Defending Against Cybersecurity Threats: Best Practices for Individuals and Organizations

Cybersecurity breaches have become increasingly common in recent years, affecting organizations and individuals alike. According to a report by Risk Based Security, there were over 18,000 publicly disclosed data breaches in the first half of 2021, resulting in the exposure of over 18 billion records. This represents a 47% increase in the number of breaches compared to the same period in 2020.

The consequences of a cybersecurity breach can be severe and long-lasting. Breaches can lead to the theft of sensitive data, financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liabilities. For businesses, a cybersecurity breach can result in lost productivity, customer loss, and damage to the company's brand and reputation.

To address the growing threat of cybersecurity breaches, organizations need to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity. This includes implementing robust security measures, regularly monitoring systems for signs of intrusion, and educating employees about safe online practices. Organizations should also have an incident response plan in place to quickly and effectively respond to a breach if one occurs.

Individuals can also take steps to protect themselves from cybersecurity breaches, such as using strong and unique passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and being cautious of phishing attacks.

Defending against cyber security threats

Defending against cyber security threats is a complex and ongoing process that requires a combination of technical, administrative, and physical measures. Here are some general steps you can take to improve your cyber security posture:

1. Keep software and systems up-to-date: Regularly update your operating system, applications, and antivirus software to patch vulnerabilities and fix bugs.

2. Use strong and unique passwords: Use complex passwords and avoid using the same password across multiple accounts. Consider using a password manager to generate and store strong passwords.

3. Enable two-factor authentication: Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on all your online accounts, which adds an extra layer of security beyond passwords.

4. Be cautious of phishing attacks: Be suspicious of emails or messages that ask for personal or financial information or contain suspicious links. Always verify the source before providing any information.

5. Use a firewall: A firewall can help protect your network by filtering traffic and blocking unauthorized access.

6. Back up your data regularly: Back up your important data regularly to protect against data loss in case of a security breach or hardware failure.

7. Limit access to sensitive data: Restrict access to sensitive data to only those who need it and use secure methods to share data.

8. Educate yourself and others: Stay informed about the latest cyber security threats and educate others, including employees, family members, and friends, about safe online practices.

Remember, cyber security is an ongoing process, and it requires constant attention and vigilance. By implementing these steps, you can help protect yourself and your organization from cyber threats.

In conclusion, cybersecurity breaches are a growing threat that can have severe consequences for both organizations and individuals. By implementing robust security measures and staying vigilant, organizations and individuals can help reduce the risk of a breach and minimize the impact if one occurs.

Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4: How They're Helping the World

In the last few years, artificial intelligence has revolutionized the way we interact with technology. One of the most remarkable developments in this field is the creation of advanced chatbots powered by natural language processing (NLP). Among them, Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 are two of the most popular and powerful NLP models.

Chat GPT 3, released in 2020 by OpenAI, is a third-generation language model that can generate human-like responses to a wide range of prompts, from simple questions to complex essays. Its developers trained it on a massive corpus of text data, including books, articles, and websites, using an unsupervised learning algorithm that allowed it to learn patterns and structures in language without explicit guidance from humans.

Since its release, Chat GPT 3 has been used for a variety of applications, such as chatbots, language translation, content creation, and even coding. Its ability to understand natural language and generate coherent responses has made it a valuable tool for businesses, developers, and researchers alike.

Chat GPT 4, which is currently in development and expected to be released in the near future, promises to take NLP to the next level. According to OpenAI, Chat GPT 4 will be even more powerful and versatile than its predecessor, with the ability to perform tasks that are currently beyond the reach of AI, such as reasoning and common-sense understanding.

The Benefits of Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4

The benefits of Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 are numerous and far-reaching. Here are a few examples:

1. Improved Customer Experience: Chatbots powered by Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 can provide personalized and natural interactions with customers, improving the overall experience and satisfaction.

2. Language Translation: The ability of Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 to understand and generate language can be used to create better translation services, improving communication and understanding between people from different cultures and languages.

3. Content Creation: Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 can generate high-quality content for a variety of purposes, such as marketing, journalism, and education, saving time and resources for businesses and individuals.

4. Education: Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 can be used to create intelligent tutoring systems, helping students learn more effectively and efficiently.

Who is Using Chat GPT?

Many companies and organizations are already using Chat GPT 3 for various applications. Some of the notable examples are:

1. Microsoft: Microsoft has integrated Chat GPT 3 into its Power Virtual Agents platform, enabling developers to create conversational AI experiences with ease.

2. OpenAI: OpenAI has developed GPT-3-powered chatbots that can perform various tasks, such as writing emails, generating code, and even composing poetry.

3. Intel: Intel has used Chat GPT 3 to create an AI-powered chatbot to help customers find the right products and services.

The Future of Chat GPT

As AI technology continues to evolve, the future of Chat GPT looks promising. With the release of Chat GPT 4, we can expect even more advanced and sophisticated NLP models that can perform tasks that were previously thought impossible. In the coming years, we may see the emergence of AI-powered virtual assistants that can understand and respond to our needs naturally and intuitively, revolutionizing the way we interact with technology.

Conclusion

Chat GPT 3 and Chat GPT 4 are two of the most exciting developments in the field of artificial intelligence. Their ability to understand and generate language has opened up a world of possibilities.

Cyber Insurance Ransomware

Cybersecurity is more important now than ever, and with more and more businesses around the world being affected by cyberattacks, having adequate cyber insurance has become essential.

Due diligence is a crucial part of getting the right cyber insurance policy. Companies should evaluate their potential risks and vulnerabilities in order to determine if they need a robust policy or if a cheaper, lower-coverage policy can suffice. Knowing what type of policy they need can help them save money while increasing assurance that they are properly covered if an attack occurs.

Companies need to understand that getting the right cyber insurance policy comes at a cost, as premiums tend to increase significantly when coverage increases. However, with proper due diligence, companies can make sure that their policies meet their needs without paying too much for unnecessary coverage.

Cybersecurity companies are recognizing “cyber extortion coverage” or “ransomware cyber insurance” as a critical element in protecting against the increasing ransomware threats and cyber attacks. This type of insurance protects organizations from losses due to such malicious activities, such as data breaches, ransomware threats, and other forms of cyber attacks.

By providing this type of coverage, cybersecurity companies can give their clients greater security and peace of mind. This coverage helps ensure that they won't be responsible financially for payments associated with an attack that results in the loss or theft of sensitive data. It also provides protection against any reputational losses that may arise after such an attack has taken place.

Ransomware & cyber extortion cyber insurance

Ransomware cyber insurance, also known as cyber extortion coverage, can protect organizations and their customers from the financial losses associated with a malicious attack. Cyber security companies offer this coverage under their cyber liability policies, typically included with a sublimit to help cover medical expenses related to those affected by the attack. Such policies allow companies to respond quickly and effectively to a ransomware attack, limiting the downtime and damage caused. By providing this protection, cyber security companies can ensure that businesses have a back-up option in case of malicious attacks or other unforeseen disasters.

What is Cyber Insurance?

Cyber insurance offers an additional layer of security for businesses against the ever-growing risk of a ransomware attack. Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block access to critical data on your computer system until a ransom is paid. By purchasing cyber insurance, companies can minimize the financial impact if they are hit by such an attack, as the policy reimburses victims for any losses incurred as a result of the incident. Cyber insurance also offers security consulting services such as malware removal and web application testing that can help reduce the risk of being targeted in the first place. Companies looking to protect themselves from ransomware should consider investing in cyber insurance to ensure their critical systems are protected against these kinds of threats.

Cyber Insurance& ransomware Protections

Cyber insurance is increasingly becoming an integral part of a company's cybersecurity policy in the face of fast-growing cybercrime threats like ransomware. Ransomware attacks can cause significant financial loss and affect companies' operations in many ways. Cyber insurance acts as a safeguard against such malicious programs and financially mitigates any losses related to the attack and helps companies get back on track without too much disruption. Companies must ensure that they have cyber insurance policies in place to protect themselves from ransomware attacks which have the potential to wreak havoc on any system.

