Post By: Artisom Balabanau, CIO, Andersen Lab
Over the past year, the number of cyber attacks has grown by 600%. Given the fact that the growth of hacker intrusions used to be 67% over five years, the level of threat seems more apparent.
This trend is continuing in 2021 – just recall the attack on the French insurance giant AXA, the data breach at the coronavirus testing facility Corona, or the hacking of 500,000 LinkedIn profiles. Even the coronavirus vaccine supply chain and critical infrastructure have been targeted by cyber criminals.
There were several major attacks in May and June. Due to the hack of JBS, one of the world’s leading meat suppliers, enterprises in Australia, the USA, and Canada were temporarily suspended. The incident affected thousands of their workers, and the shortage of meat could result in higher prices for consumers.
An attack on one of the largest fuel pipelines in the USA cut the supply of fuel to the east coast almost in half.
As organizations increasingly rely on connected devices, and many of them have their IT infrastructures in the cloud, how can they ensure their cyber security?
Cyber security specialists offer four solutions to prevent hacker attacks while preserving corporate systems.
- Hire cyber security experts.
Security requirements are constantly changing. It is vital to have a specialist who will assess risks and implement the latest technologies to prevent threats.
- Test your security systems
Perform artificial attacks on digital twins to reveal vulnerabilities in your system and train it to deal with threats.
- Protect your corporate data.
To avoid corporate data leaks, use a password manager, data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and data backup.
- Train your employees
It has been discovered that 95% of information leaks are caused by human inattention. And each office employee has access to 11 million files on average. That’s why training staff to recognize fraudsters is crucial. Many organizations create free tutorials and videos for this purpose.
For example, Microsoft is planning to release an online game for office employees to learn to recognize threats and know how to respond if a data breach occurs. The UK government has shared a free cyber threat warning tool.
There is a shortage of cyber security specialists in the USA. That’s why businesses increasingly entrust their security to outsourcing companies.