Cybersecurity Services Keep You Out of Rigged Games With Criminals

Publicly available data will tell you exactly who celebrated their 43rd birthday in Las Vegas.

An especially slick searcher can find not only the name of who is celebrating the big 4-3, they’ll figure out the person’s location. If someone snapped photos, that evidence will turn up too.

We witnessed it firsthand at a conference focused on cybersecurity services, the latest threats, and new tools to fight hackers.

In this instance it was ethical professionals who digitally crashed the party.

It could have easily been a cybercriminal.

Perhaps you’re thinking “So what?” or “What’s the big deal?” – it’s a photo of a 43-year-old and maybe some cake, I could find that on hundreds of Instagram accounts.

On its own, this is a common, nonthreatening piece of information.

Woven into a phishing or social engineering campaign, it becomes a threat.

Cybercriminals Harm Businesses With Mundane Information

Let’s say our birthday celebrator is a business executive. They’re out of the office and no one expects to hear from them unless it’s urgent.

The criminal knows where they work, title, and email address thanks to public records. Using this information, the criminal spoofs the executive’s email address.

They then email the accounting department, telling them to wire money from one account to another to pay a partner.

The hacker even slips in the photo and says they’re having a blast in Vegas.

Accounting puts the wire through because it clearly must be important – the boss took a break from their vacation to authorize it!

By the time the executive returns and the story of the transfer unravels, it’s too late. The money is gone, probably to a foreign bank account.

In this high-stakes poker game, talented cybercriminals aren’t your only opponent

The cards are stacked against you in every conceivable way – including the software sold to you by vendors.

Your Software Is Not 100% Secure – And Vendors Know It

Go open up any software license agreement you have, and you’ll find a clause in there that says you accept the product “as is.”

Flaws and all – and trust us, there are flaws – are accepted by you when you pay and sign on the dotted line.

Could Criminals Easily Hack Into Your Network?

Get an Assessment To Find Out – Before Hackers Do

Flawed software boosts vendors’ profits

Every day that a product isn’t available represents lost revenue.

So instead of delaying a release to fix every single bug, vendors push it to the public.

Hackers make money from flawed software too

Now hackers are also aware of the bugs, and they go looking for them. If they find one, they can exploit the flaw to slip into systems undetected.

Inside your network, hackers enact nefarious money-making plots

Perhaps they lock up your systems and demand ransom, or access information they turn around and sell on the Dark Web.

Vendors respond with patches

In fairness to the vendor, they don’t sit back and let this unfold. They release a patch that fixes the bug. But it’s up to you to update your system so you get the patch protection.

When businesses don’t patch systems, it’s possible for hackers to cash in on well-known bugs.

What are you going to do, sue me?

Suing a vendor for damages after you suffer an attack because of their flawed software is quixotic. You won’t see the money, and this isn’t a “plan” for dealing with cybercrime.

That trickly little “as is” clause is the vendor’s get-out-of-jail-free card

This also keeps them from being penalized by regulators.

Okay, but how big of a problem is it really?

We’re glad you asked.

Cybercrime Will Carry a $10.5 Trillion Price Tag by 2025

That’s according to projections by Cybersecurity Ventures. In 2021, the cost was around $6 trillion.

According to the FBI, business email compromise (BEC) attacks alone resulted in $2.4 billion in losses for Americans in 2021.

Well, it won’t happen to me …

And then it does. As a trusted Phoenix IT provider, we’re called in during the recovery phase for businesses that experience a breach. It’s an emotional, stressful situation that no one wants to repeat.

No really, why me?

Cybercrime is financial, not personal. You’ll eventually get caught in the crosshairs because you are a business with money.

After a breach, every organization gets cybersecurity services

Those businesses we help post-breach want to add any and every protection available. The ordeal is that traumatizing. You do not want to find yourself in that position.

Know When To Hold ’Em, Know When To Fold ’Em

You can’t win every poker hand and, unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly unlikely that you’ll always beat cybercriminals. Today’s professionals are too good. Flawed software and relaxed attitudes toward sharing online make their job easier.

But you can win in the long term if you shift away from relying on firewalls and adopt the assume breach mindset.

Getting a Firewall Doesn’t Mean You Have Cybersecurity Services

To be clear, you want a firewall. You just don’t want to rely on it, or anti-virus, as your “cybersecurity services.”

Instead, you want to have the “assume breach” mentality

It’s exactly what it sounds like, you assume your organization will be breached at some point and have a plan in place that will minimize the impact.

Fighting cybercriminals requires a mix of preventative and defensive measures

On the preventative side, you have your traditional tools, like firewalls and anti-virus.

Defensively, you adopt the mentality that you will at some point be breached.

An expert will help you create a plan that mitigates the damage

Your cybersecurity partner will walk you through your options and develop a strategy to protect your business before, during, and after an attack. It broadly breaks down into 4 parts:

1. Defend

2. Protect

3. Remediate

4. Recover

Your partner will then be on call should an attack unfold. Using sophisticated tools and techniques, they swiftly execute the plan, kick out the threat actors, limit the damage, and begin your recovery process.

Without a cybersecurity services partner, your business is sitting at a rigged poker table

A good cybersecurity partner keeps you out of rigged games. They develop your “assume breach plan,” keep your systems patched, and will battle cybercriminals (even at 2 a.m.) to keep your business safe.

Don’t play in a rigged game.

Fight back and beat cybercriminals with a trusted partner. Let’s talk and protect your business.

Fight back and beat cybercriminals with a trusted partner. Let’s talk and protect your business.