Cyber insurance provides protection against ransomware. Cyber insurance works by providing coverage for financial losses and other damages caused by a hacker, malware or ransomware attack. Cyber insurance policies often cover losses related to data privacy and security, reputation damage, business interruption, and legal expenses. This type of coverage is increasingly becoming more critical as companies are increasingly exposed to cyber-attacks like ransomware. Ransomware is malicious software that locks down computers and networks, preventing users from accessing their own data until a certain amount of money is paid in return for the unlock code. With cyber insurance in place, organizations can ensure that their operations are protected from the financial costs associated with these malicious attacks.

Cyber insurance protects you by transferring loss

Cyber criminals are on the rise, and companies need to do whatever they can to combat attacks from ransomware, malware and phishing attempts. Cyber security companies offer organizations a comprehensive solution for cyber extortion coverage that helps protect against costly losses associated with successful infiltrations. Cyber extortion coverage can be included within a cyber liability policy as a sublimit or it can be secured separately, depending on your company’s risk exposure profile. With this coverage in place, businesses can rest assured that their cyber risk is adequately covered and their reputation is protected.

Cyber insurance Due diligence to ensure adequate protection

With the increasing threat of cyber fraud, companies must perform some due diligence to ensure they have adequate protection. Cyber insurance policies protect businesses from any financial losses caused by cyber-attacks. However, without proper due diligence, companies may end up paying higher premiums or getting policies that do not cover all aspects of the risk.

Therefore, to reduce costs and get the right coverage, companies need to perform thorough research and find insurance providers who offer reasonable terms and conditions with their cyber insurance policies. Companies must also consider factors like premiums, deductibles, limits, and exclusions before purchasing a policy.

By doing so they will be able to get the most suitable coverage for their business at an affordable price.

Cyber insurance due diligence is a key process for any business when evaluating the cost and level of protection offered by their cyber insurance policy. As cyber risks continue to evolve, companies must always be aware of the increasing cost and premiums associated with their current policy and evaluate whether it is enough to keep up with the latest malicious threats.

In order to ensure the most effective protection, companies should conduct due diligence on their cyber insurance policies. This not only involves understanding how claims will be handled in different scenarios, but also considering the cost of increased coverage and extra premium costs that might be necessary. By understanding their risk profile and protecting themselves adequately, businesses can ensure they are equipped if they are ever faced with a malicious attack.

Cyber insurance premiums will continue to increase

Cyber attacks are rising yearly, with more businesses falling victim to cyber- Attacks resulting in security breaches and financial losses. As a result, more companies are now investing in cyber insurance policies to protect their data and minimize damages. However, this increased demand of cyber insurance policies has led to an increase in policy premiums, making it costlier for businesses to obtain the coverage they need. In this article, we will discuss why cyber insurance premiums continue to rise and suggest potential solutions for companies looking for coverage.

Cyber insurance must be included in your risk management strategy

Cyber insurance has become an essential part of any business's risk management strategy. As cyber-attacks become more frequent and destructive, enterprises are turning to cyber insurance providers to protect themselves from costly damages. But as the amount of claims for cyber-attacks increases, so does the increase in premium costs to cover those losses. This article will explore the reasons why we can expect to see a continuous increase in cyber insurance premiums over time.

Cyber insurance policies are becoming increasingly popular as more and more companies are seeing the benefit of having a policy in place to protect their business from cyber-attacks. As more companies realize the impact of cyber security breaches, the demand for cyber insurance is likely to increase, driving up premiums.

As prices increase, so too does the importance of having a comprehensive cyber insurance policy that covers all the possible loopholes that can occur during an attack. With this in mind, businesses are wise to explore their options when selecting their providers and to ensure they get the best coverage available for their needs. By exploring these options and understanding what is covered under different policies, firms can make an informed decision about which provider offers them the most protection at a competitive premium cost.

Known Cyber Espionage Group and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)

The primary purpose of cyber espionage groups and advanced persistent threats (APTs) is to gather sensitive information covertly from target organizations or individuals. This information can include a wide range of data, such as intellectual property, trade secrets, military plans, political intelligence, and more.

APTs are called "advanced" because they use advanced tactics and techniques to infiltrate and compromise target systems. They are called "persistent" because they often maintain a long-term presence on a target's systems to continue gathering information.

Cyber espionage groups and APTs are often sponsored by governments or other organizations, and they may target a wide range of sectors, including government, military, finance, and more. The information they gather can be used for various purposes, including military advantage, economic gain, and political leverage.

Here are a few things you will need to know to understand this blog:

• Compromise: When a system or network is compromised, an unauthorized party has gained access to it. This could be due to a security vulnerability or a successful cyber attack.

• Cyber espionage: Cyber espionage refers to the practice of collecting sensitive information covertly through the use of computer networks and the internet, often for military or political purposes.

• Exploit: An exploit is a vulnerability or weakness in a computer system, network, or application that can be exploited by an attacker to gain unauthorized access or perform other malicious actions.

• Ransomware: Ransomware is malware that encrypts a victim's files, making them inaccessible until a ransom is paid to the attacker.

• Breach: A breach is an incident in which a security system or protocol has been successfully attacked or bypassed.

• Phishing: Phishing is a type of cyber attack that involves tricking people into revealing sensitive information, such as login credentials or financial information, by pretending to be a legitimate entity. This is often done through fake emails or websites.

Known Cyber Espionage Group and Advanced Persistent Threats

There are many known cyber espionage groups and advanced persistent threats (APTs) that have been identified by cybersecurity researchers. Some examples include:

• APT1 (also known as Comment Crew or Shanghai Group): A Chinese APT that has been active since 2004 and has been linked to several high-profile cyber espionage campaigns.

• APT28 (also known as Fancy Bear or Sofacy Group): A Russian APT that has been active since at least 2007 and has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns against governments, military organizations, and other high-value targets.

• APT29 (also known as Cozy Bear or The Dukes): Another Russian APT that has been active since at least 2008 and has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns against a wide range of targets, including government agencies, think tanks, and political organizations.

• APT3 (also known as Gothic Panda or UPS Team): A Chinese APT that has been active since at least 2010 and has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns against a wide range of targets, including governments, military organizations, and businesses.

• APT10 (also known as Stone Panda or MenuPass Group): A Chinese APT that has been active since at least 2010 and has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns against a wide range of targets, including governments, military organizations, and businesses.

Cyber Espionage Group and Advanced Persistent Threats Tools

Cyber espionage groups and advanced persistent threats (APTs) use various tools and techniques to infiltrate and compromise target systems. These can include:

Malware: APTs often use malware to infect and compromise target systems. This can include viruses, trojans, worms, ransomware, and other types of malicious software.

Spearphishing: APTs may use spearphishing attacks to trick target individuals into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. Spearphishing attacks are highly targeted and often involve using fake emails or websites that appear legitimate.

Vulnerabilities: APTs may exploit vulnerabilities in software or systems to gain access to a target's systems. This can include known vulnerabilities that have not been patched, as well as zero-day vulnerabilities (vulnerabilities that are unknown to the vendor and have not yet been patched).

Command and control servers: APTs may use command and control servers to remotely control the malware they have deployed on a target's systems and to exfiltrate stolen data.

Custom tools: APTs may use custom tools developed specifically for their operations. These tools may be designed to evade detection or to perform specific tasks, such as stealing specific types of data or taking control of systems.

How to Protect System Form Cyber Espionage Groups and Advanced Persistent Threats?

Here are a few steps that organizations and individuals can take to protect their systems from cyber espionage groups and advanced persistent threats (APTs):

• Keep software and systems up to date: Make sure to apply the latest security updates and patches for all software and systems. This can help to close known vulnerabilities that could be exploited by APTs.

