Mitigating Data breach threats in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector has emerged as a major priority in the past few years. This infographic lists the kinds of data breach threats that prevail in BFSI and how these can be mitigated through Database Integrity, System Security and Digital Transformation.

The post Migrating Data Breach Threats in BFSI Sector first appeared on TestingXperts.

Today’s businesses are trying to cope with the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, while a wave of cyberattacks continues to pose a challenge for businesses. These cyber-threats significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as employees worked from home. Due to this new work culture, many vulnerabilities surfaced online that weakened the security of systems, networks, and data, across organizations worldwide.

Apart from the remote working culture, other reasons for the sudden increase in cyberattacks include weak passwords, public internet usage, unprotected systems/networks, and downloads from unknown sources, etc. Some of the most common attacks include Phishing, Ransomware, Password Attack, Cross-site Scripting, SQL Injection, Malware, DOS, Zero-day Exploit, etc. Eventually, today, it has become essential for all businesses to protect their critical apps, systems, data, and networks from cyber threats by adopting cyber security measures.

An overview of cyber security

Cyber security, also known as information technology security, protects computers, networks, servers, applications/software, data, and more from cyberattacks. Its main aim is to combat cyber threats and protect businesses from any form of vulnerability. Cyber security is categorized into five types: critical Infrastructure Security, Application Security, Network Security, Cloud Security, and Internet of Things (IoT) Security.

Significant cyberattacks during 2021-2022

According to The Stack, on 04^th Feb 2022, The UK Foreign Office was hacked in a major cybersecurity incident, forcing it to parachute into additional support with “extreme urgency” from its cybersecurity contractor BAE Systems Applied Intelligence. The UK government only revealed the existence of the “serious cyber security incident” affecting the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) through a public tender announcement.

According to AP News, a series of cyberattacks on 15^th Feb 2022 knocked the websites of the Ukrainian army, the defense ministry, and major banks offline. In such attacks, websites are barraged with a flood of junk data packets, rendering them unreachable. As per the report, at least 10 Ukrainian websites were unreachable due to the attacks, including the defense, foreign, and culture ministries and Ukraine’s two largest state banks.

Forbes, in one of their article on ‘More alarming cybersecurity stats for 2021,’ states that Americans seem to be wakening up to the need for better cybersecurity. A poll by The Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that “about 9 in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned about hacking that involves their personal information, financial institutions, government agencies or certain

According to a report published by IBM, titled ‘Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021,’ the year 2021 saw the highest average cost of a data breach in 17 years, with the cost rising from USD 3.86 million to USD 4.24 million on an annual basis.

The rising frequency of cyberattacks and the higher number of compromised networks, apps, records, etc., indicate the severeness of risk posed by cyberattacks worldwide. Today, it has become essential for all businesses to adopt cyber security measures to keep them free from threats and vulnerabilities.

Why do businesses need to adopt cyber security measures?

Protects from cyberattacks:

The rapidly rising cases of cyberattacks have necessitated the adoption of robust cyber security measures. For businesses to protect their critical apps, systems, networks, and data from cyberattacks, the adoption of stringent cyber security measures is essential.

Protects brand reputation:

Cyber attacks pose a significant risk to the sensitive information of businesses and their customers. Any data leak can cause damage to their brand reputation. Therefore, businesses need to adopt effective cyber security practices.

Improves customer trust:

Businesses need to protect customer data from cyber threats, as any loss of customer data can affect customer trust. Therefore, businesses need to adopt cyber security measures to improve customer trust.

Protects business bottom line:

Cyberattacks, especially ransomware, can cause great monetary loss to businesses. Hence, businesses need to protect themselves from ransomware and other cyberattacks to protect their business bottom line.

How can businesses protect themselves from cyberattacks?

There are various cyber security measures that businesses can adopt and leverage to ensure their apps, systems, infrastructure, and networks are free from threats and vulnerabilities. Some of them include:

Data encryption:

Businesses should ensure end-to-end data encryption of sensitive and critical data. Data encryption converts the data into a secret code and reduces the risk of cyber threats, data destruction, or data tampering.

Data backup:

Businesses need to keep their data backup to ensure easy recovery if the data gets lost due to a cyberattack.

