by Rebeca | Jun 22, 2022 | cybersecurity, News, Resources
With so much of our personal information available online, criminals no longer need to go through our trash cans for important documents. For this reason it is essential to protect your digital identity.
For many years, destructive attacks have been studied and documented. Especially those that are done for financial reasons where cybercriminals demand payment to decrypt the data and restore access.
Yet despite attempts to stop this threat, ransomware continues to impact organizations across all industries. Additionally, it significantly disrupts business processes and critical national infrastructure services and leaves many organizations looking for better protection.
Organizations that continue to rely on legacy systems are especially vulnerable to ransomware threats. As these systems may not be regularly patched and maintained.
Key ransomware prevention and mitigation considerations for business and IT leaders
As you plan for a comprehensive defense posture against ransomware threats, here are some key questions to consider:
- How are you defending your organization’s data, systems and employees against malware?
- Are your organization’s systems up to date and patched continuously?
- Are you watching for data exfiltration or other irregularities?
- What is your comprehensive zero trust approach, especially strongly authenticating my employees when they access information?
- Are you taking the right back ups to high assurance immutable locations and testing that they are working properly? This should include testing that does a periodic restore of key assets and data.
- What drills are you conducting to battle-test your organization’s risk management and response to cyber events or incidents?
How cyber security can protect your digital identity
Every time you do something actionable online, like access your social media or sign up for an email subscription, your digital identity grows. This information says a lot about you, so protecting it is crucial.
In the digital age, it’s nearly impossible to avoid having your personal information online. This makes it critical to protect your digital identity. By watching out for phishing scams, protecting your information and securing your accounts, you can stay cyber safe and help defend yourself against digital identity theft.
The use of a secure and robust digital identification system that is capable of protecting privacy is an essential, reliable and user-friendly element for a strong cyber resilience strategy and is a source of new business opportunities and applications for banks, private sector with a return on their investment.
Convergence
Traditional approaches to IAM, which reflect an era when devices were centrally managed and business applications resided behind the enterprise firewall, are becoming increasingly anachronistic. In a post-COVID, post-perimeter world, identity has become the first line of defense. The inevitable result of this trend will be the convergence of identity and risk.
Conventional IAM architectures have relied primarily on the ability to authenticate user credentials to a directory store and grant fine-grained access to business applications on the basis of statically assigned privileges, regardless of any inherent risk posed by a user. This model no longer reflects an IT landscape in which a mobile workforce can use unmanaged smart devices from anywhere in the world to access sensitive data in cloud-hosted business applications.
The new proposal for IAM solutions, as Soffid are, need the ability to evaluate inherent and contextual risk when granting access to sensitive data and applications.
Picture: Foto de malware creado por DCStudio – www.freepik.es
Sources:
(1) Security magazine
(2) Forbes
(3) getcybersafe.gc.ca
(4) securityboulevard
by Rebeca | Jun 15, 2022 | cybersecurity, Resources
Converged IAM is the future of IAM because the digital transformation of enterprise and government continues to gain speed.
The adoption of measures to mitigate intangible risks against visible and immediate corporate requirements are limited. Significant gaps are ever-present in the assessment, management and operations surrounding risks arising from converged security.
Asset-intensive industries, are generally at risk with the proliferation of industrial IoT and legacy systems interfaced to their IT networks. Especially those within a critical infrastructure setting such as power, water or transport.
To assist organizations in risk management, must work with skilled professionals who can deliver a framework for integrated security governance.
Digital transformation
Digital transformation delivers many benefits to organizations including greater efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and the agility to respond to changing needs.
But it also delivers challenges in the form of dispersed data warehousing. Así como también el uso de servicios públicos que no controlan completamente el grupo de TI de la organización, y una proliferación de aplicaciones únicas para administrar y monitorear.
How can companies bring their digital visions to reality when their people, data and infrastructure are moving outside of their control?
Converged IAM
Organisations need a heightened focus on the protection of both their own and customer information to ensure business sustainability and to retain customer trust. Converged IAM is indeed the future of IAM. It’s only a matter of realizing this importance and educating stakeholders to ensure organizations are better equipped to handle today’s sophisticated threat landscape.
As we mentioned in our post a few months ago, Converged Identity and Access Management (CIAM) unifies disparate physical and logical access control systems to create a singular trusted identity and credential to match rights and access them across the enterprise.
CIAM is born out of growing customer demands. The gist of these demands are quite consistent: quick, reliable, and trustworthy service. Furthermore, customers want seamless, no-fuss experiences.
Security must be like a living organism that can adapt to global risks and increase or decrease security as the threat landscape changes. The level of security, of course, can impact friction with employees, so it is important that during normal operations the security controls have zero friction and visibility for employees. This ensures usable security and increases the effectiveness of controls.
Here, an interesting information from KPMG about the future of identity and access management
Sources:
(1) KPMG
(2) CSO Online
(3) Security Week
Picture: Vector de cyber seguridad creado por WangXiNa – www.freepik.es
by Rebeca | Jun 8, 2022 | cybersecurity, Resources
Cybersecurity threats continue to grow. Even with people returning to the office, the rapid demand for us all to be present online has also led to a dangerous surge in cyberattacks, data breaches and fraudulent activity targeting individuals and businesses.