• Use antivirus and firewall software: Install and regularly update antivirus and firewall software to help protect against malware and other threats.

• Use strong, unique passwords: Use strong, unique passwords for all accounts and do not reuse passwords across different accounts.

• Enable two-factor authentication: Use two-factor authentication, which requires a second form of authentication in addition to a password, whenever possible. This can help to protect against attacks that rely on stolen passwords.

• Be cautious of emails and links: Be cautious of emails and links, particularly those that come from unknown sources. Do not click on links or download attachments from untrusted sources, as they may contain malware.

• Educate employees: Educate employees about the risks of cyber attacks and teach them how to recognize and avoid suspicious emails and other threats.

• Conduct regular security assessments: Conduct regular security assessments to identify vulnerabilities and to ensure that security measures are effective.

Are you worried about cyber espionage?

CyberSecOp managed services help organizations by providing the expertise and resources; we are a specialized cybersecurity provider for organizations that may not have the in-house expertise or resources to manage their cybersecurity effectively.

Some common types of managed services in the context of APTs and cyber espionage may include:

• Threat intelligence and monitoring: Offer real-time monitoring for APTs and other threats, as well as analysis of threat intelligence data.

• Vulnerability management: Offer services to help organizations identify and address vulnerabilities in their systems and applications.

• Security incident response: Offer support to organizations in responding to security incidents, including providing guidance on how to contain and mitigate the effects of an attack.

• Security testing and assessment: Providers may offer services to help organizations assess the effectiveness of their current security measures and identify areas for improvement.

CyberSecOp use MITRE ATT&CK to help organizations better understand the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by attackers and design more effective defenses against them. We also use it in relation to incident response, allowing organizations to quickly identify what stage of an attack they are dealing with and take appropriate action.

Using MITRE ATT&CK to provide services, it helps your clients improve their cybersecurity posture and defend against cyber attacks. This could involve providing guidance on how to implement controls to mitigate specific attack techniques, conducting assessments to identify vulnerabilities and areas for improvement, or providing incident response support.

The Majority Of US Defense Contractors Fails To Meet Basic Cybersecurity Standards.

 According to the study, this could have severe consequences for defense contractors, with nearly half losing up to 60% of their revenue if DoD contracts are lost.

"CMMC is a set of commercially reasonable standards to protect data," said CyberSecOp CISO. Organizations must address it as a part of doing business or risk losing the contract. “Nearly nine in ten (90%) of US defense contractors need to meet basic cybersecurity regulatory requirements.

According to the survey, defense contractors still need to implement basic standards. A sampling:

·        35% have security information and event management (SIEM)

·        39% have an endpoint detection response solution (EDR)

·        18% have a vulnerability management solution

·        28% have multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Defense contractors are being targeted by state hackers.

Defense contractors are a popular target for nation-state groups due to the sensitive information they possess about the US military. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an advisory in October 2022 highlighting advanced persistent threat (APT) activity detected on a defense organization's enterprise network.

CyberSecOp CISO is concerned that four out of five defense contractors reported a cyber-related incident, with nearly three out of five reporting business loss due to a cyber-related event.

CyberSecOp is a CMMC-AB REGISTERED PROVIDER ORGANIZATION (RPO)

DOD has made an effort to simplify CMMC, but it is undoubtedly still complicated. CMMC is based on several other standards, including DFARS, 800-171, and ISO 27001. Utilizing all the above information security standards make it very challenging for most DOD contractors to copy with CMMC. Get compliant with CyberSecOp CMMC Assessment, Security Program & Advisory Services.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022

What is Cybersecurity Awareness Month?

Cybersecurity Awareness Month was founded in 2004 as a collaborative effort between the government and private industries to raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal information from digital forms of crime. It also aims to increase the resiliency of the country during a cyber threat.

Cybersecurity Awareness makes the community more aware to recognize, reject and report threats. Organizations can protect their users from being scammed and safeguard the organization.

When is Cybersecurity Awareness Month? 

October is known as National Cybersecurity awareness month. It's an international campaign.

What is the history behind Cybersecurity Awareness Month?

In 2004 the President of the United States and Congress declared October to be Cybersecurity Awareness Month, helping individuals protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data become more commonplace. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) lead a collaborative effort between government and industry to raise cybersecurity awareness nationally and internationally.

 Facts and figures

• 42% of schools have students or employees that circumvent cybersecurity protections (Impact My Biz)

• Nearly three-quarters (74%) of ransomware attacks on higher education institutions succeeded due to a lack of awareness (Inside Higher Ed)

• Ransomware attacks on U.S. schools and colleges cost $6.62b in 2020 (darkreading)

  • 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. (World Economic Forum)

  • 69% of Companies’ Are Increasing Their Investments in Their Cybersecurity Budgets (Global digital Trust insights report

  • APWG (Anti Phishing Working Group) Reports That Website Phishing Attacks Have Tripled Since Early 2020

  • 88% of Businesses Experienced a Ransomware Attack

What are some examples of past Cyber-attacks?

The most recent well-known attack was the Colonial Pipeline (May 2021). The pipeline from Houston to the southeastern United States suffered a ransomware attack that took over key components of the computer software used to control the pipeline. This attack was singlehandedly the largest attack on oil and gas infrastructure in U.S. history. The attack led to panic buying of gasoline in the southeast, which caused shortages in some areas. Anthem (2015) a U.S. healthcare company, sustained what at the time was the biggest data breach in U.S. history. Hackers gained access to patient names, Social Security numbers, birthdays, addresses, emails, employment information and salary data.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) was hit with a cyberattack in 2021. In mid-April of 2021, the hacker group Babuk claimed to have stolen 500 GB of confidential data concerning the Houston Rockets. Babuk warned that these confidential documents, including financial info and contracts, would be made public if their demands were not met. As of this posting, no ransom payments have been made.

REvil, the same hacker group made headlines in July with an attack on Kaseya. Kaseya manages IT infrastructure for major companies worldwide. Similar to the attacks on Colonial Pipeline, this hack could potentially disrupt key areas of the economy on a large scale.

REvil carried out this attack by sending out a fake software update through Kaseya’s Virtual System Administrator, which infiltrated both Kaseya’s direct clients as well as their customers. According to REvil, one million systems were encrypted and held for ransom. Kayesa, stated that around 50 of their clients and around 1000 businesses were impacted. REvil demanded $70 million in bitcoin. To illustrate the impact of the cyber-attack, Coop, a Swedish supermarket chain, was forced to close 800 stores for a full week.

Soon after the attack, the FBI gained access to REvil’s servers and obtained the encryption keys to resolve the hack. Fortunately, no ransom was paid, and Kaseya could restore its clients' IT infrastructure. Although it started as one of the biggest ransomware attacks of the year, the situation was salvaged in the end.

 How should you and others stay safe?

·         Always use Antivirus

·         For younger kids use Parental Controls

·         Never download random files or software

·         When you can Use Two factor authentication

·         Keep your software up to date

·         Complex Passwords

·         Don’t click on any links or attachments in texts, emails, or social media posts

·         Don’t connect to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks

·         Only visit secure websites (HTTPS)

·         Try not to overshare information (social media)

·         Use a VPN

Healthcare is a Top 3 Cyber Target

 Attacks on the healthcare industry are on the rise as noted in a recent article published in CYBERSECOP.  Healthcare providers of all sizes are subject to attack and in this case, CHRISTUS Health learned of “unauthorized access” likely similar to 254 ransomware incidents targeting patient care facilities between June 2020 and April 2022 worldwide.  Patients are at risk, both their health and their PII where threat actors can alter and/or add to patient billings with no notice of impropriety.  The true impact will be hard to discern until more time and data are collected but we know one thing for sure, the healthcare industry needs to take cybersecurity as seriously as they do patient care and follow their own advice; Plan, Prevent, Protect and Respond.

