Cybersecurity and its Effect on Business

IBM explains it perfectly “Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting critical systems and sensitive information from digital attacks.”

Without the implementation of proper Cybersecurity measures, cyber attacks can cause immense damage to a business. A single well-executed cyber attack can cause a business to lose its market standing and customer trust.

Cyber attacks often result in a substantial financial loss arising from:

• Loss of corporate data
• Compromised financial information
• Loss of revenue from dwindling customer trust
• Disruption to trading and services
• Loss of investors, customers, and business contracts

In the aftermath of a cyber attack, a business also generally incurs costs associated with finding and repairing all affected systems, networks, and devices.

Most Common Cyber Attacks, Their Effects on Business, and How to Prevent Them

DoS and DDoS

Effect on Business: Reputation and Financial Loss

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack overwhelms the resource of a system resulting in an unresponsive software, service, or web application. A DoS attack in its most primitive state can take the form of a web scrapper running bots to scrap public data from your resources resulting in the resources being unable to cater to the requests of actual customers resulting in reputation and financial loss.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack also seeks to drain the resources of a system but is highly targeted and often backed with malicious intent. A DDoS attack is initiated via numerous malware-infected host machines controlled by the attacker to interrupt the target's service.

How to Prevent DoS and DDoS Attacks

A rudimentary method to prevent such attacks is to implement a firewall to detect legitimate requests while filtering out the rest. This will allow normal traffic to flow without interruption. You can also acquire the services of Cybersecurity firms such as SorceTek.

MITM Attacks

Effect on Business: Legal Consequences

Man-in-the-middle (MITM) types of cyber attacks refer to breaches where a third party with malicious intent eavesdrop on the data transfer between two individuals, networks, or computers. In such attacks, the attacker illicitly modifies or accesses the data before it reaches its destination. This can cause the relations between the two communicating parties to collapse or even worse might cause such damage that would entail legal consequences for both sides.

How to Prevent MITM Attacks

A rudimentary method to prevent such attacks is to use strong encryption on access points or to use a virtual private network (VPN). You can also acquire the services of professional Cybersecurity teams that specialize in Active Threat Response and Risk Management.

Phishing

Effect on Business: Legal Consequences - Reputation and Financial Loss

A phishing attack is when an attacker sends out legitimate-looking emails in an attempt to grab sensitive information from the target. Phishing attacks combine social engineering and technology to fool the target resulting in all forms of legal consequences, reputation damage, and financial losses.?

In the case of phishing attacks, the targets often do not realize that they have been compromised until it is too late.

How to Prevent Phishing Attacks

You can prevent phishing attacks by training your workforce with Phishing Simulations in order to increase their awareness and understanding of such threats.

At an individual level, you need to pay close attention to email headers for anything suspicious and avoid clicking any link or image. You also need to check the parameters for “Reply-to” and “Return-path.” in order to make sure that they connect to the domain presented in the email.

Ransomware

Effect on Business: Reputation and Financial Loss

Ransomware takes the target's system hostage until the target agrees to pay a ransom that can range anywhere between a couple of hundred dollars for regular individuals to thousands of dollars for organizations. After the payment has been sent, the attacker relinquishes control back to the target.

Ransomware exploits unpatched system vulnerabilities, gains access to the systems, and then encrypts the target's workstation, servers, or anything that it comes into contact with, this can even be a smart fridge. This results in total disruption of services causing a hefty financial loss and a big hit to the business reputation.

How to Prevent Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is designed to fly under the radar of traditional antivirus software that hasn’t yet cataloged this specific version of the malware. You can also prevent ransomware attacks with a next-generation firewall (NGFW) to perform deep data packet inspections to accurately pinpoint ransomware in hiding. It is recommended that you employ the services of professional Cybersecurity experts to mitigate the threat of ransomware.

Malware

Effect on Business: Legal Consequences and Financial Loss

Malware is a general term for any malicious software that infects a system and changes the system’s behavior, destroys or modifies data, spies on user activity, or diverts network traffic to malicious websites. Malware can take many forms, including MITM attacks, phishing, or even ransomware.

How to Prevent Malware Attacks

Since malware is basically software that has to be installed on the target device it requires an action on the part of the user. You can use malware detection software and implement firewalls to detect malware. You can educate your workforce regarding the types of software to avoid. You can also hire the service of professional Cybersecurity experts to provide security training to your employees.

SorceTek’s Cyber Security Services

Cyber risks are the potential threats to your organization that exist within the entirety of your technological landscape. At SorceTek, our 5-step Risk Management process ensures no stone is left unturned. We determine the size and scope of your risk management needs, assess your assets for their specific vulnerabilities, analyze the risks and the potential impact, prioritize security measures, and finally document all risk scenarios for continuous review and updates.

SorceTek also offers Active Threat Response for detection and retaliation against an attack, Dark Web Audits for tracking down any compromising company information, and Identity Management for authenticating and authorizing users before allowing them any form of access.

A few other Cyber Security services that SorceTek offer includes Security Training to arm your workforce with knowledge of security best practices, Ransomware Protection to prevent malicious attacks and potential blackmail, and Phishing Simulation to provide realistic exercises in order to increase awareness and understanding of such threats.

SorceTeck also offers a free Cyber Security assessment. To get started with the free assessment, visit Free 15-Point Cyber Security Checklist.

About SorceTek

Built on the commitment to make a positive impact for every client, SorceTek Technology Group takes full responsibility for understanding your business challenges. With over 25 years of experience in the industry, SorceTek’s team provides critical IT needs for small, medium, and enterprise businesses.?

SorceTek Technology Group specializes in IT Management and IT Support, Information and Network Security, Cloud Services, and Software Development.

We believe every business is different and deserves a custom IT solution. Before we start anything, we sit down with our clients and discuss their unique pain points. After we have a clear understanding of the situation, we make recommendations and implement solutions.