Multi-factor Authentication (MFA):

MFA is a great way to protect businesses from any cyberattacks. MFA is a security verification process that requires the user to provide two or more additional proofs of identity to access the account. This way, MFA adds a layer of security and safeguards businesses from cyber threats.

Employee awareness:

Businesses should create awareness among their employees about cyber security policies and employ the best practices to keep their businesses safe from cyberattacks. Businesses should make their employees aware of the importance of strong passwords, secure downloads, anti-virus, etc.

Outsource security testing:

Outsourcing is when a company hires a third party to handle operations or provide services. Thus, businesses can outsource the security testing of apps, systems, and networks to an able outsourcing partner to get an unbiased opinion on the cyber security readiness of their business.

What is the need for outsourcing cyber security testing in 2022?

Rampant cyber attacks have increased the need for security testing of business-critical apps, networks, data, and more. This testing method involves an in-depth analysis of the business’ IT infrastructure from an attacker’s perspective to ensure no security loophole is left behind. Typically, it is beneficial for businesses to outsource their cyber security testing to an able security and vulnerability testing services provider, which ensures many benefits of saving time, costs, and more. Also, for businesses, maintaining a team of security QA experts and paying licenses for various security test automation tools involves some costs.

Some of the major benefits of outsourcing your cyber security testing include:

Threat detection and incident response time improvement:

One of the major benefits of outsourcing is the quick incident response time or turnaround time. With outsourcing, the services are available on time and much faster than in-house teams.

Skilled professional services:

Outsourcing security testing allows businesses to test their software with highly-skilled resources. The organizations that offer outsourcing services have skilled and certified experts that can help businesses improve their cyber security readiness.

Automated cyber security testing:

For in-house teams, it is challenging to source and keep a wide range of tools in-house. However, outsourcing partners have access to various tools and frameworks that they leverage to automate software testing.

Security compliance and regulations:

There are various types of compliances and regulations, such as HIPPA, GDPR, SOC, etc., that businesses should follow. Businesses can get their security compliance and regulations checked by outsourcing cyber security testing.

Need effective security teams:

Vulnerability testing is a complex and continuous task that keeps getting more difficult as the application grows. Usually, organizations have a limited workforce available who are involved in various activities. Therefore, it is better to outsource cyber security testing to security testing service providers with in-house security testing experts.

Unbiased services:

Reliable outsourcing partner provides unbiased opinions about the security readiness of a business. This helps business decision-makers make correct and unbiased decisions.

Customized services:

As the application grows, software testing becomes complex. Also, applications need to be tested more frequently and thoroughly during peak load days. With outsourcing, businesses can get customized services as per their needs.

24x7x365 monitoring:

With outsourcing, businesses can achieve 24/7 monitoring of their applications and faster response to their needs. It becomes easy to get seamless support from the outsourcing company.

Access to advanced technology:

A reliable outsourcing partner stays updated with the latest technological stacks, such as AI, ML, IoT, RPA, etc. By outsourcing cyber security testing, businesses can get their software thoroughly tested with the help of advanced technologies.

Cost-effective:

For a business, in-house hiring resources, upskilling them, and buying tools could be a costly affair. However, with outsourcing, businesses get skilled resources, advanced tools, customized services, and more at a much lower cost.

How to choose your outsourcing partner for cyber security testing?

Reputation in the market:

The outsourcing partner’s credibility and importance matter a lot. Before offering the project to the partner, the background, history, and market reputation should be checked.

Years of expertise:

Before choosing an outsourcing partner, it is essential to look at the experience level of the partner, years of service in the industry, clients served, client-communication procedures used by the partner, etc.

Automation capabilities:

Automation testing has become the need of an hour. Thus, before outsourcing security testing, ensure that the partner has relevant automation testing capabilities.

Service flexibility:

Every business has different security testing needs. An outsourcing partner should be flexible enough to cater to varying types of testing needs as per the requirement of the business.

Engagement models:

For businesses to choose a reliable outsourcing partner, it is essential to look at the engagement models, like project-based, managed, staffing/time & material, etc.,

Thought leadership:

Outsourcing partner’s proficiency and subject matter expertise should be checked before hiring. The thought leadership of the outsourcing partner is all that matters and should be looked upon before hiring them for the projects.

