#Frauds Archives

The brutal Cyber Attacks that shook the world

Posted on 30/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Impacts of Cyberattacks on Businesses

Do you know a cyberattack can destroy your entire business overnight? In the survey report of 2019, 64% of companies faced web-based attacks, 62% experienced phishing as well as social engineering attacks. Around 59% of the companies experienced to have received malicious code and botnets. Whereas, 51% of businesses experienced the denial of service attacks. (Source: TradeReady)

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime damages will cost the world $6 trillion by 2021. In fact, 63 cybercriminals who come under the most wanted list of FBI are known to have committed a chain of cybercrimes that had cost people and organizations, billions of dollars.

Cyber attacks have become common and more endangering nowadays, irrespective of the scale or size of the business. It is important to have proper security of defense locks but, it is more crucial to know what is the cause of offense. The offense could be the existing security loopholes in your enterprise, the unprotected IT infrastructure, and vulnerable employees. All these problems can lead to destructive consequences which can compromise your data and can give rise to cybercrimes.

Furthermore, every individual working in an organization is required to be aware of the major cyberattacks that are endangering and big cyber threat postures. Here is the list of 6 major types of cyberattacks:

Types of Cyber Attacks

1. Phishing

Phishing is a social engineering attack that is deployed over internet users with the intention to steal their data including credentials and credit card details. It is an identity theft to dupe victims into opening the email and lure them to click on the malicious attachment in the email message.

2. Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malicious software, designed to bar access to a computer system or a data file until the user pays ransom to the attacker. While regular ransomware locks the system, a more advanced malware uses a technique named cryptoviral extortion attack that encrypts the files of users making them inaccessible until a ransom is paid to decrypt them.

3. Risk of Removable Media

Removable media like USB flash drives, external hard drives, optical discs, memory cards, digital cameras, etc. could be the bearer of cyber threats. These external portable storage devices are designed to be inserted and removed from a computer system. The usage of these devices could create a risk of data loss in case the media is lost or stolen. Further, it could lead to the compromise of a huge amount of data loss which would directly lead to damage to business reputation as well as financial penalties. Apart from that, removable media can be majorly used as an attack vector for malware.

4. Cyber Scam

Cyber thieves use the internet as a weapon to deploy cyber attacks on every scale of enterprises. These cyber scams come in various forms, including emails attempting to trick users into handing over their personal information over phishing sites or counterfeited web pages. It is a type of internet fraud where cyber attackers hide or provide incorrect information to trick victims out of money, property or confidential data.

5. Vishing

Voice phishing is a phone fraud that uses social engineering over the telephone to get access to user’s personal and financial information. The fraudsters use modern practices like caller ID spoofing or automated systems to sound like a legitimate authority overcall. Vishing is typically used for stealing credit card numbers or related information with the help of identity theft.

6. Smishing

SMS phishing is a fraudulent activity that is attempted to acquire personal information like passwords and user details by impersonating as a trustworthy identity. This social engineering technique involves cell phone text messages to deliver the bait to indulge victims to divulge their personal information on the attached link in the text message.

How to prevent Cyberattacks?

Cyberattacks seem to be constantly evolving every year and with major ransomware attacks like RobinHood, Snatch, Dharma, etc. in 2019, it is much clear that there is no slow down in the growth. But it’s never too late to secure your organizations by taking essential and efficient preventive steps to combat these attacks from any future loss.

With the help of cyber attack simulators, an organization can not only train but also make the individuals working, become proactive towards the prevailing cyber risks. Apart from that, it is necessary to make employees working in an organization, have the knowledge and are updated on the cyber threat postures existing.

Cyber attack simulators help not only help in identifying the level of vulnerabilities but also improve it so as to create a defensive system by strengthening the weakest link in the organization.

Along with cyber attack simulators, it is important to have a back up of critical data. By having critical backups of your data, you can allow only limited interruptions to the business workflow. It’s better to start securing your business by investing in the right cybersecurity solutions rather than paying for losses by becoming victim to cyber-attacks.

