Cyber Risk and Attacks can Start on the Inside!

With continued focus and articles written about the cyber criminal, including known threats and attacks, we often forget that many cyber attacks, such as phishing schemes and compromised user authentication, start from an internal user.

In an article in Tech Target, "Top 10 types of information security threats for IT teams," the first threat mentioned was insider threats. "These threats occur because employees or anyone with access to systems, networks, and data are either maliciously or accidentally exposing companies information, or expose servers and systems to cyber criminals external to the company."

It could even be as simple as an employee leaving their smartphone charging and connecting to the internal network. The smartphone could be infected with “stalkerware,” enabling a cyber thief to monitor activity on the phone along with connected networks and systems. It could also be an employee including too much personal information on Social media, making the guessing game to answer Multi-factor authentication questions much easier.

The best strategy for companies is to design and implement a security strategy built on a Zero-Trust architecture. This approach needs to assure the trust and identity of users, protect against threats, and can quickly respond to and remediate security attacks.

TekMonks has a portfolio of security solutions with these principles in mind:

• TekMonks’ AI-driven Zero Trust solution is LoginCat. LoginCat provides very strong Multi-Factor Authentication support along with an AI-Powered cyber trust system. Our cyber trust system constantly evaluates users and determines a trust score for their identity, even those already authenticated. Has your location suddenly changed from your office to the coffee shop down the street? Did you log in from another country? Did you access payroll when your routine has you checking email in the morning? These factors and others can reduce your trust score (e.g., LoginCat is 70% confident of your identity). LoginCat will not enable access to applications or servers whose minimum trust score is above users, including accessing the company network via LoginCat’s Software-Defined Perimeter.
• Reflection Network is TekMonks' unique solution for protecting servers and applications.? The best protection for company servers and applications is that they are "listenless" with no inbound ports for external users to connect to them. Reflection Network’s unique mirror technology provides access to authenticated users without requiring an inbound port, so there is no direct access to the enterprise servers assuring there will not be successful cyber attacks from the outside. With TekMonks’ highly secured connectivity, we can also reduce or eliminate the need for a VPN eliminating the security risks and costs associated with VPNs.
• Cyber Warrior is a TekMonks’ AI-built Cyber security warrior. Cyber Warrior is constantly monitoring systems, network devices, and more to determine if there is a cyber attack on the network or systems. Once it determines an attack, it can notify the correct IT admin personnel and take action to stop the attack, such as changing a rule on the firewall and necessary remediation.?

No two companies face the same security challenges. If you would like to discuss your environment and how the TekMonks team can help with your security strategy and the right security solutions to protect your company and those internal users, please contact me on LinkedIn or the TekMonks team at [email protected].