Cyber Security

Cyber Security Awareness Month reminds us of a category of crime that continues to inflict taxpayers and companies with damages amounting to billions annually.

Staying updated on the latest attack types and prevention techniques is the only way to future-proof your organisation. Here are five fraud trends from our experts that you won’t want to miss:

Fabrication

Synthetic identity fraud is initiated when a hacker procures a social security number by theft or purchase on the Dark Web, and then fabricates an associated name, DOB, email account, or phone number. From there, the fake identity is legitimised and nurtured in order to exploit lines of credit. Once a fraudster is able to become an authorised user, a process that typically takes 5 months, the “bust-out” is ready to be executed. When the dust settles, creditors and businesses are left with dummy accounts filled to the brim with credit card maximums, loans, and cell phone/utility plans.

Ransomware

The “R word” can send chills down the spine of any business owner or MSP, and for good reason. Two cities in Florida were forced to pay over a million in aggregate bitcoin ransom, only after losing access to phone and email systems for multiple weeks. Municipalities are not alone, and a quick glance at data breach news headlines on any given week will reveal SMB attacks as well. Ultimately, ransomware boils down to the economic concept of incentives, and it will require a concerted effort by organisations to shift the paradigm.

Account Takeover (ATO)

Understanding how criminals are targeting your business or vertical is a fundamental component to any sound cyber security strategy. Nevertheless, “the nature of work for a CISO is often reactive”, tasked with establishing a Security Operations Centre filled with analysts who are looking to spot a needle in a haystack. On the other hand, the commoditisation of crimeware and “spray-and-pray” techniques have led to a higher frequency in breaches, many of which are executed by non-sophisticated hackers. Solving ATO fraud at the small business and medium enterprise level in today’s world requires purpose-driven teams and technologies that can protect your business smarter and more efficiently.

Universities

Just this summer, three US universities disclosed data breach incidents within a two-day span. However, this pales in comparison to last year’s highlight. In March 2018, nine hackers breached 144 US universities, charged with stealing 31 terabytes of data worth roughly $3.4 billion in intellectual property. Such breaches have a ripple effect across all verticals and companies, driving consumer awareness and raising the standard for cyber security for everyone.

Dark Web

Finally, the Dark Web. Security researchers estimate that In the first half of this year alone, 23M+ credit and debit card details were being sold in underground forums. What’s worse, nearly two out of every three originated in the United States (64%), followed by the UK (7%) and India (4%). Once such data dumps hit the Dark Web, cybercriminals will exchange stolen information and credentials in order to orchestrate damaging fraud schemes.

Your next action…

As part of our continued efforts to stay ahead of the cybercriminals we have recently implemented one of the latest innovative cyber security technologies around to compliment our current cyber security offering.

Using this technology we can perform a dark web scan of your organisations domain, (the @timelessims.co.uk bit), so we can identify if any of your organisations confidential data is for sale on any of the dark webs 600,000 sites.

The scan is completely non-invasive to your organisation and if there are no compromised credentials, you will have peace of mind.

If there are issues we will be here to help.

At Timeless IMS we believe every month is Cyber Security Awareness month not just October so always feel free to speak to us about cyber security!

We providing you with a handy tip sheet to make sure that both you and your employees are implementing simple methods to keep your information secure.

Below are some Cyber Security Resources for you and your business: