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Posted in Cloud Security

A Detailed Overview of Security Management in the Cloud

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By AMSAT Oct 28, 2020

Security Management in the Cloud

Overview

If you are a company looking to get a technological edge over your competitors, cloud computing is something you should never ignore. By virtue of software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), organizations can manage their technology and operations in the cloud, saving time and money while enhancing operational output and growing business capabilities. Nevertheless, managing applications in the cloud also highlights new possible cybersecurity flaws. If you want to protect your business against these threats, you’ll need a strong security management plan for the cloud.

 

Security management in the cloud is a set of plans intended to let a business use cloud applications and networks to their greatest potential while restricting potential threats and flaws. This is often done with several independent strategies, such as:

 

Identifying and evaluating cloud services. First, you ought to spend time recognizing which cloud products and services are being employed in your organization, and which ones might be considered in the future. Afterward, you’ll need to evaluate and review those items, examining their security and potential flaws.

 

Inspecting and fine-tuning native security settings. Within each application, you’ll have complete control of your own secrecy and security settings. It’s on your cloud security team to appreciate which settings are available, and exploit them to provide your organization the highest level of security possible.

 

Encoding data. In several cases, you’ll need to go the extra mile to prevent data loss and preserve data integrity by encoding your data and protecting your connections. It’s your responsibility to allow genuine network traffic and block wary traffic.

 

Managing devices. Cloud applications let you decrease the amount of physical infrastructure you retain, but you and your employees will still be accessing data and services with particular devices. You’ll need some way to manage and supervise those devices to ensure only approved devices can access your data.

 

Dealing with users. Likewise, you’ll need to consider user-level controls. Set up differing levels of user permissions, to limit access to your most appreciated or sensitive information, and change user permissions as essential to let secure access.

 

Reporting. It’s also significant to oversee cloud activity from a high level, and report on that activity so you can better appreciate your risks and continuing operations.

 

Comprehensive Security Management in the Cloud

IT and security staff members regularly face trouble handling all these plans at the same time, mostly with the sheer number of cloud applications and services used by a today’s organizations. Large organizations depend on hundreds, and occasionally thousands of diverse cloud-based services, making it almost impossible to easily apply steady security settings or supervise the use of those applications all at once.

 

 

That’s why it’s significant to employ the use of a complete security management tool, intended for cloud security. With the right platform, you can putatively manage and supervise all your cloud applications and gateways simultaneously, all from one central location.

 

Cloud Email Security

When you want to defend your organization against malicious threats and loss of data, email security plays a vital role. With 90pc of hacking attacks starting as email-based attacks, email security must be a top priority for any organization. AMSAT’s Proofpoint email security solution supports cloud, hybrid and on-premise installations with virtual or physical appliances. It provides protection against repetitive threats like spam, viruses, ransomware, phishing and impostor email while also delivering the secure cloud email services an organization needs to respond to new security challenges.

 

AMSAT’s cloud email security technology delivers up-to-date defense while removing the intricacy and cost of on-premises offerings, and delivering flexible and granular email security controls.

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  • Cloud Security
  • Cloud Management

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    How to secure your privacy online
    Posted in Cyber Security

    How to secure your privacy online? Useful Tips

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    How to secure your privacy online

    By AMSAT Oct 21,2020

    How to secure your privacy online

    Worried about how much of your private information is on the internet and prone to being stolen or exploited? Given the fact that today people’s personal information is less secure than it was a few years earlier, with many falling prey to major data breaches, your concern is quite justified and natural. 

    Online privacy is an important issue facing both individuals and organizations across the globe. However, taking certain measures can help you enhance your online privacy, giving you the much-needed peace of mind.

    Useful Tips for internet privacy

    Here are a few effective ways that can help you protect your internet privacy.

    Limit your personal information on social media

    The best way to secure your online privacy is to avoid oversharing your personal information. If you post a great deal of information about yourself, a shrewd hacker can find information about your life, and can also gain access to your financial and personal information. Try and limit access to your web page to a small group of people, and avoid posting your personal or financial information on websites that can be accessed by everyone.