Authentic partners:

The authenticity of the outsourcing partner should be validated before hiring them for the software testing project. Customer references can be checked to validate their authenticity.

Budget-friendly:

The outsourcing partner should be budget-friendly and must fit into the budgetary limits of a business.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, cyberattacks have been on the rampage and pose a great risk to business apps, data, systems, and networks and are at risk of losing customer trust and the organization’s reputation. Today’s businesses should ensure robust cyber security readiness by leveraging end-to-end security testing. Businesses should outsource security testing to the best outsourcing partner to protect their businesses from cyberattacks and ensure vulnerability-free. Outsourcing cyber security testing can help businesses achieve faster incident response time, save high costs, and overcome cyber threats and vulnerabilities.

How can TestingXperts help?

TestingXperts (Tx), is next gen specialist QA & software testing company, has been helping clients with a range of security testing needs. Our team of Certified Ethical Hackers (CEHs) ensures that your application is secure from vulnerabilities and meets the stated security requirements, such as confidentiality, authorization, authentication, availability, and integrity. Teams have more than ten years of expertise in assessing a wide range of applications for security threats and ensuring rigorous application testing for all possible threats and vulnerabilities.

Our Differentiators:

• A large pool of Certified Ethical Hackers (CEHs) with years of expertise in delivering security testing services to clients across domains

• Flexible engagement models best suited to customer’s business need

• In-house security testing accelerator Tx-Secure makes the security testing process quick seamless and helps you achieve significant results

• Secure and well-equipped in-house security testing labs help perform effective security testing of all applications, including Blockchain, IoT, network infrastructure, etc.

• Security testing services have conformance with International standards, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, OSSTMM, OWASP, and others,

• Deliver detailed test reports to stakeholders to make informed decisions

• Ensure 24x7x365 seamless customer support

The post What is the Need for Outsourcing Cyber Security Testing In 2022? first appeared on TestingXperts.

The year 2020 was full of challenges with rapid lockdowns in different countries across the globe and this year 2021 also seems to be no better than the last year. Typically, when the world began coping up with the COVID-19 pandemic blues, a wave of cyber-attacks continues to shake the world of businesses across domains.

Content1. Latest cyber-attacks across industries during 2020-2021 2. Various dominant types of cyber-attacks in recent times 3. The emerging need for different types of security testing 4. Why today’s CXOs should leverage security testing? 5. How we can help with your security testing assessments? 6. Benefits of VAPT

Earlier this month, on April 04, 2021, 533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online according to ‘Business Insider’ report!

These cyber-attacks pose a great risk to the identity and security of data of not only the general public but also the government and other institutions, and the cost of breaches has been consistently rising in recent years. This has also raised the dominance of new cyber vulnerabilities that emerged from shifting to a remote workforce with more IT employees shifting towards ‘WFH.’

This new work culture has truly expanded the cyber-attack surface and added many vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit from home offices too. Some of the other major reasons for these continued cyber-attacks are remote working, extensive cloud breaches, pandemic-related phishing, ransomware attacks, social engineering attacks along with more cyber threats on Internet-of-things (IoT), etc.

Today, invariably, board members, directors, and CXOs continue to review their organization’s risk practices to include network breaches and failures in their business continuity planning to safeguard from possible cyber risks and other similar incidents to stakeholders.

There had been nearly 445 million attacks detected since the beginning of 2020. There have been many types of cyber-attacks in recent times across industries which have been detailed below.

Latest cyber-attacks across industries during 2020-2021

Retail & eCommerce –

According to Economic Times, a group of hackers attacked at least 570 e-commerce stores in 55 countries and leaked information of more than 184,000 stolen credit cards. They generated over $7 million from selling compromised payment cards.

Healthcare –

According to a recent Forbes report, cyber-attacks on US healthcare facilities in the year 2020 affected 17.3 million people, and resulted in 436 data breaches. Cyber-attackers can sell medical records on the dark web for up to $1,000 each.

Telecom –

According to Verizon Mobile Security Index 2021, 40% of respondents faced mobile device-related cyberattacks and 53% said the damage was significant. According to BusinessInsider, it is predicted that there will be more than 41 billion IoT devices by 2027 and the significant rise In cyber-attacks on IoT devices calls for the need for strict cybersecurity measures in the telecom sector.

