Get Your Cables Under Control

We grew up learning ignorance is a bliss. But in this fast moving age of technology being ignorant is considered as a sin. The deadliest and poisonous of all the deadly sins. In IT if a problem occurs it cannot be ignored at all. The stakes are too high to ignore even what may seem a minor problem.

Last time we published an investigation by Guardian in which it was discovered how call centers were making fraudulent calls all across the globe and acquiring sensitive information. Getting hold of private, hidden and sensitive data is not a problem these days, especially if you are ignorant and especially if you wish to remain in primitive times.

Seemingly undetectable threats are present all the time all around. Thus, for an IT company it is important to be cautious in every way from such security threats because securing your business information should be your top priority.

The more technology is advancing, the more are the threats increasing. With new inventions new problems are occurring. Many companies are being hunted down electronically. This is happening on a major scale but remains undetectable. By entering into systems these spies can easily acquire useful information without causing any form of disruption.

Such threats never become obvious as a result of which it become impossible for the security vendors to detect them. Because those who launch electronic attack and spying, go to great lengths, so that they remain undetectable.

Lingering in the shadows, this problem is gaining momentum and becoming a serious threat every passing minute. These attacks have special take on financial gains. Where Gartner reports that

“As many as 75 percent of enterprises have been or are being infected with undetected, financially motivated, targeted attacks that evaded their traditional perimeter and host defenses.  Any government or commercial organization with sensitive information is being targeted,” Neil MacDonald, a vice president Gartner

After a highly publicized cyber attack on Google’s network, it decided to pull out from China. MacDonald also informed about attacks on various other major companies.

The Undetectable Threats

It is also believed that these attacks are highly sensitive and difficult to determine. Only that attempt comes in front which ends up being a massive failure, other than these the rest remain undetectable. That is the reason it is becoming a larger problem all across the web world then most recognize it.

These treats remain undetectable, in spite of the fact that the even after tracing a countries IP address, eventually you end up nowhere.

Is China the Culprit?

Although many time Chinese expertise and the budget they receive have been targeted as the main culprits, but such allegations have never been proved. Because even if you trace an attack to an IP address in a given country, it eventually ends up being compromised computer that is acting as a proxy or a relay. Thus we cannot say for sure where the attack is coming from.

Because these attacker target exploit multiple weaknesses in order to steal valuable information. The attacker targets a particular employee through well crafted email. Some may occur by hackers by gathering publicly available information, or other information available through other easily available resources. In order to gain access to sensitive information it in now easy to combine bits of information in order to form a whole.

During a targeted attack, more than one system or application-level vulnerability could be directly exploited. Once a single system or account is compromised, virtually the entire environment can be gradually traversed until the ultimate goal of the attack is achieved.

And if you think your company is extremely secure then you need to think again. Over the past times we have discovered that military and government systems are more vulnerable to such attacks. But nowadays, many other types of organizations are also major targets because a single intrusion can provide a lot of information about major targets. Thus, private firms have more on stake as the government is doing almost nothing in this regard.

There is absolutely no way of protecting the information due to the increase in number of sophisticated attacks by foreign and domestic spies.  And if the attacks are between governments of different countries then there is absolutely no detectable clue left behind. Companies do not have enough resources if compared with that which nation’s posses.

But these attacks can be avoided If not entirely diminished. This is where “defense in depth” comes in. Here companies make multiple attempts by protecting themselves with multiple layers of defense, where if one detected the other stands as a wall behind them protecting the main core.

New and more powerful security tools are emerging in the market to help fight against such electronic spying threats.  For Example, NetWitness Investigator is a threat analysis application which helps in tracking the   threats which may be lurking in your network. They not only warn the user but also help identify where exactly the data is moving. So if you plan to be protected and if you have the right resources and the expertise then you need to consider applying your own tools in order to thwart such attacks.

Do You Still Think Ignorance is Bliss?

Thus, being ignorant can cause a great problem and loss of valuable data anyone can suffer, even Google suffered. Because not all the antivirus software detect such infections. As a result of which every other company should strengthen their defenses because threats may pass on unnoticed leaving major damages behind.