Plan – Get a Risk Assessment to identify and understand your cybersecurity vulnerabilities is one of the most critical steps as the awareness will lead to a prioritized remediation plan.  Even a chink in the armor will have your patients, employees, and community concerned as a cyber-attack will likely affect critical operations because the prize is financial data, patient, and employee Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Prevent - After an assessment is completed, you need a trusted and reliable security cyber organization to assist in leveraging the right framework and controls to be measured by such as HITURST, HITECH, HIPAA and PCI.  These guidelines assist in defining the appropriate critical security controls for effective cyber defense.  These efforts can be awareness training, policy creation & enforcement, and security controls as well as incident response readiness and governance.  It’s a journey, not a sprint.

Protect – Within most remediation plans include investments in endpoint protection dark web monitoring and focusing on digital trust goals to ensure the technology investments already made as well as those in the future work in harmony.  Like a Rubik’s cube, the goal is to have every facet of your organization in order, not just celebrating a single win.  It is important to have a managed security partner to protect your patients, employees, devices, and data with monitored protection systems along with managed & encrypted backups with a Security Operations Center staffed with certified security professionals watching and engaging on your behalf 24x7x365.

Respond – Did you know that a threat actor will live in your ecosystem for an average of 121 days mining sensitive data, passwords, organization charts, and behaviors before acting?  Nearly 95% of ransomware attacks are preventable so what starts as a threat becomes a technology issue, then a business risk issue, and eventually decision-making and communications issue at the board level.  Do you pay the ransomware or not?  Are we able to recover our data?  Has the threat actor accessed our PII?  And equally important is how do you keep from reaching this point again.  Having an incident response assessment and plan might be the one thing you do if you don’t buy into everything else.  You should receive an IT assessment of “how capable are we to thwart an attack?” and “how able are we to recover if breached?”  Buying cyber insurance is not the silver bullet it used to be so having an incident partner who is proactively focused on your company’s sensitive data and reputation is paramount.

Not unlike a hospital, there are two main ways to address cyber security by coming through the Emergency Room or the front door proactively for testing; I recommend the latter.  A proactive health check is the best step to understanding your ability to fight off an attack like a stress test.  The results may drive adjustments in behavior and readiness, such as point endpoint detection, policy creation & enforcement, and security training.  If you enter the ER, then don’t panic because you read this blog and signed up a reputable security partner to react & respond, including quarantining affected systems to prevent the ransom spread, resetting all passwords, checking your backups, activating your existing crisis/DR plans and negotiate with the threat actor if that is the best business decision communicating carefully along the way with detailed documentation.  The moral of this story is that hope is not a strategy, so know your security scorecard and realize cyber readiness is a journey, not a sprint.

Author: Christopher Yula

Don't Forget the Fundamentals on World Backup Day 2022

March 31st is apparently world backup day! Who knew? In honor of that it seemed like a good time for a quick post extolling the virtues of backups. According to the “WorldBackupDay” website, 21% of people have never taken a backup and 30% of computers are already infected with malware. While these stats are related to individuals and not necessarily businesses the stats sound about right.

Take Backups!

Regardless of whether you are a small business or a global Fortune 500 company, backups are an essential part of your organization's risk management plan.  It’s easy to be lulled into complacency.  Just the other day I was working with an organization in the mechanical service delivery industry who’s entire “IT Infrastructure” was a single 2017 iMac.  They never bothered with any additional machines, backups and other such items because they had been told that Mac’s were “bulletproof” and not susceptible to the common maladies of the humble PC.  Unfortunately, their Mac was susceptible to good old fashioned old age and corrupt updates.  As a result they found themselves in a position where they had a large proposal for a job due the next day and the only place it existed was on this one broken Mac.  Now fortunately for them, we were able to recover the system and restore their data, but what if we hadn’t been able to?  It is absolutely critical, regardless of the size of your organization that you have a backup solution in place tailored to your specific needs.  Stay tuned for some suggestions on backup providers we love at the end of this article!

Test your Backups!

This might seem like a no-brainer, but in addition to taking backups, it's critically important that you TEST your backups.  Having a plan and procedure in place for how to recover your data in the event of a disaster is just as important as taking the backup in the first place!  In my last example of the company with a single iMac.  What if they had set up icloud and automatically configured their file to sync there.  If I had asked the owner of the business if he had the password for the icloud account or even knew what account icloud was associated with, I wonder if he would have known?  Having a documented plan that outlines where your backups go, what authentication is used to access them, how frequently they are taken, and how to restore them to a device is critical. If you are a larger organization you probably want to start having conversations about RTO and RPO at this point as well and ensuring your backup solution can meet those goals. (Recovery Time Objective, Recovery Point Objective.)  Essentially, how long will it take to recover my data and how much time passes between backups, or put more simply, how much data can I afford to lose?  1 Day’s Worth? 1 Weeks worth?  Less? More? Make sure your backup solution can meet your specific needs and goals!  

Protect your Backups!

Finally, congrats if you're taking and testing your backups!  Are you also protecting your backups?  You’re probably thinking, protecting my backups?! What’s this guy going on about now?  Consider this, you backup your information every night and test it regularly.  You sleep easy at night knowing that you can recover should the worst happen.  However, what you don’t know, is that earlier last month one of your employee’s laptops was infected with a virus.  This virus replicated across your organization but stayed dormant, collecting information about your company and environment but not taking any malicious actions yet.  The threat actor discovers that your backups run nightly and are stored for 4 months on a network share.  The virus then deletes all of your backups and begins encrypting your files.  When you return to work the next day and find all of your computers and files encrypted, you attempt to recover from backup only to find your backups have been deleted!  This is an oversimplification of the process but this is essentially what the bad guys are doing.  There are many ways to prevent this sort of attack including storing backups in offline or immutable data stores, encrypting your backups and storing multiple copies of every backup in different locations.  At this point you might be thinking “I can simply copy files to an external drive of some sort on a regular basis right?” , but what if something happens to that drive?  As the old timer’s say, “two is one and one is none”.  The idea is that if you only have one, something could happen to it and then you have none.  Have a backup plan for your backup plan!

Conclusion

Now that you’re completely terrified know that there are solutions out there for all of these problems.  Proper backup planning is a key component of every organization's Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and Incident Response Planning.  If you are looking for assistance with any of those plans, make sure you give us at CyberSecOp a call, we would love to help you with this.

In the meantime if you're looking for somewhere to start with backup’s here are some of our favorites. 

Author: Timothy Burger

ADVISORY: Reports of possible digital breach

ADVISORY: Reports of possible digital breach

 Okta investigating reports of possible digital breach

Lapsus$, a cyber extortion gang, has announced that they have breached Microsoft and Okta.

The gang has leaked torrents containing source code for Bing, Bing Maps, and Microsoft Cortana, as well as a screenshot of an internal Microsoft Azure DevOps account. They also claim to have had “Superuser/Admin” access to Okta’s systems for two months, and said its focus was “only on Okta customers.”

Both Microsoft and OKTA  have started an investigation to confirm or disprove they’ve been breached. 

Recommended Actions: 

These attacks are a striking reminder of the supply chain’s cyber risks - Real risks brought to organizations by use of softwares and systems like OKTA, Microsoft, as well as many others.

Please work with your vCISO or Risk Manager to ensure the proper Vendor Security controls and processes are in place as well as other vital security controls that will drastically reduce the possibility of these dangerous hacks spilling into your network and systems.

Author: Michael Sardari

What Does Cybersecurity Compliance Mean?

Cybersecurity Compliance involves meeting various controls (usually enacted by a regulatory authority, law, or industry group) to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. This is usually driven by a security consultant.

What is a Security Consultant?

A security consultant, also sometimes called a security analyst, pinpoints vulnerabilities in computer systems, networks, and software programs and identifies solutions to defend against hackers. This consultant role is a strong example of a highly specialized IT occupation.

What Does a Cybersecurity Consultant do?