Banking & Insurance-

According to CSI 2021 Banking Priorities Survey, 34% of the bankers reported that cybersecurity is their major concern. While 84% of the bankers view social engineering as the greatest cybersecurity threat in 2021. As per the responses collected, customer-targeted phishing and employee-targeted phishing are the major concerns prevailing in the banking sector.

IT Industry –

According to BBC News, Amazon said that its online cloud, fended off the largest DDoS attack in history. As per Amazon Web Services (AWS), the February 2020 attack had fired 2.3Tbps.

Hotel Industry

Marriott in 2020 disclosed that a security breach impacted data of more than 5.2 billion hotel guests in one of its more impactful attacks in recent times

Social media –

According to BBC News, Twitter faced a major cyber-attack in which 130 accounts were targeted including the accounts of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and Bill Gates. These accounts were used to tweet a Bitcoin scam to millions of followers by which attackers received hundreds of transfers, worth more than $100,000.

According to Business Insider recent report on April 04, 2021, nearly 533 million Facebook users phone numbers and personal data from 106 countries have been leaked online and security researchers warn that the data could be used by hackers to impersonate people and commit fraud.

Moreover, the Cybercrime magazine in its latest report states that cybercrime would cost the world $10.5 Trillion annually by 2025.

Various dominant types of cyber-attacks in recent times 

Malware:

It is malicious software that is installed by hackers on the victim’s system that damages the computer systems, servers, and networks. There are different types of malware such as worm, virus, Trojan, spyware, rootkit, adware, malvertising, ransomware, etc.

Ransomware:

It is the most common type of cybersecurity attack wherein the attacker encrypts the victim’s file and demands a huge amount of money or ransom to decrypt it. In this attack, the attacker threatens to publish sensitive or confidential data publically on the dark web or blocks access to it until the ransom amount is paid.

Phishing and Spear Phishing:

It is a practice of sending malicious emails that appears to be from genuine sources. These emails also contain attachments that load malware onto the system of the user, by which attackers try to steal the personal information of the users.

Man-in-the-middle attack (MitM):

In this type of cyber-attack, a perpetrator intercepts the communication between the client and server with an aim to either eavesdrop or impersonate someone. The hackers try to steal personal information such as login credentials, account details, credit and debit card details, etc. Some of the main types of MitM attacks are IP spoofing, session hijacking, etc.

IP Spoofing:

The attacker tries to modify the IP address in the packet header to make the receiving computer system think it is from a legitimate or a trusted source. By this method, attackers gain access to computers and mine them for sensitive data. These infected computers are also used for malicious activities and for launching DDoS attacks further.

Session hijacking:

In this attack, the user session is taken over by an attacker. The attackers steal the victim’s session ID by either stealing the session cookie or by making the user click a malicious link containing a prepared session ID. After taking over the session, the attacker does malicious activities such as transfer money, steal the data, encrypt valuable data, and demand ransom to decrypt, etc.

SQL injection:

It is a code injection technique where the attacker injects malicious SQL code into the entry field for execution. This allows the attacker to view data that was not meant to be displayed or retrieved. It is a common issue with database-driven websites and websites that uses dynamic SQL.

Denial of Service attack (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS):

In this type, the attacker disrupts the organization’s servers or networks and floods them with fake or bot users to crash the normal functioning of the system. The most common types of DDoS attacks are TCP SYN flood, teardrop, smurf, ping of death, botnets, etc.

Botnets:

It is a collection of internet-connected devices which are infected by malware. Each infected device is known as a bot and is used to spread more bots. Using this technique, attackers steal credentials and data saved on devices and spread DDoS attacks.

These varied types of cyber-attacks continue to attack many businesses today and there is an exigency for ‘CYBER-SECURITY’ measures and especially ‘CYBER-SECURITY TESTING’ that should be leveraged by today’s businesses.

The emerging need for different types of security testing 

The variety of cyber-attacks are growing tremendously and intruders have found new and smart ways of spreading malicious viruses and hacking systems to steal important and confidential enterprise and customer data. Cybercriminals have a variety of ways by which they can hack systems and gain unauthorized access to business-critical apps, networks, and servers. These rampant cyber-attacks can affect organizations in many ways such as loss of brand image and reputation, loss of customer trust, and can even result in legal and financial consequences.

