While the rough seas may be behind businesses, now is not the time to rest. It’s important for security leaders to remain diligent about their company’s security posture and adapt to the latest state of the world. Focusing on people, processes, and technology is not only the foundation to a solid cybersecurity strategy, but also absolutely critical at a time where workers have never been further from security teams’ protection.
Is your company’s cybersecurity policy as effective as it should be amid these tumultuous times? And if you’re not an employee but the owner of a small business – typically someone with much less sophisticated cybersecurity protection – how does your online security stack up? The answer: Cybersecurity has improved, but markedly more has to be done to secure networks in 2021, the second year of the pandemic, as the number of cyberattacks has become staggering.
As we look ahead to 2021 and to defending against an ever-evolving variety of exploits and attacks, it’s important to consider the cybersecurity attack vectors that will be most prevalent in the upcoming year.
The National Security Agency released a cybersecurity product detailing how to detect and fix out-of-date encryption protocol implementations. Networks and systems that use deprecated forms of Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for traffic sessions are at risk of sensitive data exposure and decryption.
Radware's Vulnerability Research Team explored 2020's top 10 most prevalent exploits targeting web services leveraged in large scale attacks or reconnaissance campaigns as seen by Radware’s Threat Research Center.
It’s within this expanded terrain for cyberattacks that the security trends of 2021 and beyond are taking shape. Workers are engaging with company resources from diverse locations. At the same time, businesses have ramped up their digitalization journeys to be more flexible and agile after COVID-19’s disruption of supply chains. The result is a dynamic tech environment where the continuity of business operations – and ultimately market competitiveness – will rely on robust cyber protections.
To close out the year, U.S. telecommunications giant T-Mobile announced it had been hacked. In a notice, the company said its cybersecurity team had discovered and shut down malicious, unauthorized access to some information related to T-Mobile accounts.
I have been in the cybersecurity industry for more than 20 years now. I have founded, operated, and exited several cybersecurity startups. I also advised, invested in, and even acquired a handful. Despite successful outcomes, my experience has left me perhaps a little jaded. Are we winning the battle? When I log into my various web accounts, I am so often reminded that my password had been stolen, sometimes alongside with my personal information. Even major financial institutions and government agencies have suffered a similar fate. Cybersecurity is broken, and here is why.
As what has been a unique and difficult year for many finally comes to a close, I find I have been engaging in a significant number of conversations regarding what the future holds for security careers in these challenging market conditions.
Threat actors who phish see themselves as businesspeople, even if that business is illegal. They’re always seeking ways to maximize their profits, and with phishing, they know they can do that by better tailoring the email lure to resonate with the intended recipient.
