Imagine your coffee machine brewing your perfect cup just as you wake up, your office lights adjusting automatically to optimize productivity, or your delivery truck predicting traffic jams and rerouting for a faster journey. This isn't science fiction; it's the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), and it's poised to explode in 2024.
In a recent statement, AT&T, the largest telecommunications company in the United States, disclosed the discovery of a dataset for sale on the dark web containing information on approximately 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former users, affecting a total of about 73 million accounts.
Regardless of the number of cybersecurity professionals your organization employs, preventing data loss, breaches, and malware events is a shared responsibility across all departments. Regular education is essential to ensure employees understand and take this responsibility seriously. Effective cybersecurity training covers regulatory expectations, data protection, and incident response planning. Here's how to choose the right training and simulations for your business.
In today's dynamic cybersecurity landscape, businesses must adopt a multi-faceted strategy to safeguard their critical data and systems. Let's delve into three indispensable tools that synergize to fortify your organization's security posture: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Single Sign-On (SSO), and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
In the vast expanse of cyber threats, whaling attacks stand out as targeted assaults aimed at the highest echelons of your organization. These sophisticated scams employ social engineering tactics to deceive executives and other senior staff into divulging sensitive data or initiating unauthorized actions. As an MSP, we recognize the critical importance of fortifying your business against such threats. Here's why vigilance against whaling attacks is paramount.
Source: Vector Choice - URS Preferred Partner
The Need for Robust Data Backup: Insights and Best Practices
In today's digital landscape, businesses face various threats to their data integrity, ranging from natural disasters to cyber-attacks and human error. As highlighted by Avast's recent findings on disaster recovery, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are particularly vulnerable, with 60% of data backups failing to fully succeed. Even more concerning is the fact that half of the attempts to recover data from these backups are unsuccessful, resulting in an average downtime of 79 minutes, costing roughly $84,650 for every hour of disruption.
Understanding the Common Causes of Backup Failures:
1. Reliability of Backup Products: The adage "you get what you pay for" holds true in the realm of backups. Free or inexpensive solutions may lack the robust features needed for secure and reliable data backup.
2. Suboptimal Backup Timing: Poorly scheduled backups, especially during peak traffic periods or when data is being heavily modified, pose a risk of incomplete data capture.
3. Compatibility Issues: As businesses evolve, so do their systems and software. However, new systems may not always be fully compatible with existing backup solutions, leading to data saving and restoration challenges.
4. Human Error: Incorrectly configured backup parameters, accidental file deletions, and oversight of backup schedules and alerts can contribute to backup failures.
The Importance of Effective Data Backup and Restoration:
In light of these challenges, implementing best practices for data backup and restoration is crucial for ensuring business continuity and mitigating risks:
1. Choose a Reliable Backup Solution: Avoid blindly opting for well-known backup software brands. Instead, conduct thorough research to identify a solution that aligns with your business needs. Consider factors such as data recovery speed, downtime implications, and compliance requirements, especially in regulated industries like healthcare.
2. Adhere to the 3-2-1 Backup Rule: Embrace the industry-standard 3-2-1 backup rule, which recommends maintaining three copies of data in two different formats, with one copy stored off-site. This approach minimizes the risk of data loss in case of a catastrophic event.
3. Monitor Backup Status Daily: Ensure that someone within your organization, whether yourself or a designated IT team member, checks the backup status daily. Promptly address any incomplete backups to avoid potential data loss.
4. Conduct Regular Restore Tests: Regularly conduct simulated data restoration exercises to verify the integrity and effectiveness of your backup system. This proactive approach ensures that your backups are functional and can be relied upon in times of crisis.
In conclusion, data backups are not a "set and forget" task but a critical aspect of business continuity planning. By implementing robust backup solutions and adhering to best practices, businesses can safeguard their data against unforeseen disruptions and minimize the impact of potential disasters.
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To effectively manage cyber risks, businesses must adopt a proactive stance towards cybersecurity, starting with a comprehensive understanding of their cyber risk landscape. Cyber risk assessment plays a critical role in this process, enabling organizations to identify, evaluate, and prioritize potential threats and vulnerabilities. In this Q&A session, we delve into the core principles of cyber risk management and explore the available tools for assessing and mitigating these risks.
Navigating the dynamic realms of technology and cybersecurity, businesses often grapple with a maze of misconceptions and outdated notions. Yet, failing to discern between myth and reality can expose your business to significant security risks.
Drawing from expert insights, including findings from CompTIA's 2024 global State Of Cybersecurity report, we'll debunk three prevalent misconceptions that could jeopardize your success in 2024.