Worst Ransomware Attacks of India

Posted on 26/03/202128/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

State of Affairs of Ransomware Attacks in India: 2019

Did you know more than 230,000 ransomware attack submissions were discovered in 2019 between April 1st and September 30th? Last year, the resurging ransomware attack in India became a headache for the corporate sectors targeting and affecting various organizations across the nation. In fact, the three most notorious members of the ransomware family- Ryuk, Purga, and Stop made major headlines in the nation.

The Stop ransomware caused about 10.10% of the ransomware attacks followed by Ryuk making about 5.84% attacks along with Purga for deploying 0.80% of ransomware attacks! (source: TSG Sunday Guardian Live)

Ryuk seemed to have been the most active threat landscape in the Indian public as well as private sectors. On the other hand, brute-force attacks on RDP and SMBs seemed to have steadily increased in 2019.

According to the Business Standard, last year was entirely the year of ransomware attacks on municipalities. It was observed that not less than 174 municipal institutions were targeted with more than 3000 subset organizations! In comparison, 60% of the increase from 2018 was experienced in 2019!

Reportedly, organizations have faced double extortion in Q1 2020 across the globe. Moreover, security research has anticipated that a business is attacked every 11 seconds by cybercriminals. The cost of damage is predicted to hit around $20 billion by 2021.

Although, this figure may vary later depending upon the cost of attacks and its devastating consequences. To know how brutal ransomware attacks can get, here are the top devastating ransomware attacks that took place in India.

Top 6 Ransomware Attacks in India

Telangana and AP Power Utilities Hacked

A malicious software attacked the power utility systems of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh last year where all the servers went down until the glitch was rectified. Since the computer systems of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh power utilities were interlinked, the virus attack quickly spread, taking down all the systems.

UHBVN Ransomware Attack

Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam was hit by a ransomware attack where the hackers gained access to the computer systems of the power company and stole the billing data of customers. The attackers demanded Rs.1 crore or $10 million in return for giving back the data.

WannaCry

India was the third worst-hit nation by WannaCry ransomware, affecting more than 2 lakh computer systems. During the first wave of attack, this ransomware attack had hit banks in India including few enterprises in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The ransomware majorly affected the US healthcare system and a well-known French car manufacturing firm.

Mirai Botnet Malware Attack

This botnet malware took over the internet, targeting home routers and IoT devices. This malware affected 2.5 million IoT devices including a large number of computer systems in India. This self-propagating malware was capable of using exploitable unpatched vulnerabilities to access networks and systems.

Petya

India was one of the top 10 countries to be hit by Petya ransomware. This ransomware attack halted work at one of the terminals of India’s largest seaport causing computer lockdown and serious consequences for the country’s exports.

BSNL Malware Attack

The state-owned telecom operator BSNL was hit by a major malware attack, impacting nearly 2000 broadband modems! 60,000 modems became dysfunctional after the malware attack hit the Telecom Circle.

Proactive Measures to Prevent Ransomware Attacks

As we continue to develop smart cities and smart grid technologies in 2020, the risk of ransomware attacks will stay put as a big challenge for all the organizations. Apart from focusing on development and advancement, every industry vertical must understand the crucial role of cyber security.

With the help of these below listed proactive measure, organizations can reduce or prevent the constantly evolving ransomware attacks in the future:

Employee Awareness Training

Cyber threat actors majorly use emails as bait in attempting cyber attacks on an organization and humans being the weakest link tend to easily fall for it. So to avoid and overcome this problem, organizations must educate their employees by making them aware of the prevailing cyber threats.

A right security attack simulator and awareness training tool can help in reducing the threat of employee error. Such tools help in mitigating existing cyber risks within the organization and enhance the cyber security posture.

Backup Your Data Separately

The best way to stay proactive is by backing up your data in a separate external storage device but it should not be connected to your computer. Backing up your data will help in securing it from being encrypted and misused by cyber attackers.

