Category Archives: Web Security

One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist in order to understand why cyber security is important for your business. We are living in a digital age and we are so much dependent on the tech devices that we carry everywhere we go. The sensitive data on these devices can make your business and ruin it also. So, the data is always vulnerable to some extent.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cases of cybercrime increased up to 600%, and October is marked as Cyber Security Month hence this is the perfect time for online businesses to take steps forward securing their business data.

In this blog post, we will discuss the types of various cyber-attacks and show you some serious statistics which will surely make you think about the importance of cyber security for your business.

Malware Or Malicious Software

Malware is software that is specifically designed to harm data and devices. There are different types of malware including computer viruses, trojans, spyware, ransomware, adware, worms, etc.

The total malware infections have been on the rise for the last five years:

• 2014 – 308.96 million
• 2015 – 452.93 million
• 2016 – 580.40 million
• 2017 – 702.06 million
• 2018 – 812.67 million

• 92% of malware is delivered by email.
• Mobile malware on the rise with the number of new malware variants for mobile increased by 54% in 2018.
• Third-party app stores host 99.9% of discovered mobile malware.
• More than 250,000 unique users were attacked by Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Asacub malware application.
• 98% of mobile malware targets Android devices.
• Over the last year, MacOS malware has increased by 165%.
• Malware development rates for Windows decreased by 11.6% since reaching an all-time high in 2015.

Ransomware

Ransomware is another form of malicious software. Unlike malware, ransomware threatens you with harm and by first encrypting your data to preventing you to access your data.

Ransomware attacks are usually deployed via social engineering tactics. Once a user falls victim to the attack, their data is encrypted and the attacker then demands a ransom from the victim, with the promise to restore access to the data upon payment.

• Ransomware attacks worldwide rose by 350% in 2018.
• Ransomware attacks are estimated to cost $6 trillion annually by 2021.
• 50% of a surveyed 582 information security professionals do not believe their organization is prepared to repel a ransomware attack.
• 81% of cyber security experts believe there will be more ransomware attacks than ever in 2020.
• Ransomware costs businesses more than $75 billion per year.
• The average cost of a ransomware attack on businesses was $133,000.
• Businesses lost around $8,500 per hour due to ransomware-induced downtime.
• 25% of business executives would be willing to pay between $20,000 and $50,000 to regain access to encrypted data.

Social Engineering

Social engineering is the act of tricking someone into divulging information or taking action, usually through technology. The idea behind social engineering is to take advantage of a potential victim’s natural tendencies and emotional reactions.

• 98% of cyber attacks rely on social engineering.
• Recent data breach statistics found that 63% of successful attacks come from internal sources, either control, errors, or fraud.
• 43% of the IT professionals said they had been targeted by social engineering schemes in the last year.
• New employees are the most susceptible to socially engineered attacks, with 60% of IT professionals citing recent hires as being at high risk.

Phishing

One of the most common types of online fraud is known as phishing, a term that arose in the 1990s. Put simply, phishing is a deliberate attempt to obtain sensitive information like login credentials or credit card numbers by masquerading as someone trustworthy. Targeted emails, or spear phishing, are reported by businesses to be used in 91% of successful data breaches and 95% of all enterprise networks.

• 56% of IT decision-makers say targeted phishing attacks are their top security threat.
• 83% of global infosec respondents experienced phishing attacks in 2018, an increase from 76% in 2017.
• Business email compromise (BEC) scams cost organizations $676 million in 2017.
• CEO fraud is now a $12 billion scam.
• 30% of phishing messages get opened by targeted users and 12% of those users click on the malicious attachment or link.
• Only 3% of targeted users report malicious emails to management.   53% of IT and security professionals say they have experienced a targeted phishing attack in 2017.

How To Ensure The Security

Since cyber security is a major threat to all the small and large companies around the globe, the companies are now hiring professional cyber security experts, ethical hackers to fight with it, but small businesses still can’t afford to do it.

So here are some basic points which will help small businesses to tighten the security of their data.

• Ensure the security of your staff information like passwords and usernames.
• Arrange a proper training session and educate your staff about the precautions that they should take while using the company’s devices.
• Keep your computers up-to-date and always use paid anti-virus and encryption software for maximum security.
• Keep updating the security on employee’s devices.
• Change your computer passwords and every account that you use every 60 days and ensure that the changed password is stronger than the previous ones.
• Do not allow everyone to have access to the company’s sensitive documents.
• If you can’t hire them permanently, at least hire the cyber security professionals on the contract base for 2 to 3 months every year so they can assist your IT security.