    Browse in incognito or private mode

    It is best for you to do your web surfing in private mode if you don’t want your computer to save your browsing history. Web browsers today come up with their own versions to ensure privacy and protection. For example, in Chrome, it’s called Incognito Mode; Firefox dubs its setting Private Browsing, and Internet Explorer uses the name InPrivate Browsing. When these modes are turned on while you search, it becomes quite difficult for anyone to trace your browsing history from your computer.

    However, these browsers are not completely private, as your browsing activity is still visible to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) when incognito or private mode is turned on your system. So, while incognito surfing does have a few advantages, it’s not the only tool available to help you protect your secrecy while online. Anonymous search engines and simulated private networks can boost your online privacy.

    Use a different search engine

    Most web surfers ordinarily use Google as their only search engine, but hardly do they know that this may breach their privacy. However, to ensure failsafe privacy, it’s important to use anonymous search engines as they are also capable of blocking ad trackers on the websites you visit.

    Use a virtual private network (VPN)

    Some web surfers are completely unaware of the significance of a virtual private network, or VPN, to ensure their privacy. A virtual private network (VPN) provides you absolute confidentiality and secrecy by creating a private network from a public internet connection. It also covers your Internet Protocol (IP) address, making your online actions virtually undetectable. And when you are on a public Wi-Fi at any public place, using a VPN becomes all the more important, as it deters hackers from breaching your online privacy and gaining access to your personal information.

    Be cautious where you click

    One of the ways in which cybercriminals make a dent to your online privacy is through phishing attempts. In phishing, swindlers try to lure you into providing important financial or personal information. They often do this by sending fake emails that urge you to click on a link and confirm your financial information to keep your account from being frozen or closed. These emails appear to come from banks, credit card companies, or other financial institutions. Never fall into the trap of such criminals as a bank or financial institution never asks you to provide account or financial information through an email.

    Secure your mobile devices as well

    Since a majority of us spend a great deal of our time surfing the net on our smartphones, it is important that we go to any length to ensure our online privacy on them. To this end, ensure to use a password to lock your phone. While it may appear to be a hassle to enter a code every time you want to access your phone’s home screen, this password could offer an additional layer of protection if your smartphone is lost or stolen. Also, ensure that your password is as complex as possible; never use your date of birth, your house number, or any other information criminals may find easy to guess

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      How to Prevent Social Engineering
      Posted in Cyber Security

      5 Ways that How to Prevent Social Engineering

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      How to Prevent Social Engineering

      By AMSAT Oct 16,2020

      How to Prevent Social Engineering

      Social engineering is the act of deceiving someone into revealing information in order to steal their sensitive information. The idea behind this technique, which is usually carried out through technology, is to exploit a potential victim’s natural propensities and emotional reactions.

       

      However, there are some tips that can help an individual or organization prevent social engineering.

       

      1) Don’t share your private information

       

      You should remember one thumb rule: never give away your sensitive information to anyone, no matter how much you get persuaded. And to avoid falling prey to any nefarious hacker, never spill your secret information on the internet unnecessarily. If you do not recognize the sender of the email, abandon it; however, if you are buying anything online, only provide your credit card information over an HTTP secure protocol.

       

      2) Enable spam filter

       

      A majority of email service providers come up with junk filters. Any email that is believed to be wary shall automatically be relegated to the spam folder. Reliable email services spot any doubtful links and files that might be detrimental and caution a user to download them at their own risk. Some files with certain extensions are not allowed to download.

       

      By enabling the spam feature, you can be relieved from the atrocious tasks of spotting suspicious messages. The offenders of social engineering will have no door to reach you, and your sensitive data will be protected from malicious threat actors.