According to McAfee Enterprise, during the pandemic, 81% of global organizations experienced increased cybersecurity threats and 79% experienced downtime as a result of a cybersecurity incident. Preparation is key.
How to avoid cybersecurity threats
Training
One of the most common ways cyber criminals get access to your data is through your employees. They’ll send fraudulent emails impersonating someone in your organisation and will either ask for personal details or for access to certain files. Links often seem legitimate to an untrained eye and it’s easy to fall into the trap. This is why employee awareness is vital.
One of the most efficient ways to protect against cyber attacks and all types of data breaches is to train your employees on cyber attack prevention and inform them of current cyber attacks.
Keep your systems up to date
Often cyber attacks happen because your systems or software aren’t fully up to date, leaving weaknesses. Hackers exploit these weaknesses so cybercriminals exploit these weaknesses to gain access to your network. Once they are in – it’s often too late to take preventative action.
Control access to your system
It’s essential to control who has access to your computers. Having a perimeter security system installed is a very good way to stop cybercrime as much as break ins.
Access Management
Having managed admin rights and blocking your staff installing or even accessing certain data on your network is beneficial to your security. That is why we recommend you to know the importance of IoT Identity And Access Management (IAM)
Passwords
Having different passwords setup for every application you use is a real benefit to your security, and changing them often will maintain a high level of protection against external and internal threats.
Summary
Preventing a cyberattack is crucial for your business’s survival. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to recover from a cyberattack, and you’ll need to work with the relevant authorities to resolve the issue and set up new systems to thwart future threats.
The business will suffer reputational damage if it loses customer data or fails to alert them early about a breach. Companies that rely on your business for their operations will also be hurt in the process.
Picture: Foto de seguridad creado por rawpixel.com – www.freepik.es
by Rebeca | May 24, 2022 | cybersecurity, Resources, soffid
Knowing about government cybersecurity is vitally important. Because any government’s primary security challenge is data loss related to security breaches. Protecting sensitive data from being exfiltrated and falling into the wrong hands is a government’s responsibility to their people. This task is hard to accomplish because of the high number of user profiles and application systems.
For one thing, a typical company has a large workforce with a limited number of profiles. On the other hand, a government agency used to have more profiles than users. For government, cybersecurity isn’t only a challenge—it’s a big obstacle to long-awaited digital transformation.
Government entities struggle to hire cybersecurity professionals. Because the risk landscape is constantly changing. Furthermore, the amount of personal and sensitive data collected is increasing by the minute.
Increasingly sophisticated adversaries are using machine learning, automated intelligence, and other tools to exploit information. So how can government entities gain the upper hand? They must be innovative in protecting key assets and maintain a more sophisticated risk management strategy. And they must mature and expand their technology capabilities — including the latest in automation and analytics.
Biggest Cybersecurity Challenges in 2022
Because government agencies have data or other assets that malicious cyber actors want, they will often go to great lengths to get it.
Government organizations cannot afford the luxury of operating poor cybersecurity. Because they cannot put citizen data and potentially essential services at unacceptable levels of risk.
Malicious actors are also aware that government security teams are increasingly asked to “do more with less”. And that many agencies may face shrinking budgets and resources. Federal, state and local government agencies are also connected with a wide range of outside contractors and partners. One more reason why they can be subject to theft of user credentials and access to government networks.
Cyber risks are higher than ever and their impacts increasingly severe – every organisation needs to take steps to respond accordingly.”
Paul Kallenbach
Even the most sophisticated solutions may not be able to eliminate all vulnerabilities, but they can stymy many threats and help protect against the worst outcomes.
The biggest cybersecurity challenges in 2022 are:
- Increase in Cyberattacks
- Supply Chain Attacks Are on the Rise
- The Cyber Pandemic Continues
- Cloud Services Are A Primary Target
- Ransomware Attacks Are on the Rise
- Mobile Devices Introduce New Security Risks
See how Soffid can help you stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital world. Let’s talk!
Sources:
(1) Forbes
(2) KPMG
(3) Mckinsey
(4) Deloitte
by Rebeca | May 11, 2022 | cybersecurity
We will participate in the most recent Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit . Year after year, identity is the most commonly exploited attack vector used by adversaries in cyberspace. On the enterprise side, compromised identities have been used to steal money and data. And in some cases, launch ransomware attacks that cripple organizations and disrupt operations.
And on the consumer side, identity theft has been skyrocketing. Additionally the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that identity theft associated with government benefits alone increased in 2020. When it comes to improving cybersecurity, more robust Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions have become the top priority.
This week our team will be attending the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit at London. We want to share with you the latest insights on governance and identity management, security & privacy.
This event is on our agenda for a full update. Especially about Privileged Access Management (PAM), IAM programs and strategy, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (MFA), passwordless methods. In addition to other topics of equal importance.
Our Identity Governance and Administration services take the guesswork and friction out of comprehensive identity management. Working within your existing framework, we offer a way to secure all digital identities. Whether they are human or non-human, we try to ensure a smooth user experience for you.
Today’s hybrid IT environments can make it challenging to enforce consistent identity governance and administration (IGA) policies across the enterprise. Consequently, solutions from Soffid enable a risk-aware, extensible IAM governance across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments.
Have a look to the agenda, and join us, we will be there from Thursday to Friday!
