How to protect your network - 6 Key Use Cases For Digital Risk Protection
In blog 1 of this series, I had thrown some light on “Protecting your staff”. And here we will discuss “Protecting your network”. But first, how important is network infrastructure in a business? Well, maybe only 0.001% of you will not be aware of the fact that network infrastructure is the core of every business around. To keep your business intact & operational; employees, suppliers & even third parties have to be conveniently connected to the network, but protection & safety should remain a priority over the network.
When hackers target a particular network, they usually begin with port scanning. Port scanning helps them identify the open & vulnerable ports on your network and then break into the data, infrastructure, and devices. This leads to data risk and a chance that all your resources become available for sale on the Dark Web. If you are still not aware, the PII data leak can cost your company a fine of around $20million or 4% of your global turnover.
The hackers might also opt for the DDOS or DOS attack where they identify the network IP address and drive a huge amount of unwanted traffic to your network servers making them overloaded and inoperable. One such attack is the Zero-Day Attack that can leave any software developer clueless & rushing for rescue.
Man In The Middle Attack (MITM) by the hackers can leave all your intelligence and credentials ineffective. In this case, the hackers are able to bring themselves into a conversation between two parties and mess with the data through a compromised but trusted system, maybe your office WiFi. And the use of third-party applications like VPN can affect your users, data, and devices, putting your entire network at risk.
When you think that the hackers might halt for a bit, then there comes another way of them getting into your network, phishing. The mobile devices connected to your network can be prone to downloading malware, ransomware or spyware which post-installation can grant access & permission for extracting and tampering the private data. Might sound alarming but out of data breaches and cyber-attacks in May 2021, nearly 40% were Ransomware.
How can I forget to mention the website while talking about vulnerability? It indeed is a major point of vulnerability in the network, but regular updates & upgrades on the website will keep the hackers away. Now, I will take you through the different ways a website can be attacked.
Drive-by download attacks - Hackers disturb the code on your website by doing malicious changes to the script which in turn can lead to malware getting downloaded to the user’s system or redirecting them to where the hackers want them to. The entire damage can be used even by just visiting a web page or opening an email. Isn’t that terrifying?
SQL injection has become a known issue with database-driven websites that can read sensitive data, modify it, initiate admin tasks, recover content and sometimes even issue unwanted commands to the operating system.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) - Such attacks use third-party web resources to run scripts in the user’s web browser or scriptable app and can result in session hijacking. The attackers can also log keystrokes, capture screenshots, discover and collect network information, and remotely access and control the user’s system.
With so many gateways available, the hackers will not spare a moment to break into your network and own all your data. But if you can know that an attack is being planned and how you can minimize or get rid of the risk, your network will for sure be way more secure. Skurio’s Digital Risk Protection platform and ICD analysts can help, contact us here.
Attend Digital Risk Protection Webinar on 15 September 2021 at 11 am GST. To know more, register here.
I would like to thank Lisa Kelly, Channel Marketing Manager at Skurio for all her valuable inputs.