Identifying IT Security Threats

The Complexity of IT Security

Modern businesses – of all sizes – are becoming increasingly vulnerable to security breaches even as they enable their workforces with state-of-the-art technologies.

• Cyber attacks are up 100% since 2010.

• Cyber attacks can be costly. The average time to resolve a cyber attack is 24 days at an average cost of $591,780, or nearly $25,000 per day.

• The most costly cyber-crimes are caused by malicious code, denial of service, stolen or hijacked devices, and malevolent insiders.

Threat 1: Data Loss & Leakage

• Unintentional distribution
  of sensitive data:
  • financial
  • employee
  • customer data
  • intellectual property
• Due to:
  • loss or theft of laptops or mobile phones.
  • electronic transmissions, such as unencrypted emails, IM, webmail and file transfer tools, hacking, virus

   

 

Threat 2: Denial of Service Attacks

• DoS attacks flood a network with more traffic than it can handle, consuming bandwidth or server resources.
• Distributed DOS attacks use multiple systems to launch the offensive, making them difficult to shut down.
• DDOS attacks are growing in size – to more than 50GBps in 2012 ‒ and last more than 30 hours, according to data from Prolexic.

 

 

 

 

Threat 3: Malware

• Malicious software (aka malware) is unwanted software installed without consent.
• Examples include:
  • viruses
  • worms
  • Trojan horses
  • spyware
  • Botnets, Zombie

   

 

Threat 4: Phishing/Social Engineering

• Cyber criminals use phishing and “social engineering” schemes to trick people into sharing personal information, such as:
  • account information
  • credit card data
  • social security numbers
  • passwords
• Phishing  and social engineering are done typically with links to fill-in forms from:
  • e-mails
  • Websites
  • social media

Threat 5: Human Error/Malevolence

• More than 50% of security problems are due to employees or IT staff inadvertently:
  • failing to follow procedure
  • being careless
  • lacking expertise
• Insiders or former insiders, such as disgruntled or malicious employees or contractors can be dangerous attackers because they know the organization’s:
  • security codes  and measures
  • computers and applications
  • actions that will cause the most damage

   

Understanding Data-Centric Security

Before you even think about technology, you need to determine who will be responsible for security. The development and communication of your security strategy is critical.

• Understand present, potential and future risks

• • Employee vulnerabilities
  • Internet, cloud vulnerabilities
  • LAN vulnerabilities
  • Premises security

• Implement
  • Minimum security codes and measures
  • Define business and personal computer and applications use
  • Define consequences for violating company security policies
  • Educate users