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Between my last blogpost I published and now, Europe as we know is now at war. Not a ‘Cold War’ like in my youth in the 80’s, but a very ‘Hot’ one as Russia have invaded Ukraine. My hopes and prayers, as I am sure yours do, go to my friends of Ukraine origins in the North West and the poor people of the country, for a speedy resolution.
Over the last decade or so, we have been told that UK conventional forces (apart from Trident nukes), can be reduced and new wars are more likely to be fought in cyberspace. Well, Ukraine hasn’t quite played out like that, despite the Russian GRU having its own ‘Fancy Bear/APT28’ team, dedicated to hack for the soviet government. There has been few recent high profile reports of cyber attacks on Ukraine internet infrastructure etc in the last few weeks, matching the shells/missiles dropping in. By all accounts, over the last five years, since Crimea and Donbas invasions, there has been a lot of probing Ukraine cyber infrastructure, by its neighbour to the east.
Recent sanctions appear to be causing the Russian people problems already, despite not really having an effect on Putin. While the latter is unlikely to unleash his weapons on The West and NATO anytime soon, it is not so far fetched that Russia could be unleashing cyber attacks which could be easily denied instead. Some historic examples, such as the NotPetra Malware Attacks accidently spilled over into other countries and hacks affected commercial companies to the tune of $10b, including Cadbury, Maersk shipping and Merck pharma. Behind that spill over appeared to be buggy code. We can only wish that UAT drastically improves for future ransomware.
Its likely more intense Russian cyber aggression can be expected, so all business in The West, should move to a policy of heightened alert and as the US Cyber & Infrastructure Security Agency might term it, “Shields Up”. Our organisations specifically may not be the target, but we may easily become collateral damage.
So, I would say its time to take particular stock of your security and cyber awareness, including interconnectivity, infrastructure and your human staff firewall. Is your penetration testing and that of your Cloud based applications, up to date and are recommendations being followed up to eliminate/drastically reduce risks?
Many actions are very easy to carry out with some loose security, unnecessarily spare open server ports etc. Bringing a website down, supporting a DOS (denial of service) attack, stealing customer or other personal details. IE everything from low level harassment to serious disruption.
This should be a time for all organisations to take stock of their cybersecurity as we are in heightened times. Keep on top of the main touchpoint areas in the office or when staff are working from home :-
- Have regular backups of all your key systems and data. Keep copies securely in the Cloud/off-site and check periodically that they can be recovered.
- Apply any new security patches for your operating system, web browser and all other software on your devices to keep them secure.
- Install and regularly update anti-virus and anti-malware software across all your devices. regularly test they are operating as expected
- Use strong complex passwords and change them regularly. Also, where possible use two-factor authentication for added security.
- Promote use of different passwords for different websites/services or consider using a reputable password management tool.
- Encrypt any sensitive data and do not send passwords or other sensitive data via email unencrypted.
- To protect against phishing or ransomware be cautious of clicking on links sent to you/staff within emails, social media websites/apps or unfamiliar websites.
- Use a firewall and check that your internet router/firewall has the latest firmware installed.
- If you operate Wi-Fi networks, make sure it has encryption (eg WPA2) and regularly change the Wi-Fi password.
- Use a VPN (a virtual private network) if you are accessing your systems over public Wi-Fi or an insecure network.
Be aware and staff safe, in what is becoming an ever more dangerous world, in Ukraine and also potentially in a digital way, much closer to home.
Related Post: Keep a close eye on your human as well as ICT firewall?
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The Fall – Cyber Insekt.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
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