Just find out the vulnerable areas and people in the IT system, misuse them one by one and compromise the confidential information. That’s the modus operandi of cyber criminals to harm the entire IT community across the globe. 

The cyber experts, however, on most occasions are a step ahead, which is why many possible cyber incidents are averted. The number of cyber attacks averted across the globe every year is almost thrice the number of cyber incidents that actually happen. It includes data breach, cyber espionage, unauthorized access, critical password compromise, insider/ third-party threats and more. 

Who is responsible for cyber incidents?

Malicious insiders, suspicious third-party users, organized cyber criminal groups are majorly responsible for cyber incidents in any organization. Internal frauds and social engineering stem mainly from those people who are privy to confidential information.

Whoever is the reason, some sort of IT infrastructure vulnerability of the organization or maybe lackadaisical attitude from the workforce builds the base of this threat possibility. Identity management and governance is one of the major sources of data assets compromise. 

So who is to be blamed for a cyber catastrophe? Definitely the organization itself, though apparently it appears to be the rogue intention of the cyber criminals. Statistically speaking, the post investigation of every incident reveals some sort of single/ multiple loophole(s) in the IT infrastructure that has (or have) driven the destruction. The most common and possible reasons behind cyber incidents include, especially identity related include:

• Unmonitored endpoints 
• Absence of multi-level authentication 
• Poor/ Improper password management
• Poor access control and management 
• Absence of granular level monitoring
• Too many elevated/ privileged user accounts
• No regular reporting, audits and weak IT governance
• Loopholes in the IT security policy
• Non-compliance

Cause & Effect of Cyber Incidents

In 2018, one of the ex-employees of a USA-based multinational technology conglomerate inflicted malicious code in the organization’s cloud infrastructure that deleted more than 450 virtual machines used for testing several applications. As a result, almost 16,000 users could not access their accounts for more than two weeks. The organization had to cough up $ 1.4 million to audit their IT infrastructure and fix the damage. Not only that, they had to pay around $ 1 million to restitude the affected users. The investigation went for more than two years before the culprit was eventually put behind the bars. But what about the additional legal cost that the organization had to bear? What about the business prospects that were lost during the tenure? Practically, the loss is immeasurable! Парень, наконец, зашел на сайт в онлайн доступ и устроил себе страстную дрочку вечерком

There are numerous reasons behind unprecedented cyber incidents. On one hand, there are cyber crooks who always look for IT security vulnerabilities, poor access control mechanisms, non-compliance and on the other hand, there is urgency to adopt advanced technologies to survive the competition. 

The extent of need varies from industry to industry and as per geographical expansion. Today, the proliferation of cloud computing, and other advanced technologies based on AL/ ML have enticed the malicious actors to search for new loopholes and to exploit their critical assets. 

Any action leads to two types of effects – primary and secondary. Cyber incidents are no exception. While organizations strive to reinstate their business as soon as possible after an incident, there is immense pressure from the compliance, legal and cyber administration to assess the loss and thrust penalties upon them. Let us delve deep into the pattern of effects after an organization suffers a cyber attack:

Positive Repercussions

We have discussed the above-mentioned primary effects in our multiple blogs earlier. Let us find out the secondary after-effects of a cyber incident. Apart from the maligning of goodwill, losing of business partnerships, non-compliance penalties, there are positive repercussions as well. It helps to learn from the mistakes, and rectify the mistakes so that future incidents can be everted. 

• The IT infrastructure audit after a cyber incident strengthens the security measures and sometimes there are even changes of roles in the workforce to ensure end-to-end security in daily operations is maintained. 

• An unprecedented cyber incident in an organization compels the other organizations, especially the peers to re-evaluate their IT security practices and fix the vulnerabilities as soon as possible. Definitely it narrows down the scope for cyber criminals to inflict further similar damages immediately.

• Regulatory compliances turn more stringent and organizations as a result deploy robust security solutions like Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), Endpoint Security Management and Security Compliance Management (SCM) to ensure comprehensive security. It eventually helps them to stay away from unwanted cyber incidents.

Conclusion

Risk Predictive IT security solutions  are the need of the hour for modern organizations. And cyber incidents,  help cyber experts to understand and analyze the threat patterns. Thus, the vulnerabilities of IT infrastructure can be addressed in a timely manner before any possible catastrophe.

According to The Economic Times survey, more than 39,000 Indian startups sprung up in 2020-21 that have created almost 4,70,000 jobs. Indian nation currently claims to have the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. In fact, in 2020 alone, despite the pandemic situation, the government opened up the space for private players to serve the country on space and satellite projects with funding, teams and structure. This number is expected to rise fast as technology plays a pivotal role to unlock India’s potential in space, aerospace, astrophysics and other emerging areas.

But startups will have to ensure stronger cyber-defenses. Statistics prove that when it comes to cyber risks, the size of an organization is irrelevant. According to Ponemon Institute’s research, 67% startups suffer data breach or any other cyber incident within one year of inception. Adding to this, Forbes has found that phishing and ransomware attacks among startups have risen to almost 300%. 

It precisely points out that cyber criminals are no more concerned about the volume of data, or the size of an organization. 

Where is the concern?