      3) Keep watchful of your password

       

      Another important piece of advice is that you ought never to use the same password on the platforms you log in. Keep no hints behind and remove all sessions after you are done with surfing and browsing. Put the social to good use and stay watchful of people you tag and the information you provide since a nefarious hacker might be around.

       

      It’s important to do this, because if your social media account gets hacked, and you have the same password for different websites, your data can be greatly compromised. You will be blackmailed to pay the ransom to avert your details from being leaked over the web. Offenders can get your passwords very swiftly but if you get infected with ransomware, all of your files will be encoded, and you will be compelled to pay the ransom with no data back guarantee. That’s precisely why the best countermeasure against this attack is to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

       

      4) Always update your system’s software

       

      Hackers target your system when they are convinced that the software you are using is outdated or obsolete. Therefore, to avoid falling into a malicious actor’s trap, keep your software up-to-date and keep a watchful eye on your network firewall. Use only authentic sources to download content and be aware of the dangers and looming threats that might put your system at risk.

       

      5) Remain Skeptical

       

      The best way to prevent unsavory incidents over the web is to remain doubtful about each and every thing online. Never trust anyone and never open any emails you think are suspicious. Also, do not pay any attention to messages stating that you have won a jackpot or you have been given a cheque of a thousand dollars.

       

      This strategy will help keep the hacker at bay, since they won’t find anything alluring to bait you. Interestingly, this ploy has helped many people stay safe online, discouraging cybercriminals from reaching their nefarious goals.

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      • Social Engineering
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        Posted in Cyber Security

        What happened in the realm of cybersecurity

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        By AMSAT Oct 16,2020

        Week in review: What happened in the realm of cybersecurity

        Reports of encryptions, malware botnets, and malware patches marked the outgoing week. Here is a brief review of news that dominated the cyberworld.

         

        “Five Eyes” alliance, India, and Japan called for new ways to access encrypted apps

        The “Five Eyes” alliance along with government representatives for India and Japan, demanded that technology companies insert “backdoors” in encrypted apps to give law enforcement agencies the access needed to monitor online crime.

         

        Microsoft, other tech companies took down TrickBot botnet

         

        A coalition of technology companies stated that it had orchestrated a takedown of the TrickBot malware botnet. The organizations that took part in the takedown included Microsoft’s Defender team, FS-ISAC, ESET, Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, NTT, and Broadcom’s cyber-security division Symantec.

        Microsoft October 2020 Patch Tuesday patched 87 bugs

         

        Software giant Microsoft released its monthly set of security patches known as Patch Tuesday, with the company fixing 87 flaws in October, across an extensive range of its products.

        The bug was found internally by Microsoft engineers, and OS versions vulnerable to CVE-2020-16898 included Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019.

        Zoom plans to roll out end-to-end encryption capabilities

         

        Videoconferencing website Zoom said it planned to launch end-to-end encryption (E2EE) capabilities starting next week. E2EE will allow Zoom’s users to create individual encryption keys that will be used to encrypt voice or video calls between them and other conference members.

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        • TrickBot botnet

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          Of Firewall and Its Types
          Posted in Cyber Security

          A Comprehensive Review of Firewalls and Their Types

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          A Comprehensive Review of Firewalls and Their Types

          By AMSAT Oct 16,2020

          A Comprehensive Review of Firewalls and Their Types

          One of the major issues organizations face when trying to acquire their important data is finding the correct tools for the work in question. Indeed, several companies might find it hard to discover the right firewalls for their specific needs, how to organize them, or why they might be important.

          What is a Firewall?

          A firewall is a software program that stops unlawful access to or from a private network. They are tools that can be used to improve the security of computers connected to a network, such as LAN or the Internet. They are an essential part of a wide-ranging security framework for your network.

          Types of Firewalls

          Firewalls can be divided into different types, some of which are as follows.

