NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH CYBER ATTACK AND HACK
When we talk about hacking we think about a variety of activities, from the lone, disruptive back- room coder, to the determined and resource-laden gurus of cyberspace who can apparently enter our systems at will and remove whatever data they want – maybe government funded but definitely expert and dangerous. Of course, both of these exist but if security surveys give us any indication of how much these remote threats actually affect our businesses and organisations on a daily basis, it would appear an important part of the threat puzzle is missing.
According to the PwC Global State of Information Security Survey 2015, employees and ex- employees are the “most-cited culprits of cybercrime” in fact the research shows that all ‘Insiders’ including contractors, suppliers and customers, have grown their threat profile to businesses vs. the previous survey. These insiders will have their own login credentials or access to other people’s and whilst they won’t all be nefarious in intent, some may simply be inept, they are a growing threat to security in a way the perceived super-hacker isn’t for most businesses. A good example of how this works in practice would be the Aviva Revenge story. This was an ex-employee of a contractor who caused chaos, reputational and serious commercial harm as well as considerable inconvenience to both Aviva, his ex-employers and his ex-colleagues through his vengeful behaviour that utilised unmonitored login credentials, which he had created specifically to victimise the business and his former co-
22 | TOMORROW’S FM
workers. This is a far greater threat than a perceived ‘super-hacker’.
Nearly a third of breaches involved some kind of Social aspect, this could be coercion of an existing employee, a phishing campaign or simply walking into a building and charming a staff member such as a receptionist, on a regular basis to get information on staff comings and goings etc. It could also involve surveillance of a business over an extended period, including staff, visitors and contractors, or installation of a key-logger to steal login information from legitimate users.
“NEARLY A THIRD OF BREACHES INVOLVED COERCION OF AN
EXISTING EMPLOYEE, A PHISHING CAMPAIGN OR SIMPLY WALKING
INTO A BUILDING AND CHARMING A STAFF MEMBER.”
So the actual ‘cyber-attack’ is quite an extensive way down the line in this kind of breach. It could have been in planning for months. On one hand this is worrying because our language has encouraged us to focus our attention on only one part of the process. It enables the already prevalent, ‘IT deals with security’ mind-set. But in enabling this narrowed view, we are creating a vulnerability and lost the opportunities to prevent the attack expanding and completing.
twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
– IS OUR PERCEPTION AND USE OF LANGUAGE CREATING SECURITY VULNERABILITIES?
Hacking and Cyber-attacks have hardly been off our media front pages for a long time. But are businesses and organisations misleading themselves by referring to these incidents as ‘hacks’ or as ‘cyber attacks’? Are businesses actually limiting their thinking and thereby creating vulnerabilities by mislabelling these important events? Advent IM discuss whether this is the case.
A comprehensive training program of Security Awareness blended into all roles and actively refreshed, is one resilience technique. Simple things for staff like recognising phishing emails and being trained in the appropriate response, or management having a rigorous credential policy for quality of passwords and removal of ex- employee logins, is a good start.
So use of language has ruled out these elements being considered by all staff members, they hear the words ‘cyber’ and ‘hack’ and think it is IT’s responsibility and then carry on as normal. There are many points at which the hack may have been prevented by basic security hygiene.
It underlines to us that threat to our businesses and infrastructure are holistic and so should the response to that threat be. Yes, there is a threat from the faceless hacker and the determined and well-funded professional. But many businesses and organisations are facing a people-based threat first. An old vulnerability being enabled in a new way – language.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66