Regular Vulnerability Assessment

Basic cyber security hygiene like vulnerability assessment and penetration testing can help in preventing malware like ransomware. With the help of continuous vulnerability assessment, one can find out the exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before any threat actor discovers it.

Never Click on Unverified Links

Avoid clicking links that are attached in spam emails or on an unfamiliar website. Such links are the bearers of malicious files that badly infect the user’s computer when clicked. Moreover, these links are the pathways for ransomware to access the user’s system and encrypt or lock confidential data for ransom.

Use Security Software

With cybercrimes becoming more widespread and constantly evolving in nature, protection against them has never been more crucial. It is necessary for organizations to secure their entire IT infrastructure with comprehensive cyber security solutions and software to blocking and keep the cyber threat postures at bay.

Among all other cyber attacks, ransomware is one kind of criminal activity that can be easily prevented by these above-mentioned solutions. Companies must remain vigilant, watchful and prepared to stay protected against such prevailing cyber risks.

The best way to deal with ransomware attacks is to stay protected by following healthy security practices and avoiding suspicious emails in the first place!

Centrality of Cyber Security in the Educational Sector

Posted on 23/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

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.

Vitality of Cyber Security

Posted on 22/03/202127/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Familiarising With The Term Cyber Security

You must have heard of the word cyber security, making headlines in the news, internet, social media, IT forums, etc. However, has it ever occurred to you that what is cyber security or why does the security administrator of your organization keep on talking about the importance of cyber security?

Fundamentally, cyber security is the body of technology, process, and practice, designed to protect systems, networks, programs, and data from cyber risks like cyber attacks, damage, or unauthorized access. It is also referred to as information technology security. With cyber attacks evolving today as a danger to organizations, employees and customers, cyber security plays a very crucial role in prevention against such security threats.

As we have entered into this new decade, we can already see new challenges arising in cyber security since day one! It is no surprise to see that cyber security is constantly on a rise and there is a lot in store for the near future. Today, companies have become more technologically reliant than ever and the trend doesn’t seem to stop. Rather, it looks like this technological reliance will keep evolving in the long term.

Almost every organization nowadays, uses cloud storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive to store their confidential data and sensitive information. If not taken proper online security measures, this data present online can easily be exploited by cyber criminals.

Why is Cyber Security Important for Companies Today?

Often some organizations take their data security lightly and as a result, they fall victim to cyber attacks. In fact, our companies are still not immune to these evolving cyber attacks. But thanks to these fast-developing technology standards today, cyber security has become a priority for every organization across the world.

Think you are secure online? Think again!

It is a serious matter of how cyber attacks are shaping in every form possible in order to stay one step ahead of the development in technology. Phishing, ransomware, cyber scams are some of the common yet highly dangerous cyber attacks that are designed with the motive to access and exploit the user’s sensitive data and extort money out of it.

Here are some more major reasons to understand why cyber security is important for companies:

Rise of Cyber Crimes

Be it a large scale or a small scale firm, hackers and cyber criminals spare no one. Rather, they lookout for opportunities to exploit data and get money out of these firms. Over the past year, the average cost of cyber crime for an organization has increased 23% more than last year—US$11.7 million, according to the report. Also, the average number of security breaches has risen significantly and it is now $3.86 million, as per the report. With the introduction of new technologies, the chances of cyber threats and risks are also rapidly increasing. Cyber criminals have advanced their attempts of deploying cyber attacks with the evolution of technology.

Growth of IoT Devices

With the mission to create smart cities with smart devices, our dependency to connect everything to the internet has increased too. The introduction of IoT technology i.e. Internet of Things, has not only simplified and speed up our tasks but has also created a pit of new vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. No matter how advanced security measures we take, cyber criminals will always stay one step ahead to attempt cyber crimes. If these internet-connected devices are not managed properly then they can provide a gateway to business to hackers or cyber criminals!