There is a critical need for organizations to adopt robust security testing of apps, systems, networks, servers, and cloud infrastructure to prevent cyber-attacks. However, to ensure the safety of business-critical apps, businesses should know the below-mentioned security testing types.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST):

It is a white box testing type where developers find security vulnerabilities in the source code of an application earlier in the software development life cycle. This testing method ensures that the app conforms to coding guidelines and standards.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST):

It is a black-box testing technique that allows testers to find security vulnerabilities and weaknesses in web apps. In this technique, the testers inject malicious data into the software just to mimic SQL injection and XSS attacks to identify common security vulnerabilities.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST):

It is a combination of both the SAST and DAST techniques. In this technique, an IAST agent is placed within an application that performs the analysis of the app in real-time. The IAST agent checks the runtime control and data flow information, configuration information, HTTP requests and responses, libraries, frameworks, and other components.

Other common types of security testing are:

Vulnerability scanning:

In this testing technique, automated software is used to scan vulnerabilities in the system. It examines web apps to identify vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting, SQL injections, command injections, insecure server configuration, etc.

Security audit/review:

It is a cybersecurity practice that should be performed regularly. It helps organizations to assess the current security level of their system by detecting vulnerabilities and security loopholes. It can either be performed manually or can also be automated. Depending on the types of risks identified during the auditing, proper solutions are provided to the organizations.

Ethical hacking:

In this testing technique, a certified ethical hacker intrudes the organization’s system with legal and authorized permission to detect vulnerabilities in the system before a cyber-attacker finds and exploits it.

Penetration testing:

In this security testing method, the testers try to mimic the real cyber-attacks to find the vulnerabilities in the system. The two most common types of penetration testing are app penetration testing which revolves around finding technical defects in the software, and the other is infrastructure penetration testing in which testers examine the servers, firewalls, and other hardware.

Red Teaming:

It is a broader aspect of penetration testing where the internal or external team of security experts simulate real-time attacks on the organization. The security experts assess the environment without any prior knowledge. The specific evaluation is based on combining various security controls of the organization. The asset can be digital or physical based on the scope and the job of the security experts is to perform attacks, avoid detection, and provide sensitive data as proof.

Security scanning:

This security testing process involves identifying vulnerabilities in the app, software, system, networks. Both manual and automated security testing methods are used to perform this testing method. The insights obtained from these tests are duly used to provide solutions to fix issues.

Why today’s CXOs should leverage security testing?

Businesses across industry domains continue to face rampant cyber attacks and it has today cyber-security has essentially become a boardroom discussion. These cyber-threats have grown so large that their consequences significantly influence their valuation largely. Hence, network security and data privacy are today well know boardroom governance concerns. Hence, boards, directors, stakeholders and CXOs should have a greater vision and devote more attention to evaluate these risks and ensure to leverage security testing to safeguard from threats and vulnerabilities.

Today’s digital and connected world is more susceptible to the rampant cyber-attacks that continue to invade the businesses of their data and networks. Hence, to identify these vulnerabilities and safeguard systems and networks, different types of vulnerability assessments should be taken up. These assessments involve automatic scanning of the network infrastructure to have a complete overview of the system to known vulnerabilities, if any.

In addition, with the help of automatic scans, a series of checks are carried out on every system/application to understand their configuration in detail and detect any vulnerability. Moreover, penetration tests should also be carried out using different attack scenarios and combining manual techniques with automated tools to protect systems and data from any possible threats and vulnerabilities.

Therefore, today’s CXOs need to establish the appropriate cybersecurity measures in their respective organizations in the digital world to safeguard from any possible threats and vulnerabilities of their data, systems, networks, infrastructure, etc. CXOs should leverage security testing to get many benefits some of which have been given below.

Helps reveal real vulnerabilities:

It proactively helps businesses to identify, and fix vulnerabilities in their software, apps, networks, and servers. CXOs should take up security testing to ensure their organizations continue to deliver high-quality and secure services to their customers.