          • Packet-filtering firewalls
          • Circuit-level gateways
          • Application-level gateways (a.k.a. proxy firewalls)
          • Next-gen firewalls
          • Software firewalls
          • Hardware firewalls
          • Cloud firewalls

           

          Packet-Filtering Firewalls

          Packet-friendly firewalls essentially produce a checkpoint at a traffic router or switch. This firewall is both a tool and a procedure that is a basic component of network security. Packet filtering typically is inexpensive to implement, but it must be understood that a packet-filtering device does not provide the same level of security as an application or proxy firewall.

          Circuit-Level Gateways

          These gateways work by confirming the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) handshake, which is aimed to ensure that the session the packet belongs to is authentic. Although they are extremely resource-efficient, these firewalls do not check the packet itself, which is precisely the reason they are not adequate to secure your business.

          Proxy Firewalls

          These firewalls work at the application layer to filter inbound traffic between your network and the traffic source. Instead of allowing traffic link directly, the proxy firewall first sets up a link to the source of the traffic and evaluates the incoming data packet. Although they are the safest firewalls, their speed and functionality are highly compromised as they can limit which applications a network can support. However, proxy firewalls have only one problem: they can create considerable slowdown owing to the supplementary steps in the data packet modification process.

          Next-Generation Firewalls

          A characteristic NGFW integrates packet inspection with stateful inspection and also comprises some variety of deep packet inspection, in addition to other network security systems, such as intrusion detection/prevention, ransomware filtering and antivirus. Some general features of next-generation firewalls include deep-packet inspection, TCP handshake checks, and surface-level packet review. These firewalls may also comprise other technologies such as intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) that serve to automatically stop targets against your network.

          Software Firewalls

          These firewalls are a very valuable extra layer of security that can be added to the hosts residing on our networks. Software firewalls mostly contain a subgroup of the features that may be found on a large firewall appliance but are often capable of very similar packet filtering and stateful packet inspection.

          Hardware Firewalls

          This firewall serves as a gatekeeper for your server, which sits directly behind the router and can be arranged to evaluate incoming traffic, filter out specific threats as they come across the device. A hardware firewall offers security from both directions, to and from the server. Whenever data crosses the physical firewall, it is scrutinized in the light of predesigned criteria, allowing the firewall to spot and halt threats before they get to internal drives.

          Cloud Firewalls

          Created to stop or reduce unwelcome access to private networks, cloud firewalls are software-based, cloud-deployed network devices. These firewalls are designed for present-day business needs, and sit within online application settings. Installing a cloud firewall is like swapping a bank’s local security cameras and a physical security guard with an international 24/7 security center that has a central staff and security camera feeds from all the places where a bank’s assets are stored.

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            An-insight-into-cyberterrorism
            Posted in Cyber Security

            An insight into cyberterrorism – Overview

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            An-insight-into-cyberterrorism

            By AMSAT Oct 12,2020

            An insight into cyberterrorism

            Cyberterrorism is the scourge facing both large and small organizations today. In fact, in the language of cybersecurity, two terms—cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare—have become the buzzwords.

             

            What is cyberterrorism?

             

            This is all about using the internet for nefarious objectives that seek to threaten or result in serious physical harm—even loss of life. Cyberterrorism often serves the objective to achieve political or ideological advantages through intimidation, terror and threat. The definition of cyberterrorism incorporates terror events like calculated disruption of computer networks through using numerous tools such as worms, viruses, and phishing events.

             

            The explanation and description of cyberterrorism is highly dependent on context and prone to change. When cybercriminals leak or steal information, infiltrate the systems of régimes and conglomerates, they don’t immediately cause physical harm to a property or an individual but the disruption caused by such data breaches can be highly damaging. On the contrary, some experts believe that unlawful ways of receiving and curbing information should be considered as simple hacking rather than cyberterrorism.

            How an organization can be protected against cyberterrorism

            Since any organization may fall victim to cyberterrorism, it’s important that businesses—both large and small—prepare themselves to face any eventuality. In this context, you should often test your security events, perceive the vulnerabilities and mitigate them, while ensuring to update your tools, software and firewalls regularly. You need to device a disaster plan, inform everybody in your IT team to know what their roles and responsibilities are in case a crisis happens. Moreover, you should never be contingent on a single security solution, and always have a back-up plan in place.

