The Internet may seem very small to attackers, but it is huge to defenders. And the deep reality of the 21st century connected economy is that many digital doors remain open, allowing bad actors and cyber attackers to slip through without permission.
Take, for example, Monday's (April 15) news of an attack by a ransomware group. reportedly Several files stolen in February's cyberattack have been published on the dark web. united health groupsan's change health care.
Professionalization of the criminal ecosystem lowers the barrier to entry for types of cybercrime such as ransomware-as-a-service, transforming enterprise cybersecurity from what was previously considered just an IT issue to a widespread and serious threat. It is being pushed up. operational Financial risk for organizations of all sizes.
In 2023 alone, ransomware attacks will Best ever More than $1 billion was extorted from victim organizations, which UnitedHealth paid in March. $22 million in cryptocurrencies Send money to the criminals who attacked Change Healthcare's systems to recover the compromised data.
United Health Q1 2024 Financial Results announced A cyber attack on Change Healthcare on Tuesday (April 16) cost United Health $872 million. executives project This would result in a total loss of up to $1.6 billion.
On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions met with the House Financial Services Subcommittee, led by Vice Chairman Young Kim (R-Calif.). hearing The title is “Held for Ransom: How Ransomware Compromises Financial Systems.”
This Congressional hearing was designed to provide policymakers with important information about the structure of ransomware attacks and to help establish proactive federal policies and guidelines for cyber resilience across the public and private sectors. Professional and legal services, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services are among the most targeted by bad actors.
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Cyber threats will not go away
“The United States, and the world, knows that no matter how prepared a company is, or thinks it is, no organization is safe from attackers who carry out ransomware attacks. No organization is safe from attempts to penetrate its systems. …all the cybersecurity preparedness in the world cannot stop employees from inadvertently providing their identities to cybercriminals.” Kim said in his opening remarks.
Additionally, businesses of all sizes, both public and private, have historically struggled to understand and manage their digital infrastructure, including phones, laptops, servers, and applications exposed to the Internet, leaving them susceptible to cyberattacks. remain vulnerable to
That's because threat actors are consistently opportunistic in their approach, attacking healthcare systems, financial institutions, and other organizations indiscriminately, looking for opportunities.
Further complicating the issue is the evolution of attack vectors that cybercriminals use for initial breaches. According to the testimony of witnesses at the hearing, revealed in general PYMNTS Intelligence helps cybercriminals combine both legitimate and fraudulent data to bypass know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) authentication from account opening to credit, loans, payments, and transactions Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are now available to Activities.
“AI enables [cybercriminals] Gain speed and move laterally to identify an organization's critical assets for theft or extortion. Malicious attackers can now leverage multiple vulnerabilities to launch numerous simultaneous attacks against a single company. ” told the lawmakers at a public hearing Tuesday.
Insider is told repeatedly PYMNTS powered by AI-like technologies supercharge your abilities Eliminate bad actors by providing turnkey, scalable cyber tools.
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Incentives for cyber hygiene
Despite being used by bad actors, AI and automation are also a game-changer for enterprise defenders, enabling organizations to not only recover faster but also ingest and analyze security data to prepare for future attacks. It is also possible to strengthen the network against
Still, while IT teams are often able to withstand attacks, many organizations struggle to resume operations after being targeted by cybercriminals.
Additionally, ongoing cybercrime trends are particularly problematic for small and medium-sized businesses, which often fail to invest adequately in cybersecurity. According to a Congressional Hearing, 40% of the most severe attacks in the financial sector are the result of exploiting vulnerabilities in software or other software that could have been patched but may not have been applied due to resource constraints. was.
According to Kim's opening statement, there are four widely recognized stages of cyber incident response: 1) preparation and prevention, 2) detection and analysis, 3) containment and eradication, and 4) recovery.
While there is no silver bullet for cybersecurity, there are still steps businesses can take to reduce their risk of falling victim to an attack, more effectively contain attacks, and increase their cybersecurity resilience.
According to Palo Alto Networks' Sergil, companies need to maintain a cyber incident response plan. Gain visibility into your attack surface. Leverage AI and automation to modernize security and reduce the burden on overworked analysts. Implement a Zero Trust network architecture.and use cloud security program A platform that provides cloud-native security.
It added that technique-based defenses mapped to the MITER ATT&CK framework will help evolve defenses in response to adversarial tactics.
Ultimately, witnesses at the hearing told lawmakers that their vision for a more secure digital future is simple: organizations with real-time visibility across their networks and automated capabilities to quickly and effectively The aim is to be able to prevent, detect and respond to cyber-attacks. .