Ensures compliance to standards like PCI DSS, HIPPA:

There are certain legal standards that every organization is expected to follow. To ensure that the organization is complying with all the required standards, CXOs should leverage security testing. Failure in abiding by this legal standard can result in huge penalties to the organization.

Smoothens business continuity:

Every CXO wants their business to run seamlessly 24/7 which can be achieved with security testing. Regular security checks help businesses to eliminate situations of unexpected downtime or loss of accessibility which ultimately results in business continuity issues at times

Ensures security of IT systems, apps, networks & data:

As per a report by Hosting Tribunal, there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds. This clearly shows an alarming situation and CXOs need to protect their IT systems, business-critical apps, enterprise, and customer data from these rapidly increasing cyber-attacks and this is where security testing plays its role.

Helps to run a secure business during WFH:

Due to the current pandemic, employees continue to work from home and organizations require their employees to access the company’s data from a variety of devices, and through various networks including public WiFi and Hotspots. This has led to a rise in cybercrimes. As per a report published by The Hill’, US FBI reported that there has been a 400% rise in cybercrimes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. CXOs must ensure end-to-end security testing and should take strict cyber-security measures to normalize WHF and safeguard their businesses.

Ensures security of cloud solutions:

In the current era, cloud solutions have become a part of almost all organizations as they have started moving their IT systems to the cloud and therefore, cloud security has become the need of an hour. Though cloud architecture is much flexible than on-premise architecture as it allows running virtual machines and can store a huge amount of data. But still, the cloud continues to be more vulnerable to attacks. As per McAfee, there has been a 630% increase in external attacks on cloud-based services. Therefore, the security testing of cloud solutions is another aspect that CXOs should consider.

Keeps up brand image and reputation intact:

Even a single cyber-attack or data breach can negatively affect the image of an organization. According to Business Wire, 81% of consumers would stop engaging with a brand online after a data breach. This can adversely affect the brand image and revenue also. Therefore, every CXO should start investing in security testing methods to protect customer’s data and to preserve their brand image.

Increases security IQ of employees with policies in place:

Ensuring the security of data and systems is not the sole responsibility of IT teams. Rather it is the responsibility of every employee irrespective of their roles and this extends to CXOs as well. CXOs should align with subject matter experts to understand the requirements of security testing in their organization. CXOs can foster a culture of cyber-security in the organization by adopting stringent cyber-security policies

Ensures business with a proper cyber-defence plan:

According to FireEye, 51% of the organizations do not have a proper cyber-defence plan. Hence, CXOs need to look at their organization’s cyber-defence capabilities and should take up end-to-end security testing along with formulating stringent security policies.

How we can help with your security testing assessments?

TestingXperts security testing teams have rich expertise in security testing and caters to diversified business needs. With a team of Certified Ethical Hackers (CEH), we help businesses to ensure that their application, networks, and servers are secure from all possible vulnerabilities and meets the stated security requirements like confidentiality, authorization, authentication, availability, and integrity. We primarily follow the OWASP (Open Web Security Project) guidelines in our security testing services along with PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, WAHH, OSSTM, WASC, and NIST Standards as per the application-specific requirements.

TestingXperts (Tx) enables a comprehensive vulnerability security testing approach that involves effective planning & execution along with collective risk assessment performed against multilayers of applications that includes the network, the hardware, and the software. This methodology helps to reduce re-work and ensures shorter time-to-market and cost-effectiveness. It also helps to save time and resources and protects brand reputation.

The actual process consists of security principles that have a specific set of test scenarios, which will be mapped to required regulatory compliances. Specifically, vulnerability testing involves deep investigation of the application to determine whether current patches are applied, whether it is configured in a manner that makes attacks more difficult, and whether the application exposes any information that an attacker could use to gain entry against other systems in the environment. Our security testing teams are well equipped with many latest security testing techniques.

Benefits of VAPT

– Vulnerability assessment helps to find security gaps if any in your web and mobile applications along with your networking infrastructure

– Validates the effectiveness of the existing security safeguards

– Helps to detect any security weaknesses even before cyber-attackers do

– Validates the effectiveness of security and system upgrades

– Helps to achieve and maintain compliance with all international and federal regulations

– Ensures to protect the integrity of assets in case of existing malicious code hidden in any of them

Talk to our security testing experts. We can help

The post Why Cyber Security has become a Boardroom Discussion first appeared on TestingXperts.

