber security companies, it gives them a much better understanding of how to evade being detected.

Indeed, these increasingly sophisticated hackers can use AI and machine learning to infiltrate the data sets used by security companies, for example, injecting malicious code and modifying labels, so that threats can be re-identified as safe.

Fake media exploitation

Most people are now aware of the problem of phishing emails where criminals send fake messages to employees in the hope of conning them into giving away important data, access details or, in some cases, getting them to transfer money to the criminalsâ€™ accounts.

While many of us have learnt to spot the tell-tale signs of most fake emails, advances in artificial intelligence have now produced an entirely new and potentially much more difficult to spot threat – fake video and audio messages. Simply by analysing online images, video and voice recordings, AI-enhanced software is now able to create highly realistic video and audio that can fool even the most cautious of viewers. In the video below, youâ€™ll see how this is done.

As you can see from the video, even the creator of this technology has concerns about how it can be used for malign reasons. Cybercriminals with access to it can deliberately spread misinformation that can have a devastating impact, for example, making statements purporting to be from a leading CEO that affects stock market volatility. Criminals can also use the technology to send fake video and audio messages to employees and customers that con them far more easily than a phishing email.

For now, this technology is difficult to use and expensive to own. However, it wonâ€™t take long before itâ€™s available for use on the average laptop or even as a phone app. Luckily, as the video shows, there are efforts in place to develop technology that can detect these fake videos. For the time being, it is important to remain vigilant.

A quantum leap in encryption cracking

Understanding the bizarre world of quantum physics is a challenge even for the most gifted of scientists. However, we are now at a stage where quantum computers are being developed that have the processing power far beyond that which we have ever been able to produce before.

With such potent technology, experts believe that cybercriminals with access to quantum computers would be able to crack the encryption we currently use to protect data. While it is possible to create even more secure encryption to combat this in the future, the problem lies with technology that is already in use. Products like TVs, vehicles and phones, together with many IoT devices, which are going to be around for quite a few years and which have todayâ€™s levels of encryption built in, may become far easier to hack in the future.

Smart contract hacks

Blockchain technology is increasingly used in business because it offers both transparency and the security brought by encryption. One way in which it is used is for smart contracts, where apps housed on blockchain automate processes when the right conditions are met, for example, carrying out financial transactions or delivering intellectual property.

While blockchain has a potentially very useful role to play, this relatively new technology still has issues. One of the concerns is that the inbuilt transparency of blockchain makes it difficult to keep smart contract data private. This vulnerability has already been exploited by cybercriminals who have used it to get their hands on large amounts of cryptocurrencies.

Conclusion

As you can see, in 2019, the new cyber security threats are far more sophisticated than ever before, using technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and quantum computers to launch their attacks. They are also finding new things to attack, such as the media, blockchain and even other AI models. With this in mind, 2019 is certainly a year to keep security threats as a priority in your organisation.

Three strategies for cybersecurity teams to develop a rapid-response culture

Posted on 03/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

The phrase “need for speed” might sound like a catchy one-liner from a Hollywood blockbuster. However, when it comes to information security, they are words to live by. Consider this vital fact: Malware permeates organizations with lightning speed and frequently causes millions of dollars of damage in a relatively short period of time. Because of this, cybersecurity teams should be able to respond speedily when threats happen. Growing your team from an average state into one with a rapid response mindset requires a few key elements:First, there has to be modular structure. What this means is that teams need a set response format to work with. This structure should evolve, adding processes or additional needed components, as a team’s obligations in cybersecurity change. As Bob Carver, CISSP, CISM, MS, says in a 2017 article, Cybersecurity: The Need for SPEED: “You don’t want to be one of those organizations that gets notified of a compromise by law enforcement before your security teams are aware of the situation.”

The second element to maintaining a rapid response culture is situational awareness. Is the cybersecurity team “in-the-know” regarding where to find their tools? What type of response to take, who to contact, when to act, and most importantly, how to execute their response — are all questions that should be answered before operating in a production environment.

Third, encourage drills to promote team agility. Even with cutting-edge skill sets and available resources, response time can still falter if both components are not used frequently. By “going through the motions” of regularly responding to simulated threats, a team can build the physical and mental bite that lessens the chance for mistakes during the execution of an actual incident response. Cybersecurity stakeholders will discover that this practice in fact leaves information ingrained deeper within a team’s psyche, both at the individual and collaborative level.

Accelerated response in cybersecurity is a learned practice. However, when a culture is developed, rapid response becomes natural and can increasingly match the hostile landscape created by malicious actors.

Secrets of state of the Art Cyber Defence

Posted on 01/12/201818/06/2021 by Tushar

Every year, organisations lose billions of pounds to cybercrime â€“ and itâ€™s a persistent and worsening problem. Out of this has arisen a highly sophisticated cyber-defence industry that is continually searching for more effective ways to prevent hackers from accessing systems and the data they store. Here, weâ€™ll look at some of the newest defences on the horizon.

Moving target security

Israeli company, Morphisec, has developed a new form of cyber defence which it describes as â€˜moving target securityâ€™. Essentially, this method of security scrambles the names, references and locations of files in the serverâ€™s memory, as well as the application itself, in order to make it increasingly difficult for malware to infect a system.

As an extra layer of defence, each time the computer is booted, the file names, locations and references are re-scrambled, ensuring that the system never has the same configuration as before. This type of technology is used by a number of leading organizations to protect their systems, most notably, the London Stock Exchange.

