Expert Speak

“By the Time You’ve Been Compromised, It’s Already Too Late”

Published

3 years ago

May 4, 2021

Written by Rawad Sarieddine, Vice President – Middle East, Turkey & Africa, CrowdStrike

Organisations attempting to protect their data currently face an unprecedented threat level. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2021 respondents ranked Cybersecurity failure among the top five ‘clear and present dangers’ that the world will face in the next two years. Even the largest and best-equipped of international organisations have shown they’re susceptible to attack from persistent, skilled adversaries. Much like insuring your home against flooding, you need to protect your digital data.

The tough reality for many organisations is that by the time they have been compromised, it’s already too late. To detect these threats, cybersecurity teams have traditionally relied on Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) which work by detecting signatures, exploits, vulnerabilities and IP addresses to help determine whether a security incident has occurred. This has meant that rather than preventing a breach, security teams have remained focussed on investigating what has already happened. However, in recent years, next-generation security solutions have emerged, allowing security teams to go beyond this to really understand the intent of what an attacker is trying to accomplish – and hence, how better to thwart this.

What Are Indicators of Attack (IoAs)?
IoAs allow security teams to develop a more proactive approach to investigations by helping them quickly identify and understand common actions that an adversary must conduct to succeed. These include code execution, persistence, stealth activity, command control and lateral movement within a network. The key advantage of IoAs is that they allow security teams to stop adversaries in their tracks before they’re able to compromise an organisation’s defences, if they are spotted and acted on.

For example, a spearfishing campaign, which is designed to probe a system’s defences, could act as a precursor to a cyber attack. This typically kicks off with an email that seeks to persuade a target to open a file that will infect their machine. Once compromised, the attacker will silently execute another process, hide in memory or on disk, and maintain persistence across reboots of the system. Security teams proactively monitoring for IoAs will be able to detect the execution of any of these steps and identify an adversary through inferring what these actions are trying to achieve. This means that security teams are more likely to discover bad actors before they’re able to compromise a network.

A Real-World Analogy
Let’s put things into context. In many ways, a data breach could be compared to a bank robbery. The attacker needs to overcome the defender’s security systems and successfully exfiltrate their objective – whether that be sensitive data or bars of gold. When a bank is robbed, authorities typically arrive after the crime has taken place and can begin collecting evidence. They may find evidence on the security cameras; the thief drove a red convertible, wore a baseball cap and used liquid nitrogen to break into the vault.

These points of evidence are only discovered after the fact, much like IoCs – they show that there was an attack, but the money is already gone. This same evidence could be used to eventually find the thief but only if they don’t change their methods. If the next time the perpetrator uses a blue hatchback, wears a bucket hat, and uses a drill to break into the vault, he might be successful for a second time. This is because the security team won’t be prepared to look for these new points of evidence.

However, if the bank was set up to monitor for IoAs, they might be able to prevent a robbery entirely. Just as a data breach is frequently preceded by a phishing attack, a bank robber might ‘case’ the bank before the heist. Like a phishing campaign, this process involves steps that a proactive security team could detect. If the thief attempts to disable the system, move towards the vault or attempts to crack it, the security team can infer he is trying to rob them. Using this information, the security team can then stop the attempt before the perpetrator can steal anything at all.

IoAs in Practice
During a cyber attack, these points of evidence may be less obvious than in a bank, but the same principles apply. If a security team can spot IoCs such as an MD5 hash, a C2 domain or a hard-coded IP address, they might be able to use these indicators to prevent future attacks. However, given that IoCs aren’t a constant variable, security teams could be left on the back foot as they struggle to keep up with the evolving threat landscape.

On the other hand, IoAs allow security teams to monitor for suspicious behaviours, helping them to quickly adapt and take action to prevent a breach. By focusing on the tactics, techniques and procedures of attackers, security teams can determine who the adversary is, what they are trying to access and why, while providing a proactive approach to confronting advanced threats.

Expert Speak

Don’t Brush It Off – Plan Your Incident Response Now

Published

4 days ago

December 5, 2023

Edward Frank

In business, impermanence is the only certainty. An example is how organizations addressed the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a few weeks, many developed a plan to run their businesses remotely.

More than three-quarters of organizations worldwide don’t have an IT incident response plan in place because most believe they have little risk of becoming a cyberattack statistic. Unfortunately, that’s still likely to happen.

According to africanews, in the past year, Kenya has experienced a concerning rise in cyberattacks, with a remarkable 860 million incidents documented in 2022.