Cybersecurity consultants assess an organization's security operations, computer systems, network, and software for vulnerabilities, then design and implement the best security solutions for the company. If a cyberattack does happen, the client will reach out to a security consulting firm, such as CyberSecOp, to seek expertise to respond and mitigate the damage. Cybersecurity consultants and risk managers can provide your organization with technology controls, policies, procedures and other management controls. 

What does a Risk Manager do?

While cyber security consultants/analysts are geared more towards the technology stack of an organization a Risk Manager takes it a level higher and focuses on the organization risk from a holistic view. A risk manager can help an organization understand how to formulate a documented Risk Management Framework (RMF) in which representation from key stakeholders and leaders take part in continuously assessing, identifying and mitigating risks for the organization. This goes beyond the security tools and into the realm of Policy, Culture, Procedure, Communication and continuous improvement. Risk Managers are skilled at organizational risk and are a key component of not only ensuring compliance, but risk reduction as a whole. It is important to remember that being compliant is not necessarily being secure, and risk mangers can bring that whole package together.

What are Cybersecurity Consulting Services?

Cybersecurity consulting helps organizations mitigate certain risks and prevent identity theft, hacking and data theft. A cybersecurity consultant can also help identify risks that the business may have previously overlooked. Cybersecurity consulting acts as an extension to your in-house security team.

Main Areas of Focus Will Be:

• Security management, governance and compliance

• Risk Management

• Security monitoring

• Security architecture

• Incident response

  • Remediation of attacks

  • Attack detection

Cybersecurity Consulting Service Benefits

1. Cybersecurity consulting acts as an extension to your in-house security team.

2. The professionals from CyberSecOp security consulting services can identify problems within the organization

3. Maximize your security investments with cybersecurity services.

4. Cybersecurity consulting management makes it easier to handle regulatory and compliance requirements.

5. Cybersecurity services provide you with experts who have the training, experience and qualifications needed to identify and manage risk all the while ensuring your business remains compliant.

CyberSecOp security consulting services help your organization achieve maturity within your security environment. CyberSecOp cybersecurity consulting firm has experience with diverse clients across many industries. A skilled group of security consultants will know the pitfalls and hurdles to avoid in relation to your security transformation or security compliance requirements.

CEO Letter - Cyber Security Operations Consulting (CyberSecOp)

Vinny La Rocca

Chief Executive Officer

We believe the foundation of our success is grounded in our vision to uplift enterprise security while ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability beyond best practices. That purpose is a virtuous circle. We create long-term value by empowering our people to deliver for our customers and communities. CyberSecOp helps organizations with security consulting, incident response and ransomware negotiation, payment, and recovery.  

Our vital role to the community can be found in our mission statement. Our mission is to make the world a better place by defending and protecting our clients and partners from the theft of sensitive data through rapid incident response, cyber security programs, threat hunting, and the deployment of protective measures. 

Sustainability and Growth

Our sustainability is rooted in our vision and mission statement. We believe this is an integral part of our growth and the reason we can keep our promises to our clients and partners.

Growth - Expectations for 2022 are higher than 2021, a year with 85% growth. Cyber risks currently rank as one of the top global threats to businesses and custodians of data, along with an ever-increasing number of data privacy and protection laws. These factors, combined with CyberSecOp’s ability to respond both proactively and reactively, put the company in a very favorable position.

Partnerships - CyberSecOp continues to develop, encourage and align an increasing number of strategic partnerships, allowing our teams to continually improve upon our Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and expand our portfolio and breadth of services.

Culture - CyberSecOp has built a culture of people passionate about Cybersecurity and Professional Services. Uniting around a common goal brings our team together and ensures everyone is working to assist our clients with Cyber Security and compliance. We are a diverse workforce with an open and collaborative culture. Our goal is to be a leading security consulting company by empowering our employees to provide top-quality services measured against best-in-class industry benchmarks.

Customer Success - Customer satisfaction and success continue to be CyberSecOp’s highest priority, measured by retention and the increase in recurring services. Our success is a direct result of the success of our clients.

Our commitment to our mission, staff, clients and partners will continue to fuel our fast growth, creating long-term value for all stakeholders. 

What is Your Organization's Cybersecurity Game Plan?

What is Your Organization’s Game Plan for Optimizing Cybersecurity Management?

Like the teams prepping for Sunday's Big Game, cybersecurity and risk management require a playbook to efficiently manage multiple frameworks. Most organizations are going on the offensive with their defensive measures in regards to cybersecurity and risk management. CyberSecOp cybersecurity programs empower your security maturity and culture by utilizing multiple security frameworks to address expanding requirements.

 Why is Offensive Defense Important?

Threats like ransomware give attackers the ability to shut down your access to devices, databases and other data streams. While large corporations and government agencies are in attackers’ crosshairs to yield big payouts, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are not immune to ransomware risks.

Which Security Framework Can Reduce the Risk of Ransomware?

CyberSecOp provides cyber risk and advisory programs to identify the right security framework for your organization and industry.   

How CyberSecOp Assists Our Customers:

To protect against ransomware, CyberSecOp assists clients to implement NIST Cybersecurity Framework and NIST SP 800-207, Zero Trust Architecture to help understand, manage and reduce your cybersecurity risks like phishing and ransomware attacks.

CyberSecOp assist our customers with:

Benefits

Reduce the potential of ransomware encryption  

• Experienced Security & IT leader

• Reduce risk

• Build risk assessment program

• Third-party risks, privacy compliance and data processing mapping.

• Response and mitigation strategies

• Security monitoring (SOC & MDR)

• GRC platform that incorporates all stages of processing in the risk operational workflow.

• Monitor and report on combines and individual frameworks

CyberSecOp cybersecurity experts have been involved in thousands of audit processes at organizations worldwide. Our team has experience with the following framework and regulatory requirements: NIST, PCI, HIPAA, GLBA, SOC, FISMA, GDPR, NYDFS, ISO 27000, SEC, FINRA and others.

Holistic Ransomware Security Approach

Do you have a holistic approach for security against ransomware? To prevent events from escalating, consider immediate containment and expert remediation assistance. Ransomware attacks are rampant, and include hackers locking up computer systems and demanding a payment to unlock them. Ransomware has had devastating effects on our infrastructure and economy, impeded emergency responders, stalled tax payments and forced government offices back to pen-and-paper operations for weeks on end.

80% of those who paid their ransom were attacked again, and not even security firms are immune to these attacks.  

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a form of malicious software (malware) that is designed to encrypt files on a device, making the files and the systems that rely on them unusable. Malicious actors then demand a ransom payment, usually in the form of cryptocurrency, in exchange for decryption. These malicious actors may also make extortion demands, by threating to release stolen data if a ransom is not paid, or may come back after the fact and demand an additional payment in order to prevent the release of stolen data.

Recent Breach of a Top Security Firm

Accenture, one of the largest security firms around, confirmed in August 2021 that it was hit by a ransomware attack, with a hacker group using the LockBit ransomware reportedly threatening to release the company’s data and sell insider information.

Previously, the cybersecurity firm FireEye had been the first call for help at government agencies and international companies who had been hacked by sophisticated attackers. Yet on Dec 8, 2020, FireEye announced it had been breached, and not just data but also some of its most valuable tools had been stolen. 

Ransomware Impact

The impact of a successful ransomware deployment includes both technical and non-technical challenges, and can be crippling to business operations. Modern-day attackers have developed advanced techniques that now require a holistic security risk mitigation strategy, inclusive from the board to technical practitioners.

The impact of ransomware can include:

·         Temporary, and possibly permanent, loss of your company's data

·         A complete shutdown of your company's operations

·         Financial loss as a result of revenue-generating operations being shut down

·         Financial loss associated with the cost of remediation efforts

·         Permanent damage to your company's reputation

How Can CyberSecOp Help Your Organization?