            Regardless of the disagreement over the presence of cyberwarfare, many nations including North Korea are known to conduct aggressive cyber actions against other countries.

            Concerns

            Cyberterrorism is getting extremely prominent on social media nowadays. Since the internet is playing a key role in all facets of human life, individuals or groups can use the privacy provided by the internet to intimidate citizens, certain groups, and states, without the looming threat of arrest, harm, or death to the attacker that being physically present would entail. Several groups use paraphernalia such as denial-of-service attack to attack and censor groups who confront them. Many people believe that cyberterrorism is a dangerous threat to countries’ economies, and fear an eruption could possibly lead to another Great Depression. Several leaders have an agreement that cyberterrorism has the highest amount of threat over other plausible attacks on U.S. soil. Although natural disasters are considered a chief threat and have known to be awe-inspiring to people and land, there is ultimately little that can be done to prevent such events from occurring. Therefore, one needs to focus more on preventive incidents that will make internet attacks difficult to implement. The Internet of Things seeks to further combine the simulated and physical worlds, which some experts see as a significant stimulus for states to use fanatical proxies in perpetuation of objectives.

            Dependance on the internet is swiftly rising globally, generating a platform for international cyber terror schemes to be developed and executed as a direct threat to national security. For fanatics, cyber-based incidences have distinct advantages over physical attacks, as they can be executed remotely, covertly, and reasonably cheaply; they also do not need a heavy investment in weaponry and staff.

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            • Security Updates
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              An-Insight-into-Cybersecurity-Compliance
              Posted in Cyber Security

              An Insight into Cybersecurity Compliance

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              An-Insight-into-Cybersecurity-Compliance

              By AMSAT Oct 8,2020

              An Insight into Cybersecurity Compliance

              With a dramatic increase in the number of cyber-attacks all over the world, organizations and governments are looking to impose cybersecurity by establishing more demanding compliance requirements. However, cybersecurity risk often dwarfs compliance requirements. Therefore, to prepare for different compliance needs, enterprises should focus more on strengthening cybersecurity, enabling them to stay ahead of the growing requirements.

              What is Cybersecurity Compliance?


              Security compliance is typically defined as creating a program that sets up risk-based controls to protect the veracity, confidentiality, and accessibility of information stored, processed, or moved. But cybersecurity compliance is not based in an irrelevant standard or limitation. Since different standards are likely to overlap each other, this may lead to confusion and surplus work for enterprises using a checklist-based technique.

              What is cybersecurity compliance framework?

              Achieving compliance within a supervisory framework is an ongoing process. Since the environment is constantly changing, and the working efficacy of a control may fail, steady monitoring and reporting is obligatory, and supervision on exactly what steady monitoring involves is also defined within each framework.


              Cybersecurity compliance framework is a set of guidelines and best practices that organizations need to follow to meet monitoring needs, improve processes, buttress security, and appreciate other business objectives. These frameworks offer ideals that are influenced by internal auditors and other internal stakeholders to evaluate the controls in place within their own organization, or potential customers or investors to measure the possible risks of connecting with an organization.


              How to Create a Cybersecurity Compliance Program

              1. Set up a Compliance Team

              It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of compliance team even for small- and medium-sized businesses. Cybersecurity is not a standalone phenomenon. As organizations continue to move their important operations to the cloud, they should produce a unified workflow and communicate across business and IT departments.


              1. Create a Risk Assessment

              Companies of all sizes ought to engage in the risk evaluation procedure, as more standards and rules focus on taking a risk-based process to compliance.


              1. Set Controls

              Your risk tolerance tells you it’s time you discovered how to reduce or transfer risk. Controls can include firewalls, encryption, password policies, vendor risk management program, employee training, and insurance.


              1. Device Policies

              Policies register your compliance activities and controls, serving as the foundation for any internal or external audits required.