If you have any cyber security related issues, Softsys Hosting can address major part of them. Just take a moment and contact us.

As per Gartner’s prediction, the number of cloud users will increase at a very rapid pace every year, and is not about to slow down. Today, more people and businesses utilize the cloud services in one or other form without even realizing they are doing so.

Unfortunately, being unaware of using the cloud also means that people aren’t always as protected as they should be. Just because you are using a cloud, be it AWS, Azure or Google, this is no way means that your data and servers are protected from hackers.

These cloud computing services bring tons of changes to the business workflow, and as a result, companies require a new set of rules and a different way of thinking about its security. In this post, we’ll discuss some of the best approaches to secure your information on the cloud.

Install Robust Anti-Malware, Anti-Exploit & Anti-Ransomware

You might have heard of terms like, Spyware, Malware, Ransomware, Keyloggers, Rootkits, Adware, Backdoor shells, Hijackers and what not. The list of threats to server security is long, varied, and pretty scary. Even if you’re the most careful cloud user, malware can find a way to download itself onto your server.

For instance, an innocent looking email from your friend could in fact be a stealth method of exploiting security features, or it could be a widely spread ransomware encrypting entire file system. There are literally hundreds of ways in which your data can be compromised and entire operating system can be hijacked.

While most of the generic anti-virus software will do a good job of removing known threats from your

servers, intruders can still find loopholes to steal data, install backdoors to gain access, spy on your activity, hijack server resources to run malicious applications or encrypt sensitive information.

Difference Between Antivirus & Anti-Malware

Antivirus and anti-malware are two different cybersecurity concepts, and not to be used interchangeably. Of course, they both refer to cybersecurity software, malware is a more generic term while virus is more specific. The conventional antivirus software offers protection against classic computer viruses, but it cannot detect and address all types of infection like anti-malware software does.

To avoid your cloud instances from getting infected, it is necessary that you have an enterprise-class anti-malware, anti-exploit and anti-ransomware engine installed on your server which will provide real-time protection from viruses / malware entering your server.

In addition, you should also setup a full system scan by these engines at once every week so as to ensure that your system is completely secure and safe. We have a number of customers using “MalwareBytes” successfully with complete protection around-the-clock and our technical support staff is well versed to configure it appropriately for our customers. MalwareBytes adds an extra layer of protection to your cloud instances. It not only protects you from known threats, but keeps itself continually evolving for future threats.

Email Security

While you protect your cloud environment against advanced threats, a sophisticated enterprise-grade email protection is also an essential measure to secure emails against a wide array of threats. It’s proven fact that, 91% of hacking attempts are launched through email-based attacks. Taking stats into account, an email security must be the first priority for any organization.

On top of your conventional email service, these email security provides protection against routine threats like spam, viruses and malware while also delivering the secure cloud email services. With this solution, your emails route through email gateway which enables you to improve security and system performance by thwarting known and advanced email threats before they reach your network.

It can protect your employee’s emails against advanced threats like spear-phishing, zero-day attacks, malware and spam. It uses keywords, pattern matching, file hashes and dictionaries to actively scan all email communications and attachments to stop data leakage and support compliance.

IDS / IPS – Network Level Security

When your cloud systems are online, this also opens up the possibility of hackers trying to get into them through known exploits or by using brute-force attempts. With growing security vulnerabilities across the web, it’s extremely important to have an external network security system in place which helps to protect your cloud servers. This network security system comprises of the below key components:

External Firewall

With external firewall in place, you can restrict access with fine-tuned rules to allow traffic from known sources or to allowed destination ports only. This also helps in ensuring that your server and website is PCI-DSS compliant to process secure transactions and store sensitive customer’s data including their credit card numbers.

Intrusion Detection System (IDS)

Intrusion Detection is a security management system for servers and networks which analyses each packet passing within a network to identify possible security breaches or intrusions. It can detect patterns typical of attacks or abnormal activity patterns and reports such activities to Intrusion Prevention System to protect it instantly.

Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

After a possible security threat is detected by the IDS system, it is necessary to have a solution in place which blocks this access immediately to prevent systems from being exploited. Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) immediately creates rules to block this malicious access and keeps your system safe & secure. Both of these systems (IDS & IPS) work closely with each other to ensure complete security for your server & website. This also ensures that any / all traffic entering your system is scanned and free from any known vulnerabilities.