We are dwelling in the era of digitalization. Today, the business startups that are mushrooming across the country require technical prowess to survive the cut-throat competition. In order to stay a step ahead, most of the startups bank on advanced technologies. It is a ripe time for aspiring entrepreneurs to ensure secure IT practices right from the initiation of business. Today, even small businesses are equally at the risk of cyber threats as large enterprises. A preconceived notion that your business is too small to be a target is no more a fact.

Small startups typically have vulnerable IT defences, less cybersecurity awareness, less/ no resources to heep a vigil on cybersecurity and the response is typically slower to any cyber incident. This makes them more vulnerable targets to cyber criminals compared to larger organizations.

Compliance is another challenge! Even the smallest startups have access to a huge customer database that might fall under data regulations. Losing a hefty amount of money in a single stray incident might not only malign the credibility of the startup, but also bankrupt it beyond recovery. Thus, a startup becomes a soft target for hackers as chances of fight-back or other preventive consequences are too bleak.

Why is Cyber Resilience necessary?

Small startups need to be active, aware and knowledgeable about emerging threat patterns and how to address them. Today, most of the startups are directly or indirectly associated with ecommerce platforms.

The post pandemic era has witnessed a whooping demand for digital payment modes in every aspect of our lives. Technology and ecommerce startups make and receive a high volume of digital payments along with huge storage and processing of data records. Thus, startups, even with small IT infrastructure, become prone to vulnerabilities like weak access controls, authentication, and lack of monitoring of insider and third-party IT activities. 

There have been instances where identity and access management vulnerabilities have led to data breaches. For startups, a single similar incident might work as a barrier to the establishment of brand value and reputation. 

In this backdrop, a robust identity and access management practice is highly imperative for business startups as it allows the administrators to ensure authorized access for every login. A robust identity and access management system can ensure that each and every access to data resources is safe and secure.

In addition, some generic cautiousness can ensure no unwanted interruption in the business process for new ventures. These include adhering to the compliance standards, incorporating robust password management policy, and appointing a dedicated team (even if small, maybe 2 / 3 people) for regular end to end monitoring. 

Conclusion

Business Startups are the future of any nation. Hence, if it remains vulnerable to IT threats, then the nation’s growing economy can be marred by uncertainty. Numerous threat patterns target small businesses every now and then. The best way to prevent these threats is to have a comprehensive set of IT security tools in place, and to utilize Security Awareness Training to ensure that the users are aware of the threat patterns. This way, business startups can meet their revenue goals and contribute to the GDP.

“Knowledge is power”-who is not aware of this universal truth? Not just in personal upbringing, but also in cybersecurity, knowledge is the master key to enrich ourselves. The ability to observe, know and analyze malicious IT/ cyber activities or threat actors encourages security professionals to do more R&D about the IT risks that organizations face.

In order to make that cyber knowledge usable, it requires a dedicated team with visibility of modern cyber security. Once cyber threat information is collected and evaluated from any given IT ecosystem of an organization, it is then analyzed by the cyber experts rigorously to create an environment that adds value to the IT risk assessment. This information is all about cyber threat patterns, extent of IT risks and vulnerable areas of IT security. Cyber Threat Intelligence reduces uncertainty for the stakeholders while seamlessly identifying threats and opportunities.

Cyber threat intelligence: Why is it gaining importance?

Cyber Threat Intelligence helps organizations to accumulate raw data about both emerging and existing cyber threats from different sources. After hair-split analysis of that data, the risk management team produces detailed reports to the management that contain strategic planning to automate and improve IT security control solutions. With this, organizations stay alert from the risks of APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats), zero-day threats and risks arising from malicious intent of the end-users.

The cyber threat intelligence team drives organizations to:

• Continuously update the volume of cyber threats, including the IT security vulnerabilities, probable targets of exploiting and the number/ pattern of malefactors.
• Helps organizations to be more proactive about cybersecurity threats rather than reactive in case of any cyber incident
• Ring the precautionary alert bell for the internal IT team, stakeholders and end-users in the enterprise network to keep informed about the newest threats and the potential repercussions on business continuity

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ARCON | UBA a robust Cyber Threat Intelligence Tool

To address the complex IT security use cases, the Information Security market today is sprawling with cyber threat intelligence tools.

Malicious end-users, however,  pose the biggest cyber threat. ARCON, being an industry leader in threat predictive and analytical tools, has therefore developed User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) solution that comprehends and analyzes the risky IT elements within the periphery by leveraging AI/ML. 

Deploying ARCON | User Behaviour Behaviour (UBA) tool mitigates IT risks arising from suspicious behaviour profiles and anomalous end-user profiles (insider threats). Both as a standalone and add-on solution (when integrated with PAM, this tool helps the IT security team to provide additional visibility on end-user anomalous activities. Moreover, the solution increases end-user productivity by configuring baseline activities. So, when they deviate, the solution raises an alert. 

ARCON | UBA assists IT security team by:

• Seamless monitoring of every end-user behaviour even in granular level
• Raising alerts of malicious activity on real-time basis  
• Providing detailed report of every IT task performed under supervision

Conclusion

Cyber threat intelligence has proved beneficial at every level of IT operations in an organization. The IT community in modern times counts on cyber threat intelligence because the behaviour-based analysis and structural analysis are assessed frequently. Strategically applied cyber threat intelligence can provide better insight into cyber threats and allows smoother, more targeted response to cybersecurity.