              1. Continuously Oversee and Respond

              All compliance needs zero in on the process in which threats emerge. Threat actors and hackers incessantly work to find novel methods to obtain data. Instead of working to find new flaws, these unprincipled elements seek to revise existing methods. For example, they may assimilate two different types of identified ransomware programs to produce a new one. Constant supervision only finds new threats. The most significant thing for a compliance program is to respond to these problems before they lead to a data breach.

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              • Compliance
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                Role-of-social-engineering-in-cybersecurity
                Posted in Cyber Security

                Role of social engineering in cybersecurity

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                Role-of-social-engineering-in-cybersecurity

                By AMSAT Oct 7,2020

                Role of social engineering in cybersecurity

                Organizations, both large and small, are being affected by social engineering attacks. And with a rise in frequency, such attacks are also becoming quite sophisticated, thanks to cybercriminals’ ingenious and novel ways to trick employees and individuals into giving out important company data.

                What is social engineering?

                Social engineering is a method used to manipulate people into releasing important and sensitive information. This term incorporates all malicious activities performed through human interactions. The major idea behind this idea is to impact the target victim into taking activities that may not be in their best interest.

                The trickiest element of social engineering is that it deals with human flaws rather than system fiasco or network weaknesses. Nonetheless, social engineering is different from other scams since it is typically one of many steps in a more complex scam technique.


                Why social engineering is important

                If you don’t want to be tricked by threat actors and social engineers into revealing your login credentials and hacking your account, then you must learn about social engineering attacks. However, by a twist of sheer bad luck, once the cyberthieves manage to trick you into divulging your email password, they can easily access your contact list and other important accounts. The problem is not that you don’t have a robust security solution; rather, it has to do with the fact that you sometimes trust people you shouldn’t, and you, inadvertently, end up giving them the tool they can use to harm you. Imagine living in a house with alarm systems, CCTVs, security dogs, or padlocks, but you open the door to a criminal who can attack you only because you mistook him a delivery guy.

                Key facts about social engineering

                • Social engineering schemes differ from one social engineer to the next;
                • You don’t immediately get to know you are being hoodwinked
                • Social engineering is an old trick that spans across different industries, and it’s both physical and digital;
                • Most threat actors generally attack large enterprises and other SMEs, although no one is immune from a social engineering attack;
                • Social engineering techniques are also employed by countries and states.

                Types of social engineering attacks

                The following are the types of social engineering with examples:

                 

                1. Phishing

                To gain access to important information—such as login credentials or bank information—phishing is a very popular technique employed by cyber-attackers and threat actors. A number of people still fall prey to phishing despite its widespread occurrence. For instance, a threat actor pretends to be a reliable source through interactions meant to trick the target into opening text messages or emails. The phisher’s ultimate objective is to bait the victim into revealing their personal information. Phishing emails can be recognized by the fundamental tone of urgency.

                 

                1. Vishing

                Except for a voice, vishing serves the same purpose as phishing. Unlike a phisher, a visher uses urgent voice calls, voice mails, or voice notes to persuade the target into trusting that they must act quickly to defend themselves against an arrest or other eventualities.

                 

                1. Baiting

                This type of social engineering method involves the target victim getting trapped the ‘bait.’ The social engineer knows that humans are certainly influenced when you throw an apparently tempting offer, so they exploit this. For example, a wicked threat actor might deliberately place a USB stick branded as “Confidential” in a place where the victim can notice it. Nevertheless, unbeknown to the target the stick is infected with malware. The target may then take the ‘bait’ and attach it to a computer system out of inquisitiveness. As soon as this activity is carried out, the malware gets injected into the computer.

                 

                1. Pretexting

                In pretexting, the cyber-criminal retrieves critical information through a series of astutely created lies. The swindle is typically introduced by an invader feigning to be in need of the user’s sensitive information in order to carry out a significant task. For example, the cybercriminal can send the victim an email that nominates them as the beneficiary of a will. Nevertheless, the victim is cheated into trusting that they need to reveal their personal information to hasten the inheritance process.

