And yearly greets the ransomware...

And yearly greets the ransomware...

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Ransomware, supply chain attacks and cyber security for companies of all sizes: Which IT security trends and security issues should CISOs and security managers have on their radar for 2022 and beyond? dr Sebastian Schmerl, Director Security Services EMEA, Security Operations at Arctic Wolf, gives an outlook.

Ransomware attacks are extremely lucrative. That is why cyber criminals are constantly developing new and sophisticated attack techniques in order to make a profit and blackmail companies through encryption or data theft. Ransomware attacks have evolved from just encrypting data and extorting businesses to attacks on the entire supply chain. In addition, the attackers are now threatening to publish the data, which means a significant loss of image and trust for the companies affected. The attackers even proactively inform customers of the compromised company about the data leak in order to further increase the pressure to pay.

Ransomware continues Topic #1

We know from the past few years that ransomware is here to stay and that it's better to be safe than sorry (and much cheaper, too). Companies should therefore also focus on measures to prevent ransomware attacks in 2022: comprehensive asset management, identifying and patching vulnerabilities, continuous training of employees on the subject of phishing and comprehensive security monitoring in order to react quickly and stop attacks.

The supply chain is the security risk

In the future, companies and organizations should no longer focus primarily on what to do after an attack, but on how to predict and protect the first line of attack. With the help of data science, possible scenarios can be modeled and potential weaknesses in the supply chain and your own infrastructure can be identified. Currently, however, the users of the supply chain are often not seen as part of their own security and are therefore not mistakenly perceived as a security risk.

Supply chains consist of many participants

Since the business risk of a company is a result of all - including transitive - risks that also include the supply chain, the service providers and the logistics chain, companies should keep an eye on the cyber security equipment of the supply chain. A check of IT security should therefore become an issue at the latest when concluding a contract with suppliers or service providers. This includes the assessment of risks in the coupling of IT systems, in data exchange and in the user awareness of the new partner. The issue of IT security when selecting partners in the supply chain will become more important. Potential suppliers or service providers without adequate cyber protection run the risk of disqualifying themselves in the market.

Democratize cyber security

Cyber ​​criminals no longer only target large companies and corporations. Small and medium-sized businesses have proven equally lucrative to attack. Nevertheless, larger companies in particular are currently ahead in terms of cyber security. They have the necessary resources and experts that smaller companies often cannot afford due to the shortage of skilled workers. In view of the ongoing digitization, cyber protection must be accessible and affordable for companies of all sizes. IT security is a necessity and not a luxury reserved for large corporations. Accordingly, more and more SMEs will use managed detection and response services. It can be assumed that in two years at the latest, MDR services such as those from Arctic Wolf will have established themselves as standard protection, just like anti-virus programs for PCs years ago.

Technologies to protect against industrial espionage are becoming more important

Germany is full of so-called "hidden champions", i.e. companies that are among the market leaders in their sectors but are hardly known to the public. They are owner-managed and at the same time highly innovative in their respective areas. However, this innovative lead can be quickly eaten up by insufficient cyber protection - keyword data theft. In order to secure the position of these companies as market leaders, solutions to protect against industrial espionage are essential. Otherwise, the innovation and leadership know-how that you have laboriously acquired will quickly be used by other competitors.

Multi-factor authentication is becoming the standard, attackers are using new attack vectors

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is becoming more common for user authentication and access control, replacing less secure options like simple passwords. However, the further spread of MFA also means that attackers will turn to new attack vectors, such as API interfaces or authentication tokens. Phishing with API permission requests and authentication token leakage are emerging attack patterns that organizations need to protect against.

More at ArcticWolf.com

 


About Arctic Wolf

Arctic Wolf is a global leader in security operations, providing the first cloud-native security operations platform to mitigate cyber risk. Based on threat telemetry spanning endpoint, network and cloud sources, the Arctic Wolf® Security Operations Cloud analyzes more than 1,6 trillion security events per week worldwide. It provides company-critical insights into almost all security use cases and optimizes customers' heterogeneous security solutions. The Arctic Wolf platform is used by more than 2.000 customers worldwide. It provides automated threat detection and response, enabling organizations of all sizes to set up world-class security operations at the push of a button.


 

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