Source: Vector Choice - URS Preferred Partner
As a business owner, you're well aware of the necessity of having a communication infrastructure that aligns with your company's growth trajectory. Traditional phone systems often pose challenges in terms of scalability and cost-effectiveness, particularly when expanding to accommodate new locations, staff, or functionalities. Enter Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
VoIP presents a forward-looking solution suitable for businesses of all sizes and across diverse sectors, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and legal services. Here's how VoIP delivers the scalability essential for your business's flourishing:
1. Effortless Expansion: Unlike the intricate setup involved in traditional phone lines, VoIP simplifies the process of adding new lines. Through an intuitive online portal, you can effortlessly incorporate extensions for new team members or additional phone numbers for expanded operations.
2. Cost-Effective Growth: VoIP obviates the need for costly hardware upgrades and extra phone lines. You pay solely for the features and extensions essential to your business needs, rendering it a financially prudent choice for burgeoning enterprises.
3. Remote Work Facilitation: With VoIP, geographical boundaries cease to be a hindrance. Your workforce can seamlessly operate from any location with internet connectivity, fostering collaboration and productivity irrespective of physical constraints.
4. Scalable Features: VoIP systems boast an array of customizable features tailored to your unique requirements. From voicemail transcription and automated attendants to video conferencing and call recording, you have the flexibility to select features that empower your team and elevate customer interactions.
5. Seamless Integration: Contemporary VoIP solutions seamlessly integrate with existing business applications such as CRM software and project management platforms. This integration streamlines workflows and enhances overall communication efficacy, ensuring a cohesive operational environment.
In essence, VoIP offers not just scalability, but also versatility and cost efficiency, making it a pivotal asset for your business's sustained growth and success.
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The NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation (23 NYCRR 500) represents a comprehensive framework established by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to impose cybersecurity standards on all covered financial entities. Introduced on February 16th, 2017, following extensive feedback from industry stakeholders and the public, these regulations encompass 23 sections delineating the obligations for developing and executing an effective cybersecurity program. Covered institutions are mandated to assess their cybersecurity risks and devise proactive strategies to mitigate them. The regulation follows a phased implementation approach, allowing organizations ample time to fortify their policies and controls.
In today's dynamic business landscape, effective communication serves as a cornerstone of success. Traditional phone systems often fall short, hindering team collaboration and client connectivity. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) emerges as a robust solution, harnessing your existing internet infrastructure to offer a plethora of features that can significantly elevate business productivity.
In the realm of small business cybersecurity, the rising tide of cyber incidents presents a formidable challenge, particularly for enterprises lacking the resources to defend against sophisticated attacks such as ransomware. As a small business proprietor, you've likely encountered a plethora of security advice that may be outdated or insufficient in thwarting prevalent compromises. For instance, you may have been cautioned against online shopping via a coffee shop's Wi-Fi network—a recommendation rooted in a bygone era of cyber threats. However, the contemporary security landscape demands a fresh approach, one that evolves in tandem with emerging risks.
In today's digital realm, regulatory compliance, underscored by mandates like GDPR, CCPA, and data residency, poses a formidable challenge for organizations. Meeting compliance standards not only demands substantial effort from compliance teams but also necessitates seamless integration of best practices and rigorous audit preparedness.
Ransomware has long been a significant threat to businesses, causing disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage. However, cybercriminals are constantly evolving their tactics, and the recent emergence of Ransomware 2.0 presents businesses with new challenges and necessitates a reevaluation of their security posture.
Zero Trust has emerged as a prominent strategy for safeguarding digital assets, drawing considerable attention for its efficacy in modern cybersecurity. This paradigm, which diverges from conventional security models reliant on perimeter defenses, is also recognized for its potential impact on workforce productivity. Delving into this methodology illuminates its principles and potential to fortify employee performance.
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Emily Reed is responsible for safeguarding the digital assets of a thriving healthcare organization renowned for its advanced digital technology solutions.
On a busy morning, Emily’s routine was disrupted by an urgent message from her security team. They were made aware of other healthcare organizations that had recently succumbed to a critical vulnerability that attacked their MOVEit Transfer systems. A remote command execution flaw, this vulnerability can allow escalated privileges and potential unauthorized access to MOVEit server environments. Emily quickly gathered her team to examine the evolving situation.
Fortunately, Emily was aware of this vulnerability. She had preemptively purchased Ridge Security’s RidgeBot automated penetration testing product, recently upgraded with new plugins that automatically detect and exploit the MOVEit vulnerability.
