Supply Chain Security Attacks
The biggest victims of some of the most high-profile cyber-attacks that have occurred in the last decade have been supply chains with more and more hackers specifically targeting them. One of the biggest supply chain cyber-attacks in 2021 was suffered by software company Codecov. This attack left hundreds of clients compromised with Codecov serving illustrious organizations such as Google IBM, the Washington Post and HP. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), supply chain attacks rose by 42% in the first quarter of 2021 in the United States, affecting approximately seven million people. These attacks are seen as effective as they can cause businesses significant levels of disruption.
Because of this, we can expect these attacks to grow in frequency. Cybercriminals will understand that these supply chain attacks are a powerful method to cause major disruption, and once inside the organizations’ software, the most difficult part of the hacking is already navigated. As a result, criminals will continue promoting these attacks.
Create an Effective Incident Response Plan
It is always important to have a plan, whatever the situation is. An incident response plan is a documented, written plan with six key phases that helps IT professionals and staff recognize and deal with a cybersecurity incident like a cyber attack or data breach. The six phases are: preparation, identification, containment, eradication, recovery and lessons learned. Going through each of these steps are essential and will always help you prepare and act correctly if another attack or breach occurs.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication is crucial, as it makes breach and stealing your information difficult for the average criminal. The less enticing your data, the more chance that thieves will look elsewhere for potential targets. A large number of organizations have adopted MFA, given the realities of today’s security landscape and regulations.
Risk reduction is critical for organizations, which is why MFA is significantly growing. In a world where credential harvesting is a constant threat and over 80 percent of hacking-related breaches are caused by stolen or weak passwords, this kind of solidified authentication solution is necessary. MFA essentially adds another layer of protection from the kinds of damaging attacks that cost organizations significantly.
Importance of Backups
Backing up important data is one of the safest procedures to ensure that you lose none of that data. If you become victim of a cyber-attack, you can have a sense of relief knowing that the information taken has already been isolated elsewhere.
According to the University of North Georgia, there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds and so due to this frequency, nowadays it is more important than ever to take the initiative and safeguard sensitive business information. There are a number of different backup programs that support data protection sources, from corporate servers to personal computers. There is the option of storing data within an external hard drive, but an increasing number of businesses are using cloud backups. In any case, it’s important to have isolated backups which are not prone to external attack.
Plan Ahead
In the future, cybersecurity is going to remain as important as it today, if not more so. As technology continues to advance and we depend more on digital products, then the threat of cybercrime will grow. Businesses will need to educate themselves more on the severity of this threat as well as prepare and construct the right amount of protection needed for their companies so that they do not risk suffering from any breaches.
Fortunately, there are various ways businesses can protect their systems through cybersecurity in 2022. Strong protections like firewalls, anti-virus software and intrusion detection systems are available plus providing professional training to employees will also help. But whatever stage your business is at, whether you are a large company, or a relatively small one, it is important to keep in mind that cybercrime is prevalent and doesn’t discriminate.
SEE ALSO: Stopping Cyberattacks on Your Business