                 

                1. Quid Pro Quo

                This attack occurs when threat actors ask for personal information from their target in exchange for recompence or something they wish. It’s often an “if you give me this, I’ll give you that” kind of trade.

                 

                The deal often appears too good to be true and it typically is because the threat actor is often the one who is the biggest beneficiary of such an exchange.

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                • Phishing
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                  What-transpired-in-the-sphere-of-cybersecurity
                  Posted in Cyber Security

                  Week in review: What transpired in the sphere of cybersecurity

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                  What-transpired-in-the-sphere-of-cybersecurity

                  By AMSAT Oct 02,2020

                  Week in review: What transpired in the sphere of cybersecurity

                  The outgoing week has been full of reports pertaining to vulnerabilities and their patches, as well as hacking and cyberattack incidents. Here’s a brief review of what transpired in the happening week.

                  Apple fixed multiple flaws in macOS

                  Technology giant Apple patched as many as four flaws across macOS Catalina, High Sierra and Mojave.

                  The first flaw, CVE-2020-9973, was one of the security holes that affected the Model I/O component. Apple said misuse of the vulnerability, which involved the handing out of a malicious USD file, could lead to random code execution or a DoS condition.

                   

                  Another flaw, CVE-2020-9968, impacted all versions of macOS and which Apple also fixed in iOS 14. Apple also fixed a random code execution flaw that could be misused using malicious image files.

                   

                  North Korea hacker group strove to hack 11 UN Security Council officials

                  A hacker group formerly linked with North Korea was spotted carrying out spear-phishing attacks to compromise the United Nations Security Council officials.


                  The attacks were attributed to a North Korean hacker group by the codename of Kimsuky. As per the UN report, Kimsuky operations occurred across March and April this year and comprised a series of spear-phishing operations aimed at the Gmail accounts of UN officials.

                  QNAP asked users to update NAS firmware and app

                  Taiwanese vendor QNAP urged its customers to update the firmware and apps installed on NAS devices to avoid AgeLocker ransomware infections.


                  The vendor also recognized that older versions of the PhotoStation app are impacted by known security flaws.

                  Earlier, the company had issued another alert to warn its users of a wave of attacks spreading a ransomware strain tracked as eCh0raix.

                  UHS hospitals hit by Ryuk ransomware attack

                  Universal Health Services (UHS) healthcare providers were reportedly hit by a Ryuk ransomware attack, prompting them to shut down systems at healthcare facilities in the United States.


                  The attack also disabled multiple antivirus programs.


                  Universal Health Services (UHS) is an American Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of $11.37 billion and over 90,000 employees.

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                  • Ransomware Attack

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                    The outgoing week has been full of reports pertaining to vulnerabilities and their patches, as well as hacking and cyberattack incidents. Here’s a brief review of what transpired in the happening week.

                      

                    Apple fixed multiple flaws in macOS

                     

                    Technology giant Apple patched as many as four flaws across macOS Catalina, High Sierra and Mojave.

                    The first flaw, CVE-2020-9973, was one of the security holes that affected the Model I/O component. Apple said misuse of the vulnerability, which involved the handing out of a malicious USD file, could lead to random code execution or a DoS condition.

                    Another flaw, CVE-2020-9968, impacted all versions of macOS and which Apple also fixed in iOS 14. Apple also fixed a random code execution flaw that could be misused using malicious image files.

                     

                    North Korea hacker group strove to hack 11 UN Security Council officials

                     

                    A hacker group formerly linked with North Korea was spotted carrying out spear-phishing attacks to compromise the United Nations Security Council officials.

                    The attacks were attributed to a North Korean hacker group by the codename of Kimsuky. As per the UN report, Kimsuky operations occurred across March and April this year and comprised a series of spear-phishing operations aimed at the Gmail accounts of UN officials.