As wisely expressed by Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” Let’s explore a strategic incident response plan for your organization.

Create a Backup
Business networks are complex and large, and oftentimes, a network outage results in financial and reputational repercussions, including disgruntled clients. It’s imperative to create a backup of critical data and systems that you can’t run your business without, and store it in a safe location. When the inevitable breach occurs, your business will be able to recover as quickly as possible.

Never Say Never
While a workforce continuity plan might seem unimportant and nonurgent, the pandemic prompted IT departments worldwide to quickly realize the importance of being able to rapidly change the way their organizations conducted business.

Here are a few steps to help you draft a business continuity plan to address the next disruption:

Form a team with representatives from each department and understand their workflow.
Identify critical business functions and find a way to prioritize them.
Assess the risks for every process in your organization and record them.
Develop a risk mitigation strategy to protect your critical business functions from those risks.
Document the entire procedure and keep it up to date.

Train Your Employees
A common hurdle with an incident response plan is ensuring that employees take the plan seriously. To deter the mindset that the plan is “less urgent,” educate employees about its importance and the repercussions that can result from cyber threats and cyber incidents. It’s vital to conduct regular training sessions to address hardware failures, software glitches, network outages, and security breaches so that you efficiently mitigate a cybersecurity incident.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
Understand the points of failure in your previous incidents and find a way to rectify them. Single points of failure should be addressed by establishing a backup, not just in terms of network and systems but also in terms of staff allocation. Relying on a single person, especially when it comes to a critical network, is not a great idea. Delegate a second person to reach out and provide assistance in case of an incident.

While incident response might seem insignificant in the larger scheme of things, when a disaster hits, it could potentially devastate your business. Take some time to prioritize incident management and make it part of your organization’s culture by creating a backup, training your employees, drafting a workplace continuity plan, and learning from your past incidents. Learn more about IT incident management for your business.

Cyber Security

Cybersecurity on a Budget: Affordable Cybersecurity Strategies for Small Businesses

Published

1 week ago

November 29, 2023

Edward Frank

According to a survey by Statista, typically, global enterprises dedicate a minimum of 12% of their IT expenditure to information security measures. While larger companies can afford to spend a lot on building a robust cybersecurity strategy, smaller businesses cannot. So, let’s explore some affordable cybersecurity strategies for small businesses that may cost less but have a greater impact.

Train your employees
An article from Forbes found that, annually, 34% of businesses worldwide encounter incidents involving insider attacks. Whether intentional or unintentional, employees tend to be the reason for most data breaches. Per the same article, phishing emails account for 67% of accidental insider attacks.

Phishing attacks mostly instil a sense of urgency in the victim, making it harder for them to think clearly before making a decision. For example, employees may click an email announcement about a bonus that actually came from a malicious outsider impersonating your company’s CEO.

To avoid such mistakes, it’s imperative to train employees on the types of phishing attacks and the ways to identify them. Even going as far as sending a mock phishing email occasionally to test their instincts and educate them can go a long way.

Assess your vulnerabilities
One of the most important cybersecurity strategies is to assess all your risk points by periodically reviewing all your business processes. Pay more attention to teams that deal with a lot of customer data. For instance, sales and marketing teams may handle customer data on a day-to-day basis, so they are at high risk of leaking or mishandling data. Assess their daily activities, create a record of all the risk points, and find ways to mitigate them.

Encrypt your data
Encrypting your data can be an effective method to protect it in case of data leaks. Let’s say a hacker gets hold of your company’s data, but it’s encrypted. Unless the hacker gets the encryption key from you, they cannot access your company’s data. This adds another layer of protection in addition to the everyday cybersecurity best practices that you should be following in your company. So make it a point to encrypt all your data, especially sensitive and critical data.

Limit access to critical data
Not everyone requires access to all data. Try to limit access to critical and sensitive data to fewer employees by basing access on work duties or requiring approval for access, making it a multi-step process to access it. Additionally, periodically review who has access to what data to ensure there aren’t any misallocations of access.

Secure your Wi-Fi
A secure network will reduce the chances of a hack or unauthorized access to your sensitive data. So switch your Wi-Fi to WPA2 or later, as it offers more security. Your business might already be using it, but it’s best to be sure. Additionally, change the name of your SSID and have a strong pre-shared key to keep your Wi-Fi safe from hackers.

Prevent physical theft
Through April 2023, there were 3,785 robberies in London, and 1,765 were of mobile phones. This highlights how important it is to secure your physical assets, as they might contain critical and sensitive information about your organization.

