Reuben Koh, Director of Security Strategy for Asia Pacific and Japan, Akamai Technologies
As recent reports and studies have revealed, the cybersecurity world is filled with evolving threats. External attackers remain the dominant force, accounting for 83% of breaches. In almost half of these incidents, stolen credentials are used as attacker's weapon. DNS attacks continue to plague organizations, causing downtime for targeted organizations' apps, followed by web application attacks. Ransomware has emerged as a formidable threat, dominating cybercrime, with more than 72% of attacks being motivated by extortion.
As cyber threats become more sophisticated and frequent, organizations must prioritize proactive security measures to protect their data, systems, and financial stability. Data breaches are a frequent theme in today's news and pose significant risks to businesses, their customers, and partners. One of the first steps to protecting an organization's sensitive data is to understand the leading causes of data breaches. Despite these risks, adoption of robust security measures has lagged, with less than 1% of businesses currently adopting a mature Zero Trust model.
The critical weaknesses behind data breaches
Weak and Stolen Credentials
Hacking attacks are frequently cited as the main cause of data breaches, but opportunistic hackers often exploit compromised or weak passwords and vulnerabilities in personal data. Statistics show that four out of five breaches are partially due to the use of weak or stolen passwords.
To mitigate the risk of hackers taking over sensitive accounts, businesses should consider implementing fraud prevention tools. These act as a proactive defense, significantly reducing the chances of unauthorized access and enhancing the overall security of accounts. Bot managers also address the challenges associated with bot traffic on websites and applications.
It is designed to identify, manage, and mitigate both malicious and non-malicious bot traffic, ensuring a safer and more efficient online experience. To further protect your organization, we also recommend implementing enterprise single sign-on (SSO), establishing strong password controls, and setting up phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) across your computer systems, which will help prevent personally identifiable information from falling into the wrong hands.
Backdoors and Application Vulnerabilities
Exploiting backdoors and application vulnerabilities is a favorite tactic of cybercriminals. When software applications are poorly written or network systems are poorly designed, hackers continually probe for weaknesses, hoping to find a direct door that will give them access to valuable data and confidential information.
A regularly updated and properly managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) can help mitigate these vulnerabilities, and because attack techniques are constantly changing, organizations should also use security solutions that leverage advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to identify vulnerabilities and protect against unauthorized access.
A WAF should be a robust security solution designed to protect your web applications from a variety of cyber threats, including data breaches. A WAF acts as a barrier between your web applications and the internet, scrutinizing and filtering HTTP traffic to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities and attacks.
Malware
The prevalence of direct and indirect malware is on the rise. Malware (essentially malicious software) is loaded onto systems by unsuspecting victims, giving hackers the opportunity to not only exploit the affected system, but also potentially spread to other connected systems. This type of malware poses a significant security threat as it gives malicious insiders the ability to access sensitive information and steal data for financial gain.
Implementing an advanced anti-malware solution at multiple network entry points significantly strengthens your security posture and reduces the risk of employees falling victim to malicious software. Leveraging cutting edge data security for malware detection and prevention helps organizations strengthen their data protection defenses against evolving cyber threats and security breaches.
Social Engineering
Cybercriminals and hackers can make it easier for themselves to gain unauthorized access by convincing individuals with legitimate data access rights. Phone calls, phishing scams, malicious links (often sent via email, text or social media), and other social engineering tactics such as deep fakes are now commonly used to manipulate individuals into unwittingly granting access to cybercriminals or divulging sensitive information such as login credentials.
Such information can lead to data breaches, where hackers recycle, reuse, and trade sensitive data such as social security numbers and personal information to commit identity theft and other illegal activities. It is important to remain vigilant when sharing sensitive information with external parties. Being aware of the information being shared and verifying its legitimacy is a simple and effective defense against social engineering tactics.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to restrict access to a computer system or files until a sum of money or a ransom is paid. It typically encrypts the victim's files or locks their system making it inaccessible, then demands a payment (often cryptocurrency) to regain access. Ensuring that your infrastructure is secure and protected against external threats is paramount. Organizations need to be confident that attackers do not have access to their systems and are not using them for malicious activity.
In this scenario, implementing a robust visibility and protection solution such as microsegmentation can help. Microsegmentation provides an easy, fast, and intuitive approach to enforcing Zero Trust principles within your network. The solution is designed to prevent lateral movement by providing visibility into activity within your IT environment, implementing precise microsegmentation policies, and quickly detecting potential breaches.
Improper configuration and exposure via API
Misconfigured settings and parameters can lead to a variety of issues, including default passwords, open ports, weak encryption, etc. Such flaws create vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to gain unauthorized access to your systems and data, resulting in security breaches and other malicious activities. Improper configuration settings and API vulnerabilities can expose you to a number of security risks.
Addressing and remediating these issues is essential to prevent unauthorized access and potential data breaches. Consider implementing proper API security and governance from code time to runtime, including regular audits of your API security measures, a critical step to increasing your overall protection.
To address misconfigurations and exposure via APIs, enterprises should go beyond WAF and deploy advanced API security solutions to protect against evasive API abuse, providing comprehensive visibility, identifying vulnerabilities, and detecting potential threats and abuses related to APIs.
Additionally, from secure development to runtime protection, it helps organizations establish a more proactive security approach by reducing the overall attack surface of critical APIs, effectively strengthening their overall API security posture.
DNS attacks
A Domain Name System (DNS) attack is malicious activity that targets DNS infrastructure to disrupt or manipulate the resolution of domain names to IP addresses. These attacks have a variety of goals, including disrupting service using a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), redirecting users to malicious websites, or gaining unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Organizations need to deploy a strong, cloud-based authoritative DNS service that guarantees 100% availability and protection against multi-vector DNS attacks such as flooding attacks, water-torture attacks, etc. Implementing best practices and putting in place security measures that can withstand attack volumes are critical steps in mitigating these attacks.
Conclusion
Data breaches remain a prevalent risk across sectors including healthcare, finance, e-commerce and retail, affecting organizations of all sizes and types. By proactively identifying potential vulnerabilities, organizations can reduce the chances of a successful cyber attack.
Investing in strong security measures that enforce a zero trust security model and ensure your applications, APIs, and DNS services are continuously protected from cyber threats can help reduce the financial risks associated with breaches, including regulatory fines, legal costs, and lost revenue.
Minimizing the impact of a breach also allows organizations to maintain business continuity and avoid disruptions to normal operations and damage to their reputation. Overall, a comprehensive understanding of the causes of breaches and implementing appropriate security measures is essential to protect data, minimize risk, and ensure the long-term success of any organization.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Cyber Express. The content provided by the author is of the author's opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.