Bridge to Security Gap

Human resources and IT resources have always been one of the most important aspects of any organization. Regardless of their dependency on each other, there has always been a security gap between both aspects. In order to bridge this gap, it is important to provide individuals working in an organization with the right cyber security awareness training. Training for employees is necessary to bridge the gap of cyber security skills and to create a cyber-resilient working culture in the organization.

Cost of Cyber Risks

Cyber attacks today are not only multiplying in numbers but are also multiplying in the cost of damage created. These cyber attacks can prove to be extremely expensive for any organization to endure if not taken proper security measures. With more business infrastructures connecting, it is predicted, cyber crime to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, says the report. Besides, it is not just the financial damage that could cost but also the reputation of the firm along with loss of customer trust in the business.

Security of Data

When it comes to data security, it can be clearly seen how organizations are getting highly comfortable in keeping their information online. With the alarming number of data breaches and information leaks making news headlines almost every day, it can be seen how vulnerable the data left is online. Moreover, cyber attack vectors such as ransomware, phishing, cyber scams, risk of removable media, etc. leave no room for data exploitation and publicizing of any vulnerable data. Implementation of the right cyber security solutions is a must to avoid any future cyber risks related to the sensitive data of an organization.

How to Cyber Secure Your Organization in 2021?

Are you here to look for the best defensive system for your organization to combat cyber attacks? Well, the only thing that is important for your organization in 2021 is a strong cyber security system along with the best cyber defense practices to reduce the cyber threat posture of your organization.

Solely relying on anti-virus software will not stop cyber criminals from accessing your business. But educating employees in making smart cyber defensive choices can definitely reduce the chances of cyber risks!

Moreover, it doesn’t require a specialist to teach employees about cyber defense and cyber security awareness. There are advanced technology-based tools available today to help and guide employees in recognizing and combating cyber threats before they infiltrate networks and systems.

The web and network attackers are constantly striving to undermine the security system of the company’s IT infrastructure today with the intention of stealing the confidential data. Thus, making it more challenging for organizations to stay cyber secure.

Organizations are required to equip themselves to prepare for tight security measures and best cyber security solutions like security risk assessment tools, anti-phishing, and fraud monitoring tools to look for vulnerabilities and to track your brand online. Always remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Indian Banks mounting Online Frauds

Posted on 19/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

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.

Banking Industry: A witness of Cybersecurity Challenges

Posted on 18/03/202129/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

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 cybersecurity risk 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.”

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.

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.

Employee Attraction towards Cyber Attacks

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

With the rapid development in technology and ever-increasing internet users, cyber security plays a critical role in every industry. Securing the IT infrastructure in an enterprise helps in maintaining smooth workflow and consistent business operations.

In recent times, cyber crimes have become extremely sophisticated and threat actors have come up with new ways to obtain access to an organization’s systems and sensitive information. All throughout 2020, everyone was battling to overcome the onslaught of challenges brought by the pandemic.

However, cyber criminals saw an opportunity and wholeheartedly exploited the panic and chaos caused by the pandemic to fill their own pockets. And these criminals took no time to launch back to back cyber attacks during the pandemic.

These threat actors left no stone unturned to target the vulnerable companies that weren’t prepared to support a remote workforce securely. As a number of well-established companies became victims to various cyber attacks, 2020 witnessed several security incidents making the headlines.

Since companies are not willing to compromise with the health of their employees, remote working is expected to continue in 2021 and beyond. But the question is, how do companies survive the fight against cyber crime and secure their employees while overcoming the challenges posed by COVID-19?

Cyber Risks and Lack of Security Awareness Among Employees

Often organizations focus on upgrading the hardware and technologies to stay protected against cyber threats. In doing so, organizations spend millions of dollars on the latest security patches and upgrades. But just like our computers, humans store, process, and transfer information too.

Yet, if you compare the amount of time and money an organization spends on securing its computers and other electronic devices to the resources it focuses on securing its employees, you’ll see how huge the difference is!