Holistic Security Risk Mitigation Strategy

A holistic approach to cybersecurity can address the following components and their implications for governance, organizational structures, and processes.  Our holistic security program includes a risk management program, which provides an accurate overview of the risk landscape and governing principles that ensure accurate risk reporting. We address:

• Assets: Clearly defining critical assets

• Controls: Differentiated controls to balance security with agility

• Processes: State-of-the-art and fully tested procedures for optimal security and remediation

• Organization: Bringing the right skills, most efficient decision making, and effective enterprise-wide cooperation into your organization

• Governance: Investments in operational resilience, prioritized based on deep transparency into cyber risks including third parties and vendors, covering of the whole value chain

• Patches: Keeping your network up to date with the latest software patches

• Software Mitigations: Using robust antivirus and firewall protections in your network

• Backups: Backing up data securely and separately from your network, and routinely testing restoring from backups

Incident Response Services

Scoping and Investigation

The CyberSecOp Incident Response (IR) Team conducts forensic analysis to identify root causes and ensure rapid containment of ongoing attacks. This swiftness to action helps prevent escalation.

Services and Expert Guidance

CyberSecOp IR Team remediates issues throughout the network and implements updates to configurations, architecture, and tooling.

Advanced Threat Analysis

The CyberSecOp Team conducts in-depth investigations including root cause analysis, malware reverse engineering and comprehensive incident reporting.

How Does Ransomware Infect my Network?

Ransomware, like other forms of malware, seeks to take advantage of poor security practices employed by employees and system administrators. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) the most common methods of infection are:

• Email Phishing: This social engineering attack vector occurs when a cyber-criminal sends an email which appears to be legitimate, but in fact contains a link to a malicious website or document with a malicious script, which then infects the recipient’s computer and associated network.

• Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Vulnerabilities: RDP is a type of software that allows individuals to control the resources of another computer over the internet. RDP is commonly used by employees working remotely and by system administrators to manage computers from a distance.

• Software Vulnerabilities: These vulnerabilities are flaws in the code of a piece of software (like Microsoft Word) that can be exploited by threat actors to gain control of a system to deploy malware. A common example would be “macros” that get installed within Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel that lead to infection.

Best Practices and remedial measures

Users and administrators are advised to take the following preventive measures to protect their computer networks from ransomware infection/ attacks:

• Perform regular backups of all critical information to limit the impact of data or system loss and to help expedite the recovery process. Ideally, this data should be kept on a separate device, and backups should be stored offline.

• Check regularly for the integrity of the information stored in the databases.

• Regularly check the contents of backup files of databases for any unauthorized encrypted contents of data records or external elements, (backdoors /malicious scripts.)

• Ensure integrity of the codes /scripts being used in database, authentication and sensitive systems

• Establish a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) for your domain, which is an email validation system designed to prevent spam by detecting email spoofing by which most of the ransomware samples successfully reaches the corporate email boxes.

• Keep the operating system third party applications (MS office, browsers, browser Plugins) up-to-date with the latest patches.

• Application white listing/Strict implementation of Software Restriction Policies (SRP)to block binaries running from %APPDATA% and %TEMP% paths. Ransomware sample drops and executes generally from these locations.

• Maintain updated Antivirus software on all systems

• Don't open attachments in unsolicited e-mails, even if they come from people in your contact list, and never click on a URL contained in an unsolicited e-mail, even if the link seems benign. In cases of genuine URLs close out the e-mail and go to the organization's website directly through browser

• Follow safe practices when browsing the web. Ensure the web browsers are secured enough with appropriate content controls.

• Network segmentation and segregation into security zones - help protect sensitive information and critical services. Separate administrative network from business processes with physical controls and Virtual Local Area Networks.

• Disable ActiveX content in Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, etc.

• Disable remote Desktop Connections, employ least-privileged accounts. Limit users who can log in using Remote Desktop, set an account lockout policy. Ensure proper RDP logging and configuration.

• Restrict access using firewalls and allow only to selected remote endpoints, VPN may also be used with dedicated pool for RDP access

• Use strong authentication protocol, such as Network Level Authentication (NLA) in Windows.

• Additional Security measures that may be considered are

• Use RDP Gateways for better management

• Change the listening port for Remote Desktop

• Tunnel Remote Desktop connections through IPSec or SSH

• Two-factor authentication may also be considered for highly critical systems

• If not required consider disabling, PowerShell / windows script hosting.

• Restrict users' abilities (permissions) to install and run unwanted software applications.

• Enable personal firewalls on workstations.

• Implement strict External Device (USB drive) usage policy.

• Employ data-at-rest and data-in-transit encryption.

• Consider installing Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, or similar host-level anti-exploitation tools.

• Block the attachments of file types, exe|pif|tmp|url|vb|vbe|scr|reg|cer|pst|cmd|com|bat|dll|dat|hlp|hta|js|wsf

• Carry out vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) and information security audit of critical networks/systems, especially database servers from CERT-IN empaneled auditors. Repeat audits at regular intervals.

• Individuals or organizations are not encouraged to pay the ransom, as this does not guarantee files will be released. Report such instances of fraud to CERT-In and Law Enforcement agencies

Our IT & cybersecurity consulting service protects you from cyber criminals in myriad ways. From implementing a cybersecurity program, which include a written information security program and cybersecurity assessment, to purchasing our best-in-class cybersecurity consulting and IT security solutions, engaging with CyberSecOp will lead you in the right direction towards an enhanced security stance. CyberSecOp is an ISO 27001 Certification Organization - join thousands of businesses by putting your security in our hands.

Microsoft Warns of Sneaky Phishing Campaign

Microsoft's Security Intelligence team sounds the alarm on a sneaky phishing email campaign with fake sender addresses. The phishing email also cleverly employs various detection evasion techniques to trick most automated filters and users in its attempt to garner Microsoft Office 365 credentials.

The alert was sent after observing an active campaign that was zoning in on Office 365 organizations with convincing emails.

In a statement by Microsoft, "An active phishing campaign is using a crafty combination of legitimate-looking original sender email addresses, spoofed display sender addresses that contain the target usernames and domains, and display names that mimic legitimate services to try and slip through email filters."

Microsoft notes that this campaign is sneakier than usual due to the convincing Microsoft logos with the link posing as a 'file share' request to access bogus reports. However, the main phishing URL relies on a Google storage resource that takes the victim to the Google App Engine domain Appspot. This results in hiding a second URL that directs the victim to a compromised SharePoint site, and thus allowing the attack to bypass sandboxes.

Researchers at Microsoft have published details

Researchers at Microsoft have published details regarding the architectures connected to the spoofed emails mimicking SharePoint and other products for credential phishing. "The operator is also known to use legitimate URL infrastructure such as Google, Microsoft, and Digital Ocean to host their phishing pages," Microsoft added.

Accounting to the FBI

According to the FBI's latest figures, phishing attacks have cost Americans more than $4.2 billion last year. Fraudsters employ business email compromise (BEC) attacks, which rely on compromised email accounts or email addresses that are similar to legitimate ones and are difficult to filter as they blend within normal, expected traffic. BEC attacks are far more costly than high-profile ransomware attacks.

Three Reasons Why You Need an Incident Response Solution

Imagine the following scenario: you arrive early to work in the morning, plop down at your desk with coffee in hand, and log in to your computer. You’re excited to start working on a big project, but first you are greeted with this message:

Quickly, you dash over to a colleagues’ desk. They too, have the same message on their desk. You try dialing your IT department, but they don’t start until normal business hours.

What do you do? Where do you even start?

It’s easy to think that the above scenario would never happen to you. In reality, a 2020 survey of 600 businesses in the United States revealed that a staggering 78% had been infected with ransomware that year. The average cost of recovering from a ransomware attack has spiked to $1.85 million in 2021!

Ransomware isn’t the only threat to your business continuity. In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered massive power outages due to a severe winter storm. At least 151 people died as a result. Property damage has been estimated at more than $195 billion.

What do these scenarios have in common? They demonstrate the need to prepare for the worst; this is the essence of Incident Response.

What is Incident Response anyway?