A cyber incident always creates a certain degree of chaos and confusion—that is, until the organization’s response team can snap into action.
An effective response requires the precise coordination of different departments and stakeholders from IT to executive management, all in the face of fast-evolving information.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various aspects of our lives, including cybersecurity. AI-powered solutions have become invaluable tools for threat detection, incident response, and proactive defense. However, as with any tool, AI itself introduces a new and concerning threat: adversarial AI.
Source: Center for Internet Security
Author: Don Freeley, VP of It services, CIS
In the process of moving to the cloud, you need a security-first cloud migration strategy that considers both your security and compliance requirements upfront. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how you can use resources from the Center for Internet Security® (CIS®) to create such an approach.
To create a cloud security program, you have two main options to consider. As your first option, you can choose to manage the security of your workloads yourself. The advantage of choosing this route is that you will implement a custom fit to your organization and the needs of your business. However, you might not have knowledge of cloud security best practices, in-house expertise, or the desire to spend significant resources towards cloud security management. Cloud security is complex, requiring different technical skill sets and tooling than on-premises security programs.
Alternatively, you can buy pre-configured or managed services to create a comprehensive cloud security program. In doing so, you'll get to use a partner or product as a force multiplier that will enable you to safely operate in the cloud without incurring unnecessary technical debt and expense. This option can be especially helpful if you're in the beginning stages of wanting to keep your cloud secure.
Neither of the two options discussed above is better than the other. It's about identifying your organization's needs and selecting a method that works best for you to achieve them.
At CIS, our mission is to make the connected world a safer place. We have numerous tools and resources that can help organizations of every size make their cloud migration journey simpler and more secure. Let's go over them below.
The CIS Controls consist of prescriptive, prioritized, and simplified security best practices that you can use to strengthen your cybersecurity posture across your environments, including in the cloud. The CIS Controls v8 Cloud Companion Guide provides context around how each Control applies not only to the cloud but also to individual service models, what your responsibility looks like for a Control within applicable service models, and what products, tools, and threat information (if any) you need to consider. In that way, you can plan your implementation efforts to maximize your time, effort, and efficacy.
The CIS Benchmarks are secure configuration guidelines developed through consensus that you can use to harden your operating systems (OSes) across 25+ vendor product families. Their security recommendations don't just map back to the Controls; they are also referenced by several industry frameworks such as PCI DSS and HIPAA.
In the context of the cloud, the Benchmarks have several resources to help. These are the Foundations Benchmarks, the Compute Benchmarks, and the CIS Build Kits and CIS Configuration Assessment Tool (CIS-CAT)®.
The CIS Foundations Benchmarks are designed to help you create foundational security in the cloud by focusing on three essential areas: identity and access management (IAM), logging and monitoring, and networking. They consist of 50-60 security recommendations so that you can get started in the cloud and quickly set up essential security policies on a specific cloud service provider (CSP) platform.
Each CIS Foundations Benchmark includes sections that tell you exactly which CSP services we cover. Some are essential to your security. As an example, our CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark includes a section that says, "Ensure MFA is enabled on the root account." You need to use Amazon IAM to configure that recommendation. By contrast, other sections depend on the consumption of your service. If you don't use Amazon EC2, for instance, you can disregard those recommendations.
The Foundations Benchmarks' 50-60 recommendations intentionally make it easy for you to create foundational security on a CSP platform. From there, you can take additional efforts to holistically secure your could environment using the CIS Cloud Service Category Benchmarks, like the CIS AWS Compute Services Benchmark. These resources tell you which security recommendations to implement if you're using specific services that are beyond the scope of the Foundations Benchmarks. In that way, you can securely configure your use of cloud services for compute, databases, storage, and other services in a CSP.
The Benchmarks, including the Foundations Benchmarks and Cloud Service Category Benchmarks, are available in Word, Excel, and PDF formats. However with CIS-CAT, you can speed policy to implementation and automate your evaluation of your systems' configurations against other Benchmarks. You can also easily customize and rapidly apply the Benchmarks recommendations using the CIS Build Kits to remediate your system, which are available as Group Policy Objects and Bash shell scripts.
You're ultimately responsible for the security of a guest operating system (OS) on virtual machine images in the cloud. This can be difficult to do. As mentioned previously, the CIS Benchmarks are documents that point the way to system hardening, but without additional resources, you'll need to manually implement the 200-300 security recommendations in the cloud one by one.
Fortunately, CIS Hardened Images can help! These virtual machine images are pre-configured to the security recommendations of the CIS Benchmarks. In that sense, you can spin up a pre-hardened OS without having to spend time and money on manual hardening.
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