Content 1. Major Security Threats on IT Security During Pandemic 2. How Should CISOs Safeguard their Businesses with Security Testing? 2.1 Proper Monitoring of Endpoints 2.2 Identify Threats & Vulnerabilities with Security Testing 2.3 Incorporate Secure Video Conferencing 2.4 Intelligent Identify and Access Management 2.5 Increased Bandwidth Allocation 2.6 Ensure Proper Configuration of Personal Devices 2.7 Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Bypass 2.8 Split Versus Full Tunnel VPN Visibility 3.Conclusion

Undoubtedly, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a massive crisis for mankind and made us all reconsider our perception of this new world. This COVID-19 has led to an unexpected change in human life with a series of lockdowns and social distancing norms. Along with these new norms, especially the IT world has been dragged into the adoption of the new normal – ‘WFH.’

The pandemic has forced masses to work remotely and this new alignment of work adjustment has expanded the security threat landscape. As employees try to adjust to the WFH, still it underlies many security risks and mandates the IT team’s support that is much needed to make this WFH process a success.

Moreover, along with WFH normal, VPN, remote connections, multi-factor authentication, and video conferencing tools have become an integral part of this newly formed work culture. The World Economic Forum stated that the world is entering a volatile and unstable new phase. Scientists are increasingly confident that the COVID-19 pandemic threat will persist, possibly for years.

Another recent survey of 100 CIOs in North America conducted by Hitachi ID and social research firm Pulse state that, 95% of the respondents admitted that their IT teams have been bogged down by remote working efficiencies during the COVID-19 crisis. Among the challenges, employee password lockouts were the top issue cited by 71% of those surveyed. Specifically, IT support is being hit with more requests for sign-in assistance on the part of employees.

Evidently, today companies grapple with the pandemic situation as they continue to face security threats by hackers and other cyber attackers during this current situation. Organizations are unable to balance their business as usual processes.

Major Security Threats on IT Security During Pandemic

Phishing Attack:

This is a common cybercrime seen everywhere today, in which a fraudulent attempt is made through emails to steal an employee’s personal information. These emails appear to come from well-known organizations and other links wherein people fall prey to them and will lose their security access details as they tend to open these emails.

According to a Cyber Defence Centre (CDC) report, employees are the new perimeter for security. Attackers too have not been left untouched by the pandemic and we’ve seen a sharp rise in Phishing scams in the last few months. From our CDC, our team has observed that attacks which were Covid-19 themed (including phishing and brute force) rose as much as 100%.

In another survey by cyber security firm Check Point, it has been stated that “Phishing attempts (55 percent) and websites claiming helpful information on coronavirus (32 percent) have emerged as the leading threats to the organizations, the respondents said.

In phishing attacks, a bad actor steals sensitive information by tricking people to open an email, instant message, or text message containing malicious links or attachments.” The findings showed that the rapid changes to enterprise working practices, and broader concerns about the pandemic, are both being exploited by cybercriminals as they step up their attacks, generating a raft of new challenges for security professionals.

Ransomware Attack:

This is a type of malicious attack by cybercriminals observed, as they block the user from accessing their data. This attack process consists of encrypting the files in their systems and deliberately adds extensions to the attacked data and holds the user as a hostage and demands a ransom to be paid. Interestingly, most ransomware gangs demand payment in bitcoins, the most high-profile cryptocurrency, although some began shifting their demands to other currencies as bitcoin’s popularity made its value more unpredictable.

According to a report by Cybersecurity Ventures, it has been stated that over the years, ransomware has grown from curiosity and an annoyance to a major crisis deeply twisted together with top-secret spy agencies. Ransomware cyberattacks are big business, so big in fact, that research anticipates a business is attacked by a cybercriminal every 11 seconds and damage costs from these attacks will hit around $20 billion by 2021.

Port Number & Network Footprint Attack:

Keeping in mind the remote work concept, many cyber attackers are actively looking to make changes in port numbers and thus attack their web traffic.

