With one in three SMEs adopting cloud-first strategy more than ever, cybersecurity concerns have only grown exponentially. In the wake of the pandemic, nearly 95% of cybersecurity professionals have shown concerns regarding public cloud security. Microsoft Office 365 is at the heart of most small to mid-sized businesses. Combined with a rapid cloud adoption rate, security concerns are not far behind.
A Q3 Report by Risk Based Security on data breaches in 2020 showed that by the end of Q2, 2020 was already considered as the worst year in terms of data exposed. To add a cherry on the top, in Q3, a total of six breaches together accounted for approximately 8 billion exposed records. The pandemic further made the health sector most vulnerable to data breaches. No surprises there!
Ever heard of AZORult? Sounds like some nerdy stuff. I am not gonna lie, it slightly is! It is a trojan that steals various data including login credentials, browser history, cookies, and more. The history of AZORult is well known by those in the cyber security industry. AZORult was initially discovered back in 2016. As the years passed, we saw some of its ongoing malicious attacks.
Modern cyber security threats have today mutated into a new class that is immune to detection and prevention solutions offered by the security industry. We are looking at this new generation of hackers that master zero-day exploits, credential thefts, fake identities, and developing stealthy malware. These threats have kept the security personnel on their toes, figuring out what the next attack would look like. One of these challenges includes identifying false positive and false negative alerts.
There is no shortage of IT cloud software services out there for businesses to choose from. Regardless of their business needs you can be sure there will be a myriad of solutions. Instead of a few grand does-it-all services, IT has become a swarm of inter-playing, inter-operating, and interconnecting services. It’s no surprise that services like zapier and IFTTT are thriving in this ecosystem where they can become the glue and automate the gap between them. The future is surely bright.
I was asked the following recently in an interview for the Irish tech online magazine 'Silicon Republic’; How can companies make sure they are spending on cyber security in the right way? I thought it was a great question. In the article, I answered in general, however it got me thinking on elaborating on this with the particular focus for SMEs, who especially at this time are feeling the pinch of the revenues lost by COVID-19.
We have seen a marked move to remote work in recent months. While the times have been troubling and stressful in many ways, there has been a flip side. Many of us have found newfound freedoms in how and where we work. With these freedoms come risks. While we can access our email, files and other communications remotely, many have not stopped to ask; are we too open? What level of remote access does each employee need and more crucially what do they not need?
Inbox Automation such as forwarding, redirecting, and moving items around can be crucial to many business operations. For example today I was integrating receipt bank, a third party receipt and invoicing system which in turn integrates with our accounting software. Like many respectable third party systems, it supports a robust API for fetching invoices from my suppliers. However it does not do them all and like in many instances, mailbox automation comes in to help.
I wrote recently about how Office 365 accounts are most commonly breached - through leaked credentials. This covered the different ways that credentials can be breached through various factors, including many human misconceptions and failures can be mixed with other internal and external forces. This article is going to cover the anatomy of what happens after the hacker has gained access. There are many things a hacker may be seeking including information extraction or means of corporate espionage.