Web Application Firewall

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a firewall for HTTP applications that protects web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It applies a set of rules to protect web applications from common attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion and SQL injection. It may come in the form of an appliance, server plugin, or filter, and may be customized to an application.

By deploying a WAF in front of a web application, a virtual shield is placed between the web application and the Internet. While a proxy server protects the client machine’s identity by using an intermediary, a WAF is a type of reverse-proxy, protecting the server from exposure by having clients pass through the WAF before reaching the server. A WAF runs upon the set of rules often called policies. These policies help to protect against vulnerabilities in the application by filtering out malicious traffic.

Remote Desktop Guard (RDPGUARD)

RDP (Remote Desktop) allows users to connect to a remote server from anywhere. Indeed RDP is a very useful feature, however it also has several security issues. When a malicious user launches the network/port scanners or RDP brute-force attacks on Windows servers, thousands of failed login attempts are generated and pages of events are being logged. Such attacks abuse your dedicated server resources (CPU, RAM, Disk Space and Network Bandwidth) and degrade the overall functionality of the server.

To prevent them, host-based intrusion prevention system (HIPS) like RdpGuard is implemented.  This protects servers from brute-force attacks on various protocols and services (RDP, FTP, SMTP, MySQL, MS-SQL, IIS Web Login, etc). It monitors the audit logs and detects failed login attempts. If the number of failed login attempts from a single IP address exceeds the normal limit, the IP address will be blocked immediately.

As we near the enforceable date of May 25th, it seems that GDPR is the buzzword of the month. But what is it? And, more importantly, what does it mean for your business?

Doing your research and preparing now will not only help you stay compliant yourself, but also answer any questions your clients have about how you’re handling their personal data.

The Overview

In short, the GDPR stands for the General Data Protection Regulation and is a regulation in the European Union law. Developed in order return the control of data back to consumers, it also serves to simplify the regulatory environment around the world by simplifying and unifying the regulation within the EU.

While it may seem to be a recent focus for businesses and in the press, it was actually adopted over two years ago – in April of 2016. The renewed exposure is due to the fact that the regulation becomes enforceable on May 25th, 2018, after a two-year transition period.

The Details

The GDPR protects consumers’ personal data, which could be a wide-ranging list depending on how the governing body chooses to enforce it. In general, the GDPR aims to guard basic identity information (name, address, ID numbers), web data, biometric data, health and genetic data, racial or ethnic data, sexual orientation, and political opinions.

In order to protect that data, the regulation outlines the lawful basis for processing, definition of consent, guidelines to follow in the event of a data breach, among other requirements for compliance.

One example of a GDPR requirement is the right to be forgotten. This compels companies to erase personal data upon consumer request. The regulation also requires that data be stored “in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed.”

Additionally, some companies are required to appoint a Data Protection Officer to oversee GDPR compliance and data security. The International Association for Privacy Professionals estimates that nearly 30,000 companies will need to hire a DPO.

Potentially the biggest area for concern lies in Articles 25 and 32. Here, the GDPR outlines the expectation of companies to be able to provide a “reasonable” level of data protection. However, the definition of “reasonable” is open to interpretation by the GDPR governing body.

The Impact

You may be thinking, “Whew – I’m not based in the EU, glad I don’t have to worry about compliance.” You may be right. However, if you have a presence in an EU country, process personal data of European residents, or have more than 250 employees, you are required to comply.

Furthermore, the GDPR holds both data controllers and data processors liable for compliance. That means that if you’re using a third-party processing service that is not in compliance, your business is not in compliance.

Ultimately, the goal of the GDPR is to force companies to change the way they process, store, and protect personal data. As a result of these requirements and fines, nearly 85% of US based companies believe that the GDPR will put them at a disadvantage to European companies, according to a study by Ovum.

The Enforcement

Governed by a group of Supervisory Authorities (one for each member nation), the GDPR gives these representatives the ability to conduct audits, review certifications, issue warnings, impose limitations, suspend data flow that is found non-compliant, and impose administrative fines.

Those administrative fines can be extremely high – in some cases as much as 4% of a business’ global revenue or $20 million, whichever is higher.

Management consulting firm Oliver Wyman predicts that the EU could collect as much as $6 billion in fines and penalties in the first year. Don’t let your company be among them!