                     

                    QNAP asked users to update NAS firmware and app

                     

                    Taiwanese vendor QNAP urged its customers to update the firmware and apps installed on NAS devices to avoid AgeLocker ransomware infections.

                    The vendor also recognized that older versions of the PhotoStation app are impacted by known security flaws.

                    Earlier, the company had issued another alert to warn its users of a wave of attacks spreading a ransomware strain tracked as eCh0raix.

                     

                    UHS hospitals hit by Ryuk ransomware attack

                     

                    Universal Health Services (UHS) healthcare providers were reportedly hit by a Ryuk ransomware attack, prompting them to shut down systems at healthcare facilities in the United States.

                     

                    The attack also disabled multiple antivirus programs. Universal Health Services (UHS) is an American Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of $11.37 billion and over 90,000 employees.

                    Posted in Cyber Security

                    Cybersecurity Challenges in 2020 and Beyond

                    Latest Blogs

                    By AMSAT Oct 02,2020

                    Cybersecurity Challenges in 2020 and Beyond

                    In this day and age, when digitization has assumed a whole new level and hackers have found novel ways to infiltrate corporate data and systems, securing privacy has become more important than ever. News about cyber-threats like ransomware, phishing, vulnerability exploits, IoT based attacks, are a dime a dozen these days, with no end in sight. In view of the number of threats organizations—large and small—face the world over, cybersecurity has become a serious concern that needs to be dealt with seriously and effectively.

                     

                    Organizations are investing in new technologies in such diverse fields as telecommunication, artificial intelligence (AI), space travel, and health sciences. While digitization has its own sets of benefits, it is also highly vulnerable, prompting companies to take concrete measures to keep them from falling prey to cybercriminals and imperiling their privacy and confidentiality. Here are some of the biggest challenges organizations are likely to face in 2020 and beyond.

                    1. Artificial Intelligence serves both as a deterrent and facilitator in cyber-attack

                    While artificial Intelligence has done wonders in preempting cyber-attacks, it also, quite bizarrely, serves to facilitate a hacker in carrying out a malicious attack. Following rigorous research and modeling, AI can learn the irregularities in behavior patterns which can be used as a defensive tool, but, sadly, these same methods can be used by hackers and threat actors to execute a cyberattack.

                     

                    2. Loopholes in technical skills

                    To prevent cyberattacks from occurring and to evaluate threats in the network, it’s important for organizations, large and small, to invest in training existing staff. Failure to do so will result in the loss of millions of dollars for corporate behemoths. According to research, the average cost of a data breach in 2019 was approximately $3.92m and the cost per lost record was around $150. Companies are immensely investing in making the system sturdy; however, executing these new cutting-edge technologies needs access to highly skilled and experienced technical resource.

                     

                    3. Cloud Risks

                    On account of the flexibility and costs incurred in the legacy data center, organizations are moving their important data from legacy data centers to the cloud. Effective configuration and security measures ought to be in place in order to move the data to the cloud; otherwise, odds of falling into a trap can’t be ruled out. Cloud service providers are only meant to secure their platform, while companies are responsible for protecting the companies’ infrastructure from theft and removal over the cloud.

                     

                    4. Ransomware Threats

                    This is the headline-grabbing cyberthreat these days; threats of ransomware attacks hitting organizations always loom.  Ransomware encodes files or blocks the access on the system or the network, after which the hacker demands ransom contingent on the criticality of the data or the size of the organization. In such cases, the victims, apart from losing the data, may also suffer financial and productivity losses, additional IT costs, and legal fees. 

                     

                    5. Internet of Things (IoT)

                     

                    Given a phenomenal rise in the adoption of the Internet of Things, security threats such as DDoS and ransomware can be employed to steal important data from both the individual and the organization. Threat actors can easily take advantage of these flaws in IoT infrastructure to perpetrate cyber-attacks.

                    TAGS

                    • Cybersecurity
                    • Artificial Intelligence
                    • Ransomware Threats

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