Here are some ways to protect your physical assets, such as PCs, laptops, scanners, and printers:

Restrict unauthorized access to assets.
Install a physical tracker on all devices to track down lost items.
Enable remote wiping of data to erase information if a device is lost.

Cybersecurity strategies are seldom drafted with affordability in mind. However, it is crucial to consider them from a financial perspective, as small businesses are also increasingly susceptible to cyberattacks. These tips can help you take the first step toward creating a secure IT environment. Learn more about cybersecurity solutions for your business.

Cyber Security

Managed Security Service: Right Choice for Your Company?

Published

2 weeks ago

November 22, 2023

Edward Frank

Written by Lev Matveev, SearchInform Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors

75% of information security experts consider insider threats more dangerous than hacker attacks. This is proven by the SearchInform survey conducted annually. Insider threats include data loss, fraud, theft, kickbacks, business on the side, etc. These are serious risks for any business, resulting in major financial losses, reputational damage and fines from law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, many companies still do not ensure reliable protection against insider threats.

The reasons are the following:

Hardware and software for data protection are costly
The market lacks data security experts
SMEs cannot compete with large enterprises to engage professionals.

According to our 2022 survey, one-third of companies recognize an acute shortage of information security experts and cannot ensure protection in-house. Therefore, in 2019 we decided to launch a managed security service based on our protection solutions, which gives the opportunity to use them without hiring security specialists.

The SearchInform service provides protection against data breaches, internal fraud, document forgery and other violations by employees. It solves the tasks of monitoring employee working hours, compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, and many more.

We take on all tasks that are usually handled by in-house security staff. Our experts install and maintain security software, customize security policies for effective control, constantly monitor the situation in the company, detect incidents and investigate them. The client receives detailed and visual reports, as well as emergency alerts if it is required to take urgent measures and prevent an incident.

Availing the service, the client does not need to hire a security expert and therefore does not need to spend on social benefits, vacations or sick leaves. The client’s business remains protected if a security employee resigns or takes an unpaid leave. At the same time, our analyst has diverse work experience, knows the solutions well and has all the necessary competencies to work with them. Since we are unacquainted with the client’s employees, our expert will be impartial and will not take anyone’s side. All this allows the clients to save time and money.

When do companies really need MSS?
According to our observations, the service is the best choice for companies with 30-500 employees and without an in-house IS department. When the staff number increases, top managers can no longer control everything and face a high risk of incidents.

Here are a few common situations when you should choose managed security service.

A company does not have internal security officers or lacks the budget to form a security department. Our service was originated to make data security more affordable. It significantly reduces the company’s costs, as there is no need to purchase software licenses, hardware, or hire a full-time information security officer.
Full-scale protection is required immediately. Companies often turn to managed security services after an incident has already occurred. It becomes clear that to prevent this in future, it is necessary to implement special security software, purchase additional equipment, and hire a data security officer. These steps will take a lot of time. The service will start protecting your business within 1-2 days.
A company is not sure that the purchase of security systems will pay off eventually. Our service is an opportunity to test them in real conditions and assess whether they are worth purchasing in each specific case. One first month of the service is free.
A company wants to conduct a security audit and get a complete picture of the corporate security. The service allows you to quickly find out what data is stored, where exactly it is stored and whether there are access rights violations. As far as the first month, our expert detects cases of corporate fraud, document forgery and other violations, as well as cases of idleness, business on the side or work for competitors.
For compliance with regulatory requirements. More and more regulations are being adopted or waiting to be adopted. SAMA, GDPR, and DCC incentivize companies to take measures to ensure data security. Some regulations, such as the UAE Information Security Regulation issued by the United Arab Emirates Telecommunications and Digital Technology Authority, even stipulate the use of DLP as a means of preventing data loss. To avoid the risk of hefty fines or lawsuits for non-compliance, you can use our managed security service.

I believe that outsourced data security should soon become as widespread as outsourced accounting or IT services. It is just a matter of time.

SearchInform offers a free trial version for one month!

During this month, clients can assess whether the service really meets their needs. According to our experience, 100% of companies discover some kind of problems during the trial, ranging from the idleness of their employees to corporate fraud and confidential data leakage. 70% of companies that request a free trial continue to work with us.

Request a free trial of the service for one month!

Contact us for more information:
Email: uae@searchinform.com
Office Address: 10C-15, I-Rise Tower, Hessa Street, Barsha Heights, Dubai, UAE.

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