Organizations typically invest a lot in installing antivirus and spyware software as well as upgrading the operating systems, applications, and browsers. Additionally, every company has help desks, support teams, and security technical teams to maintain all this software and hardware. But how much does an organization spend on securing employees? Very less.

Cyber security has become a massive issue in both private and government institutions. Looking into the core of the issue, it is not really about the technology or the systems. Technology and systems have become increasingly secure over the years.

Employees are the actual issue. Even though it is unintentional, most cyber attacks are caused by human error, whether it is a careless click on an unsolicited link or an innocent downloading of a corrupted file.

How to Fix these Cyber Security Loopholes?

It may sound controversial, but the security teams are the last line of defense within an organization. Even though these teams face many cyber security challenges, it is the employees who form the first line of defense.

According to a report by IBM Security, human error is the main cause of 24% of all data breaches.

Therefore, it is imperative for every organization to train the employees to be aware of the prevalent cyber threats. This does not mean that organizations should implement such heavy security measures that will just create chaos and difficulties for the employees.

Rather, every organization should come up with a solution that makes the day jobs as easy as possible for the employees while making their IT infrastructure as secure as possible.

Here are some effective measures you can take to secure your organization:

Discover: Start looking from a risk management perspective. Find out if there are any flaws in the organization’s cyber security framework. Conduct services like VAPT to discover and identify the loopholes within your organization’s network and IT infrastructure.

Practice healthy cyber hygiene: Implement basic cyber security protocols. Enforce a strong password policy, enabling multi-factor authentication for verification, using secure Wi-Fi, encrypting sensitive data, and regularly updating the systems with the latest security patches.

Lookout for malicious links: Think carefully before clicking on a link or downloading an attachment from an unknown source. An email can sometimes be from a threat actor impersonating a trusted individual. To protect yourself against malicious actors impersonating your email domain, set up tools like KDMARC and defend your domain against forgery.

Set up a firewall: As the name suggests, a firewall is a wall between the computer and the internet. It acts as the gatekeeper for all incoming and outgoing network traffic. Setting up a firewall protects the internal networks of your business against cyber threats.

Update on the latest risks: Keep up with the latest cyber hacks and threats news. It helps your organization stay up-to-date with the latest cyber security-related news. It also provides you with the cyber security preventive measures that your organization can adopt to avoid becoming a victim.

Train Employees: Educate employees to recognize social engineering attacks such as phishing, vishing, smishing, etc. To be more aware of the cyber threats evolving around the world and how to react when needs arise.

The Ultimate Solution to Make Employees Cyber Secure

There are several steps an organization can take to protect itself against cyber threats. However, it all comes down to how strong is your organization’s first line of defense – the employees. It has become essential for organizations to provide cyber security awareness training to their employees.

You can opt to educate your employees with tools that offers the most effective security awareness training materials. The tool generates awareness amongst employees about the common cyber threats wreaking havoc around the world.

Next Big Threat? – Polymorphic Attacks

Posted on 01/11/202029/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

During the first half of 2020, cybersecurity analysts and security experts have discovered that most of the phishing attacks conducted through the use of spoofed login pages. Polymorphic phishing attacks are on the rise in recent times as hackers are coming up with new ways to create spoofed login pages that are almost unidentifiable. This is one of the most frequently used methods implemented by cybercriminals for stealing the credentials of employees and users.Researchers have disclosed that more than 50,000 spoofed login pages replicating 200 popular international brands have been circulating since 2019.

This sudden increase in the number of polymorphic phishing attacks is because spoofed login pages are extremely difficult to identify but are comparatively easier to generate by hackers. Automated phishing kits that are illegally sold over the dark web, are deployed by cybercriminals to instigate these malicious phishing campaigns and to trick employees on a wider scale. This is why phishing awareness and training has become absolutely imperative in organizations in the 21st Century. As a CISO or CIO of your company, taking adequate precautions to prevent polymorphic phishing attacks is the need of the hour.