Every organization needs to have an Incident Response Plan (IRP). The team that executes the IRP is the Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT). The most important feature of both the IRP and CIRT is that they are clearly defined before the incident takes place! Disaster recovery is hardest when preparation is lacking.

The Incident Response Plan details who does what if an incident does happen. This can include using alternate systems, notifying stakeholders, or restoring from backups.

Perhaps the most important part of the Incident Response Plan is the postmortem. Now that you’ve recovered, what will you do in order to ensure that attackers won’t attack again using the exact same methods? The Incident Response Team will identify what door the attackers used to get in and make sure it stays shut.

Why do I need Incident Response?

I’m so glad you asked. Here’s three reasons why you need Incident Response for your organization:

1.     The probability of an incident has never been higher.

Ransomware is pervasive. At this point, we need to ask ourselves not “will I get breached?” but “when will I get breached?”

A proper defense has multiple layers. Having a fence around your house is nice, but you’ll still have homeowners’ insurance. Incident Response is a way to mitigate the risks of ransomware that we can’t avoid.

2.     The cost of an incident has never been higher.

How much would it cost to replace your entire infrastructure? The nasty aspect of ransomware is that, in some cases, the only way to ensure that the attackers have been completely removed from your environment is to start from scratch. This means replacing every workstation and server in your organization.

Sometimes, there simply isn’t a price to pay; there may not even be new hardware available to purchase with a global silicon chip shortage.

3.     You can’t afford not to.

Every business owes itself to do a risk analysis of a ransomware attack. What would be the cost of not doing business for an hour? A day? A week? You will find that incident response is a necessary piece of the plan for protecting your assets and business continuity.

CyberSecOp is a leader in the Incident Response field. CyberSecOp consultants are cyber incident response subject matter experts who have collaborated on numerous security projects and operational improvement initiatives. We will support your security operational activities by helping to develop an incident response plan and work with your IT team to mitigate any potential risk. Our teams will create investigative processes and playbooks. In addition, we will be responsible for continuously identifying gaps and managing the improvements in the security response process, technologies, and monitoring. Working closely with internal architecture, engineering, and project management teams will ensure cyber-defense requirements are identified and communicated early in the project life cycle.

Security incident response services with CyberSecOp

• Support cyber incident response actions to ensure proper assessment, containment, mitigation, and documentation

• Support cyber investigations for large- and small-scale security incident breaches

• Review and analyze cyber threats and provide SME support

• Interact and assist other investigative teams within on time sensitive, critical investigations

• Participate as part of a close team of technical specialists on coordinated responses and subsequent remediation of security incidents

• Manage the security monitoring enrollment process to ensure adequate coverage and effectiveness of all new and existing cloud- and on-premise-based applications, services and platforms

• Maintain detailed tracking plan of all internal/external enrollment outcomes/recommendations and provide support through to implementation

• Act as a liaison between cyber-defense, engineering, security architecture, network & system operations, and functional project teams to ensure effective project implementation that meets incident response requirements

• Define baseline security monitoring requirements for all new projects, services, and applications joining your organization's network

• Facilitate the development and tuning of SIEM rules to support enrollments and ensure high fidelity alerting

 Don’t delay in ensuring that your business can survive any threat. Join CyberSecOp on your journey towards a safe and protected future.

Author: Josh Cabrera

Why a vCISO may be right for your organization cyber security

Since the start of the COVID19 pandemic, several societal changes have shaped how firms function in the current climate. Many firms have implemented a work-from-home model to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and ensure employees are comfortable with their surroundings. What many organizations didn’t anticipate are the cyber security-related risks.

Once employees leave the security of their offices, they increase their attack surface and open themselves and their employer to attendant Information Security vulnerabilities that may come with working remotely. Remote work changes have prompted heightened instances of cyber attacks that have worsened in style and quantity over time. The pandemic has created the perfect environment for hackers to attack with more accuracy, and with greater cost to the firm, than ever. Learn more about remote working in relation to the pandemic. 

How a vCISO can help protect your firm from cyber attacks

A vCISO can function as an additional set of eyes that constantly monitors your firm’s security operations. The additional security will aid in preventing possible security breaches. A vCISO can also bring expertise to assist in developing a strategy to strengthen your firm’s security program.

The benefits of a vCISO: 

• A board-level cyber security consultant fulfilling the CISO responsibilities 

• A team of security risk assessment experts 

• Employee security awareness education 

• Dark Web Monitoring 24/7/365

• Full enterprise risk management for any required compliance 

• Comprehensive third party/vendor  management 

• Compliance support for NIST, ISO, GDPR, CCPA, NYDFS, PCI/DSS among others

• A more affordable approach as opposed to hiring a full-time CISO

• Eliminate internal training costs and have our seasoned experts handle your security 

CyberSecOp offers vCISO services. Click here to learn more.

Penetration Testing and its Benefits

Understanding your vulnerabilities through vulnerability and penetration testing can play an essential role in your firm’s security. We recommend the steps below to sideline these threats:

 Discover if your systems are prepared for a cyber-attack

A security expert or ethical hacker will launch a simulated attack using external and internal attacks on your servers, web apps, wireless networks, intranets, network devices, mobile devices, and any other entry point.

 Reporting with findings on vulnerabilities in your systems

Once the simulation is complete, the security team will present reports of their findings and recommend the next steps for securing your systems. Since there are several potential entry points into your plans, the team will attempt to exploit those vulnerabilities. 

Know where your weaknesses lie and patch up those vulnerabilities before they can be exploited

Conduct an IT penetration testing to identify gaps in your security system, problems with your IT security policy, and vulnerabilities in your firewall and or antivirus. You will obtain a report with all the problematic access points in your system and suggestions for hardware and software improvements. The test will help you determine if you may need to upgrade your Firm’s security.

Internal vulnerabilities

Whether a disgruntled employee or accidental, internal vulnerabilities can be a window for malicious actors to exploit.

Not all Ethical Hackers are created equally

Be sure to hire the most seasoned experts in the field. Your ethical hacker will attempt to exploit the vulnerabilities as a real hacker would – but the effectiveness of the penetration test will ultimately depend on the amount of experience the engineer has.

 Once is not enough

As we know, hackers have been becoming increasingly bold with their techniques to infiltrate the most sophisticated systems yet, as proven in the Sunburst Hack; therefore, CyberSecOp recommends testing your systems quarterly and keeping up with systems patches and updates.

CyberSecOp offers:

• Network Penetration Testing Services – External or Internal

• Web Application Penetration Testing Services

• Mobile Application Penetration Testing Services

• IoT and Internet-Aware Device Testing

• Social Engineering Penetration Testing Services

• Red Team Attack Simulation

• Wireless Network Penetration Testing Services

CyberSecOp has security experts with a combined experience of 40 years. Ask about our pen test sample report.

Cyber Security Breach Defense & Ransomware Risk Reduction

Cyber Security Breach Defense and Ransomware Risk Reduction by 98%, As ransomware evolves, so does CyberSecOp defense technologies.

Ransomware is the fastest growing attack-vector targeting all sorts of companies, institutions and organizations. No organization is immune to cyber attack. Cyber attackers can demand money from companies and institutions of all sizes and industries including nonprofit, enterprises and startups.

Ransomware Protection Solutions

• Managed Detection & Respond - Managed advanced endpoint protection, this is basically monitoring an advanced antivirus, which have the following features: Antivius, Firewall, Host Inturstion Prevention, Auto Malware Containment, and Malicious URL filtering services.

• SOC as a Service - Secure Operations Center 24/ monitoring- starts with a SIEM which correlated all logs into a central system, but SIEM can ingest data from multiple solution in the client environment, for example: Network Traffic, Intrusion Prevention, Cloud Assess Security Broker, Data Loss Prevention, Mircosoft Active Directory, Antivirus, Authentication System, Access Management, and other security logs.