According to a Tech Target report, hackers are watching for changes in network footprints and exploring how they can exploit security gaps. Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) need to be aware that any change on the networks should be essentially watched as they occur.

There are certain instances of VPN attacks seen during these days, as attackers closely see that a new VPN connection has been established and thus, try to find credentials of that particular organization on the dark web and try to attack it.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RPD) Attack:

As employees continue to work remotely, there is an increase in the number of systems with open RDP that can be potentially targeted. This RDP provides network access for a remote user over an encrypted channel.

The IT teams and network administrators use RDP to diagnose network issues, essentially use it for logging into servers, and also perform other remote actions. Specifically, cyber attackers use misconfigured RDP points to gain access to various networks.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack:

Downtime from these DDoS attacks is also reported by many organizations and is detrimental when seen with a large remote workforce. At times, there might be an unintentional DDoS attack when numerous users try to access the services at the same time.

Cyber-attack on Business Applications & Digital Solutions:

Today’s cyber-attacks have been ever-increasing and any sort of security breach adversely affects either applications or networks. These cyber-attacks might lead to the loss of customer data followed by loss of brand loyalty and sometimes might also lead to legal complications.

How Should CISOs Safeguard their Businesses with Security Testing?

Proper Monitoring of Endpoints:

With the new normal of WFH, employees should be made to assess, manage, and monitor their network endpoints to build trust in their systems. Employees should leverage Zero Trust Architecture to address the lateral threat network movement within a network by using micro-segmentation and granular perimeters enforcement.

Identify Threats & Vulnerabilities with Security Testing:

Organizations should embrace end-to-end security testing and application security testing leveraging security testing companies to protect their websites, apps and digital applications from phishing and ransomware attacks. Organizations should proactively detect vulnerabilities within the network to understand internet exposure and get to know the probable susceptibility to phishing attacks.

Incorporate Secure Video Conferencing:

Video conferences have become the new means of communication for remote employees working globally. It is important to use private and password protected meeting links to ensure security. New meeting Id’s and passwords should be generated to use a fresh with each session of the meeting in order to protect their sessions.

Intelligent Identify and Access Management:

It is essential for organizations to manage identities on the go when there is a complex ecosystem of stakeholders operating globally. Effective, comprehensive and automated identity management solutions ensure that only the right people have the necessary access to critical or confidential data, computers, networks, and other resources.

Increased Bandwidth Allocation:

In order to handle DDoS attacks, organizations should have increased bandwidth allocations ready, and it is important to temporarily disable unused services to allow more bandwidth. Employees should be discouraged from using live streaming services through a VPN.

Ensure Proper Configuration of Personal Devices:

It is essential that all employees have been set up with new VPNs or virtual desktops. They should ensure proper anti-virus to be installed in their systems even within their personal devices. When an employee downloads a VPN on to their laptop that has already been compromised with some malicious attack then they could easily spread the malware into the organization’s corporate network and hence care should be taken.

Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Bypass:

Organizations should implement MFA to reduce credential spraying attacks. Employees should be trained to identify and report unauthorized push notifications. It is essential for organizations to evaluate the risk tolerance even before taking up the MFA implementation methods.

Split Versus Full Tunnel VPN Visibility:

In case there are numerous remote workers available, then it is preferred for organizations to move from a full tunnel VPN configuration towards Split Tunneling. Full tunnelling VPN helps to see that all traffic traverses the VPN allowing web proxies to filter traffic and security teams will be able to identify unauthorized activity if any. While Split tunnelling may reduce this visibility unless proper endpoint agents are installed to ensure proper control.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has invaded the mankind in different ways and enforced social distancing and made a mandate of new normal of WFH for all IT employees. This sort of new normal has led way to some security compromise and made it easy for hackers to attack employee systems and also IT networks.

Hence, in order to protect your business and the new normal of WFH, it is essential to leverage security testing services to ensure proper protection from threats and vulnerabilities. In addition, businesses should also follow password protection, Split or Full tunnel VPN and other methods of security measures to make sure remote workforce is secure and protected from any sort of vulnerabilities either at the system-level or at the network-level.

Talk to our Security testing experts and understand how we can help your business avoid such cyber threats

The post IT Security Measures CISOs Must Take During and Post Pandemic first appeared on TestingXperts.