All you need to know about Polymorphism

In a polymorphic phishing attack, attackers usually make minor alterations in the sender ID of a valid source or spoof an email address. They use social engineering attack techniques to make sure that the spoofed email ID replicates the authentic ID. The hackers then send these malicious emails to the employees in reputed organizations. More often than not, the email lands into the inbox of employees due to the lack of proper email authentication protocol in the company.

This malicious email comes with a link or attachment that redirects the employee to a spoofed login page. The login page asks for the employees’ corporate credentials and passwords. Ill-informed and unaware employees can easily fall for such polymorphic phishing attacks and give up their company login credentials on the spoofed page.

This information is used by hackers to extract valuable data of the company, gain access to company assets and financial information, find out personal details of employees working in the company, and conduct other fraudulent activities.

42% of all phishing attempts in 2020 were as a result of Polymorphism, as per a global survey conducted by security researchers.

According to security officials around the world, while these login pages are fraudulent in nature, they look extremely similar to original webpages. This is why cyber attackers use Polymorphism techniques to phish employees via spoofed login pages and succeed at it.

A cybercriminal can make minuscule changes in the email address so as to replicate a popular brand as closely as possible to skip detection. Since the changes made are very minor, such emails easily evade email security checkers, and email security tools may fail to detect them.

The most probable reasons for the increase in the number of spoofed login pages may be due to the following two reasons:

CISOs, CIOs, and SOC analysts of the reputed brand whose landing page has been spoofed seek ways for taking the fake pages down. This makes the hackers create more new pages so that it can continue to spoof employees.
Certain brands or companies may be an easy target for cybercriminals due to the lack of a well-rounded workplace security policy in their organization. This is the reason why attackers get away with polymorphic phishing attacks.

How to Detect Spoofed Login Pages?

While it may be difficult to detect spoofed login pages and prevent being phished, there are certain ways by which one can attempt to understand whether a login page is from an authentic source or not. Before being redirected to a login page it is always advisable to check whether the email is from a valid IP address as well.

This can be done by paying attention to the domain name and subdomains, as attackers might make minor changes in the same to trick employees. It also advisable to check whether the email has a relevant subject, is grammatically correct, and doesn’t provide lucrative offers or instigate a sense of urgency. After making sure of these pointers and clicking on the URL in the attachment when the login page opens up, employees must make sure:

While hovering over the URL it is redirecting them to the desired page
The login page is well-designed and all the hyperlinks on the page are fully functional and redirect them to the desired pages
The URL of the webpage is secured over HTTPS
The page doesn’t ask them to disclose their corporate credentials or bank account details and password since such information should never be submitted on external platforms

Polymorphic Phishing Attack Prevention and Solution

As a CISO in your company, implementing a robust cybersecurity policy in your organization is imperative. To achieve this, security analysts may take help from the IT department and implement security solutions and tools in their respective organizations. A phishing attack awareness and training program can help employees to gain better insights on social engineering attack vectors. Proper awareness among employees can reduce the chances of polymorphic phishing attacks.

A cyber attack awareness and training program starts working by simulating sophisticated impersonations of real-life cyber attacks on a company’s employees. A number of simulations are perpetrated to increase security awareness.

After this, the training procedure is initiated, by imparting knowledge on the various types of attack vectors. This is done through awareness content giving detailed insight on them, visual presentations on attack identification, as well as video lectures and advisories on the same. Regular cumulative assessments are then taken to ensure improvements and initiate a better response against attacks.

Detailed analysis of simulation reports is provided to track results and monitor progress made via assessments and knowledge imparting sessions taken by employees.

In order to prevent employees from falling prey to phishing attacks, it is imperative for CISO and security officials to implement AI-driven cybersecurity solutions. By upgrading your workplace cybersecurity policy and implementing leading-edge cybersecurity solutions in your company, it is possible to ensure protection against polymorphic phishing attacks.