Hackers in certain regions of the world are working hard to learn the latest techniques on how to disrupt critical infrastructure and destroy businesses. Some would argue that it has always been like that.
Hackers use new technology to launch new and more devastating cyber-attacks and then cybersecurity experts have to learn how to defend against them. Every time security researchers get rid of a security flaw or a malicious code, they have another one come in and mess the system up pretty quickly.
The internet provides a way for these hackers to remain anonymous and not be brought to account for their misdoings. Such a situation means that hackers are more or less free to do whatever they want and get away with it as long as they take all the necessary precautions.
Of course, that also means that cybersecurity experts now do not think about the security features of their products as a mere formality.
Developers are now expected to develop apps and online services from the ground up with security in mind. And that is not just true for big organizations but also for small businesses and individuals.
This also leads us to the problem of hackers damaging the ecosystem that has taken shape because of the Internet of Things devices. IoT devices are mostly used for commercial and medical purposes along with electronic appliances.
That means, more often than not, they would be controlling something more important than a funny cat video. Hackers know this and tend to take advantage of IoT devices’ inability to have a native antivirus or VPN feature (which is a must-have for privacy. Click here for a good one).
This presents another challenge for security researchers.
What they should do? They should follow the three tips given below.
Study Statistics Regarding User Behavior
Cybercriminals have a multiple number of ways in which they can hack a user and not let anyone else know about it. Most of the time, when they have stolen someone’s personal details, they compromise the victim’s system and then are able to compromise the whole network. After that, they are free to do whatever malicious stuff they had planned out to do from the beginning.
Note:
Modern security systems that take advantage of features such as User Behavior Analytics or UBA can spot if there is a change in the behavior of a given user. Upon discovering odd behavior, they can sound the alarm and block the user from having access to the network.For such a feature to work, it has to leverage big data and then learn usage patterns of different users. If it detects that a certain user is behaving in an unusual way, it can take action.
Such systems are very good at covering areas that most business security products miss.
Make Use of Hardware Authentication
First system administrators introduced usernames. Then came passwords and then came password managers. If you know where this is going, then came two-factor authentication.
Every time security researchers have tried to make networks and systems more secure, hackers have responded back equally well.
Therefore, it is very important to keep the pressure on. This is where hardware authentication comes in. Currently, it is the most secure and robust way to authenticate anything. Companies that work in the technology industry have been the quickest to adopt hardware authentication in order to identify user access.
But it goes without saying that any organization that makes use of IoT devices needs to implement hardware authentication as quickly as possible.
Use the Power of the Cloud
The security industry has benefited a lot from the development of cloud technologies. Antivirus products have been at the forefront of using cloud technologies to minimize the resources that they eat up and at the same time, quicken the time it takes for them to finish a given scan.
Most good antivirus products now scan files in the cloud so that they can handle the latest threats as early as possible.
Government departments and businesses should not feel hesitant to use cloud technology in order to not only protect their networks and systems but also to store any sensitive information that they may have.
It is also true that cloud systems are now advanced enough to form solid prevention systems, and firewalls. As mentioned just now, many security products now offer exclusive cloud virtualization and intrusion detection systems.
Conclusion
Sooner or later, cybersecurity experts will have to come to terms with the fact that the old days of set it and forget it are gone. They have to constantly up their game and keep up with the latest developments in cybersecurity.
With hackers creating new forms of cyberattacks more quickly than ever, security experts must rely on emerging technology such as wearable authentication devices, mobile, cloud systems, and IoT devices to make sure that they continue to operate and develop.
The above-mentioned cloud technologies are pretty necessary for modern forms of cyberattacks such as Man-in-the-Middle attacks along with many other types of spyware attacks and memory-scraping attacks.
Gartner published a report in which it mentioned that around 60 percent of online businesses go bust because they do not invest properly in cybersecurity programs. One can only imagine the situation now as cyberattacks have become more sophisticated and frequent. Firewalls and antivirus products are fine but now is the time to move forward from that and use context-aware behavioral analytics along with cloud and hardware authentication.