• Cyber Security Threat Hunting - Treat Hunting is not tied to any one a solution, and it is a service provided by a team utilizing multiple tools to understand if the client has been compromised, also call a compromised assessment, which may include the following but not limited to: Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEM), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Network Traffic, Intrusion Prevention, Cloud Assess Security Broker, Data Loss Prevention, Microsoft Active Directory, antivirus, Authentication System, Access Management, and others.

• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) - Data loss prevention software (Common Terms data loss, data leak) detects potential data breaches/data ex-filtration transmissions and prevents them by monitoring, detecting and blocking sensitive data. It is a standalone document, but its log data can be ingested by a SIEM correlation.

Preventing and Mitigating

• Disable or remove remote services whenever possible; If not possible, use MFA/IP address restriction.

• Do not allow remote access directly from the internet. Instead, enforce the use of remote access gateways along with a VPN that requires multi-factor authentication;

• Require separate credentials for any remote access services; and administrative accounts.

• Allow only VPN IP addresses to connect via RDP so that only trusted machines can connect;

• Application whitelisting is critical to identify risks and unsanctioned application within your organization;

• Network and domain segregation, isolation critical system from none critical system';

• Deploy password lockout provisions to prevent brute-forcing attempts;

• Implement awareness security training programs for employees;

• Phishing simulation to identify employees who a susectiable to phishing emails;

• Monthly external vulnerability testing;

• Daily backup to a cloud provider, or take a copy of the backup offline Daily, Monthly, or Weekly depending on your business risk;

The best defense against ransomware is to outwit attackers by not being vulnerable to their threats in the first place. Ransomware penetrates organizations in multiple ways, so fighting it requires more than one product. CyberSecOp Ransomware Defense products provide ransomware protection from the network, DNS layer to email to the endpoint. As ransomware evolves, so does CyberSecOp defense technologies.

CyberSecOp is an ISO 27001 Certified Cyber Security Consulting Firm

CyberSecOp is proud ISO 27001 Certified Organization

The team at CyberSecOp is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (ISO 27001) certified.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an internationally recognized standard that ensures that firms such as CyberSecOp, meet best practices for information security management systems and vigorous risk-based framework approach.

We are committed to following a high-quality and consistent security management system. A-lign, an independent, third-party auditor, found CyberSecOp to have technical controls in place and formalized IT Security policies and procedures. A-lign is an ISO / IEC 27001 certification body accredited by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) to perform ISMS 27001 certifications. Therefore, through ISO 27001, we have developed and implemented processes and procedures in order to provide requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an information security management system. The entire certification leads us to the appropriate requirements for an Information Security Management System (ISMS) in our company — a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information so that it remains secure. It includes people, processes, and IT systems by applying a risk management processes.

Achieving the ISO 27001 certification is the result of a great amount of effort, dedication, and involvement from every member of the CyberSecOp team. We are constantly challenging ourselves to improve our service and provide the highest security and privacy standards to meet or exceed the needs and expectations of our customers.

Author: Carlos Neto

Information Security Officer

What is Cyber Security, IT Security, and Data Security?

What is the need for IT security and CyberSecurity?

Computer security, cybersecurity or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from the theft of or damage to their hardware, software, or electronic data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.

IT security is a set of cybersecurity strategies that prevents unauthorized access to organizational assets such as computers, networks, and data. It maintains the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information, blocking the access of sophisticated hackers.

What is Data Security?

Data security means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive tampering and unauthorized access. Hardware based security or assisted computer security offers an alternative to software-only computer security.

Common examples of:

• Data encryption
• Tokenization
• Key management
• Data loss prevention
• Data classification
• Data accees management

What is the need for network security?

Network security is the practice of securing a computer network from intruders, whether targeted attackers or opportunistic malware. Application security focuses on keeping software and devices free of threats. A compromised application could provide access to the data its designed to protect.

What is Internet security

Internet security involves the protection of information that is sent and received in browsers, as well as network security involving web-based applications. These protections are designed to monitor incoming internet traffic for malware as well as unwanted traffic. This protection may come in the form of firewalls, antimalware, and antispyware.

What is Critical infrastructure security:

Critical infrastructure security consists of the cyber-physical systems that modern societies rely on.

Common examples of critical infrastructure:

• Electricity grid
• Water purification
• Traffic lights
• Shopping centers
• Hospitals

What is Application security:

You should choose application security as one of the several must-have security measures adopted to protect your systems. Application security uses software and hardware methods to tackle external threats that can arise in the development stage of an application.

Applications are much more accessible over networks, causing the adoption of security measures during the development phase to be an imperative phase of the project.

Types of application security:

• Software development
• Application testing
• Code review
• Vunerablity and penetration testing

What is Network security:

Network security ensures that internal networks are secure by protecting the infrastructure and inhibiting access to it.

Common examples of network security implementation:

• Extra logins
• New passwords
• Application security
• Antivirus programs
• Antispyware software
• Encryption
• Firewalls
• Monitored internet access

Types of cyber threats:

The threats countered by cyber-security are three-fold:

1. Cybercrime includes single actors or groups targeting systems for financial gain or to cause disruption.

2. Cyber-attack often involves politically motivated information gathering.

3. Cyberterrorism is intended to undermine electronic systems to cause panic or fear.

So, how do malicious actors gain control of computer systems? Here are some common methods used to threaten cyber-security:

Malware

Malware means malicious software. One of the most common cyber threats, malware is software that a cybercriminal or hacker has created to disrupt or damage a legitimate user’s computer. Often spread via an unsolicited email attachment or legitimate-looking download, malware may be used by cybercriminals to make money or in politically motivated cyber-attacks.

There are a number of different types of malware, including:

• Virus: A self-replicating program that attaches itself to clean file and spreads throughout a computer system, infecting files with malicious code.

• Trojans: A type of malware that is disguised as legitimate software. Cybercriminals trick users into uploading Trojans onto their computer where they cause damage or collect data.

• Spyware: A program that secretly records what a user does, so that cybercriminals can make use of this information. For example, spyware could capture credit card details.

• Ransomware: Malware which locks down a user’s files and data, with the threat of erasing it unless a ransom is paid.

• Adware: Advertising software which can be used to spread malware.

• Botnets:Networks of malware infected computers which cybercriminals use to perform tasks online without the user’s permission.

SQL injection

An SQL (structured language query) injection is a type of cyber-attack used to take control of and steal data from a database. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in data-driven applications to insert malicious code into a databased via a malicious SQL statement. This gives them access to the sensitive information contained in the database.

Phishing

Phishing is when cybercriminals target victims with emails that appear to be from a legitimate company asking for sensitive information. Phishing attacks are often used to dupe people into handing over credit card data and other personal information.

Man-in-the-middle attack

A man-in-the-middle attack is a type of cyber threat where a cybercriminal intercepts communication between two individuals in order to steal data. For example, on an unsecure WiFi network, an attacker could intercept data being passed from the victim’s device and the network.

Denial-of-service attack

A denial-of-service attack is where cybercriminals prevent a computer system from fulfilling legitimate requests by overwhelming the networks and servers with traffic. This renders the system unusable, preventing an organization from carrying out vital functions.

8 Cyber Security Best Practices for Business

1. Conduct Phishing Simulations
2. Implement Risk Management Governance Approach
3. Secure Remotely Working and Travelling Employees
   • Plan for mobile devices
4. Create a Cybersecurity Awareness Training Program
5. Monitor User and File Activity
6. Enforce password best practices
7. Enforce the Use of Password Managers, SSOs, and MFAs
8. Audit Privileged Access
9. Implement Data Loss Prevention
10. Update Software and Systems
11. Implement and monitor EDR, MDR, and SIEM
12. Regularly back up all data, and offsite backup

CyberSecOp cybersecurity solution provide pace of mind when it comes to privacy and security. Ensuring data security in the cloud or onpfremisies , compliant and protected by best-in-class security: your data, and the tools you use to harness it, can truly empower your business.