Air gapping

Air gapping is the technique of isolating a system from both local networks and from the internet so that the only way it could get hacked is from someone getting physical access to the server itself. This is perhaps one of the most robust solutions for storing exceptionally sensitive data which needs to be kept ultra-secure or for protecting highly critical systems, such as those used for military defence or running nuclear generators.Â

Even here, however, there are potential security issues, as air gapped servers can be â€˜pre-hackedâ€™ prior to installation when they are being manufactured. In 2018, Bloomberg reported that Chinese special agents had compromised servers manufactured by a US hardware company by incorporating â€˜spy chipsâ€™ into components that were sourced from China. In this way, the malware came pre-installed and kicked into operation once the servers were first booted. According to Bloomberg, the servers in question were sold to and used by leading US technology firms and by government agencies.

Co-operative cybersecurity

Another new cyber defence solution is known as co-operative cyber-security. This is when multiple organisations work together to store each otherâ€™s data in a so-called data-sharing alliance. This means that in order for a hacker to steal sensitive data from any of the participants, all of the systems would need to be hacked. Without being able to do this, hackers would not be able to get their hands on any complete files.

The technique employed to make this form of security work is called crypto-splitting. Here, each piece of data is encoded into thousands of numbers which are then randomly dispersed and saved on the computers of the participating organisations.

Given such levels of encryption and the fact that none of the organisations know what data they are holding, it makes it incredibly challenging for a hacker to access and make sense of any data they might obtain. Statistically, if the chances of successfully hacking a single system was a mere one per cent, the chances of doing this to just four systems would be 0.000001 per cent â€“ and even then, they would need to find a way to unencrypt what they found.

Next-gen firewalls

Firewalls are nothing new, however, a new breed of next-gen firewalls now exist that take server protection to the next level.Â The industry leader is Fortinet, whose FortiGate next-generation firewall protects websites and web apps from virus, ransomware and malware infections while preventing intrusion from hackers and blocking distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Offering high-performance threat protection, a next-gen firewall is designed to keep mission-critical applications secure. The FortiGate, for example, continuously updates its threat intelligence to provide robust protection from both known and unknown attacks.

Conclusion

While it is possible, according to some, to create an unhackable computer, the process of doing so would make it more or less useless in a network environment. If you need to use a network, there will always be a risk involved. This is why security companies across the globe are continually looking at new and more sophisticated ways to solve the issue of cyber-attacks. With cybercriminals now using tools like artificial intelligence and employing tactics such as hiding malicious code in encrypted files, the challenge to stay secure is even harder. Hopefully, from reading this post, youâ€™ll see some of the latest defence techniques which are now available. If you are looking for highly secure hosting that comes with FortiGate next-gen firewall security, take a look at our dedicated server and cloud hosting solutions.

What’s New in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1.1

Posted on 15/05/201812/10/2021 by Anteelo Master

It’s been a long time coming. The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released version 1.1 of the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, or affectionatey called the Cybersecurity Framework.The initial framework was created to help organizations that operate critical infrastructure better secure their digital assets. These industries include energy, banking, communications and the defense industrial base. However, organizations outside of the critical infrastructure industries have turned to the Cybersecurity Framework for guidance when it comes to securing their systems and data.

Version 1.1, the first update since February 2014, includes updates to authentication and identity, self-assessing cybersecurity risk, managing cybersecurity within the supply chain, and vulnerability disclosure.

The changes, according to NIST, are based on feedback collected through public calls for comments, questions received by team members, and workshops held in 2016 and 2017. Two drafts of Version 1.1 were circulated for public comment to help NIST comprehensively address all of these inputs.

“The release of the Cybersecurity Framework Version 1.1 is a significant advance that truly reflects the success of the public-private model for addressing cybersecurity challenges,” said Walter G. Copan, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director. “From the very beginning, the Cybersecurity Framework has been a collaborative effort involving stakeholders from government, industry and academia. The impact of their work is evident in the widespread adoption of the framework by organizations across the United States, as well as internationally.”

Matt Barrett, program manager for the Cybersecurity Framework, said “this update refines, clarifies and enhances Version 1.0. It is still flexible to meet an individual organization’s business or mission needs, and applies to a wide range of technology environments, such as information technology, industrial control systems and the Internet of Things.”

The framework update process is now published on the Cybersecurity Framework website. Later this year NIST plans to release an updated companion document, the Roadmap for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, which will describe key areas of development, alignment and collaboration.

“Engagement and collaboration will continue to be essential to the framework’s success,” said Barrett. “The Cybersecurity Framework will need to evolve as threats, technologies and industries evolve. With this update, we’ve demonstrated that we have a good process in place for bringing stakeholders together to ensure the framework remains a great tool for managing cybersecurity risk.”

“Cybersecurity is critical for national and economic security,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “The voluntary NIST Cybersecurity Framework should be every company’s first line of defense. Adopting version 1.1 is a must do for all CEO’s.”

Lack of Cyber Security in the Banking Sector

1. Vet your employees

2. Train your employees

3. Store remote user data securely

4. Provide your own devices

5. Know where devices are

6. Secure internet connections

7. Encrypt data and emails

8. Two-factor and multi-factor authentication

9. Control access privileges

10. Use a secure cloud provider

Conclusion

AI versus AI attacks

Fake media exploitation

A quantum leap in encryption cracking

Smart contract hacks

Conclusion

Moving target security

Air gapping

Co-operative cybersecurity

Next-gen firewalls

Conclusion

Delivering excellence, collaborating across time zones.

Take a look at our global hideouts.​

Contact

India (HQ)

Atlanta, USA

London, UK

Dubai, UAE

Melbourne, Australia

Surabaya, Indonesia

India (HQ)

Atlanta

London

Dubai

Australia

Indonesia

Take a look at our global hideouts.