No one wants to hear about Coronavirus, read about it or anything else. It is safe to say we are all just wishing for the day things return to some kind of normality!
However we have been looking into how Coronavirus has been and is impacting businesses and there is a ‘new now’ regardless of how we wish there wasn’t.
Since March 2020 we have seen a massive shift in the requirements for remote working and also the needs for different collaboration tools to assist and ensure remote working can still keep teams feeling like they are exactly that ‘part of a team’ and for us all to keep in touch with customers, prospective customers and suppliers.
The need for remote working and digital transformation of companies is not down to the CEO or an individual, but an issue outside of our control… Coronavirus.
The impact we are seeing on Cyber-security is tremendous! Google are reporting that 258 million emails are being bounced around daily, of which 6.9% are malicious.
More than 300,000 COVID-19 websites were launched between March and July last year and over a 3rd of these were malicious. Ransomware is on the rise too by 25%. Phishing attacks are up largely (by 350%) due to remote working and the tools or programmes we are using.
COVID-19 is the perfect form for phishing and smishing attacks, employees are nervous about the stability of their job and company during these times, they are also nervous about their health and as we are being introduced to more and more collaboration communication tools – there are more emails flying around than ever. Fundamentally a phishing attack takes advantage of human flaws, errors, emotions, fear and uncertainty.
Employees are now working on various devices, on average 2.3 devices for work every day. Compared to the 66% of companies that allowed some form of remote working previously has now shot up to 90%. Here at Re-solution, we have all been working remotely since March 2020 with the exception of necessary on site meetings or work.
The internet is growing exceptionally with 140,000 new domains being created daily of which 56% is automated through hacking box, scanners, tools and impersonators.
On to security for applications, over 99% of small to medium sized businesses utilise SaaS, take us for an example – we use Quick Books, Salesforce, O365, LinkedIn, Twitter, Hub Spot, Cisco, YouTube and many more.
Microsoft did a survey and they found that out of the 99.9% of their 1.2million hacked accounts did not use MFA (multi-factor authentication). A study shows that 96% of bulk phishing can be stopped by having a MFA in place and if a hacker is using a targeted phishing approach, MFA still stops 76% of attacks.
No one wants to get hacked but unfortunately it does happen and the average cost of an immediate breach on a small to medium sized business is £19,000. This is due to wasted employee time, consultancy on how to get the business back to where it was and also the lost business from customers. Moving away from immediate costs, 25% of companies fear they will go bankrupt after a breach and 10% actually do.
Endpoint Security
We are sure you have an AV (antivirus) solution in place which a majority claim they block 99% of threats – but what about that 1% of daily threats that are missing? They take on average 4-6 weeks to notice, pick up and then be downloaded by your AV.
Fileless malware is also on the rise, so we can download a legitimate file and it can later turn in to malware. We need to ensure our NGAV or solutions we have in place are continuously monitoring, carrying out file inspections and tracking all movements to safe-guard us from these things.
Here at Re-solution we like to explain Cyber-security and your business to your car or home… Look at the image below, if you were a burglar – which house would you choose? This is why we recommend you protecting your business like you would your home or car…
Being a Cisco house, of course we are going to recommend Cisco… before you tune out, just give us a chance…
Just three of our solutions listed below (click on the links for more information) stem from the nucleus which is Cisco Talos…
Cisco Talos is the world’s LARGEST threat hunting team! If you think of Talos as a central database of the world and for example, if a company in Hong Kong gets attacked, that information is then fed back the centre (Talos) and blocked everywhere! Meaning for it’s users – they are protected from that threat that very second! It works in real time.
At Re-solution we offer a free security audit for any sized business, included in this will be:
- Phishing Simulation – we run a phishing simulation where you can see who is clicking on phishing links and be able to educate them on not doing this in the future and explain what phishing links appear like
- Network Vulnerability Scan – we run a scan to see if there are any weaknesses in your network
- Internet Security Assessment – we carry out an assessment to see how best you can protect yourselves better moving forward.
- Report and Recommendations – we deliver a report to you with our recommendations, that are you are then able to choose how you wish to move forward with improvements or keep things how they are currently.
We pride ourselves on our proof of concept, so all of the solutions we provide and support with a free trial with install and configure to ensure you get all of the reporting you need to make sure the free trial is a success for you and your business.
Contact us for more information, request your free security audit or free trial!
