The Center for Strategic and International Studies (The Center for Strategic and International Studies) has recently prepared a list of significant cyber incidents that have occurred since 2003. The list examines attacks against government agencies, high-tech and defense companies, newsworthy breaches, supply chain attacks, or economic crimes that have resulted in multimillion-dollar losses over the past two decades. This report contains important information that gives us a clear view of what hackers have done against various organizations. The information contained in this report will help us to more accurately protect the infrastructure against cyber attacks. In the following, we will look at the main trends of the last decade that help us make accurate predictions about the future of data security.

The amount of repetition and distribution

In the 2010s, a lot of investments have been made by companies in order to provide cyber security, while the activities of hackers have also increased in this period and they have used creative solutions to attack the infrastructure. Cyber ​​attacks are not a new issue, but now they are more widespread than ever.

Cyber ​​attacks that have been carried out in the past have mostly involved harassment. Although the old approaches still exist, today's hackers are using newer methods to execute more targeted, destructive, and focused attacks. Attacks that are implemented with the aim of inciting emotion and fear.

Variety of methods

The attacks that have occurred in the last few years have different forms and dimensions and include a combination of malware attacks, spyware, ransomware, man-in-the-middle attacks, a combination such as social engineering, distributed denial of service, phishing, cryptojacking and supply chain attacks. Each of these attack vectors exploit specific weaknesses in technologies and tools.

Exploitation of information treasures for profit

Typically, cyber attacks target databases that contain hundreds of thousands of information records; Databases that store users' personal information. This report points out that the majority of these attacks are economically motivated, and hackers view cyber attacks as an efficient and long-term business investment. Due to the continuation of cyber warfare and hacktivism, cyber security has become the battleground of security experts and hackers.

Persistence of old problems

Despite the dramatic improvement of defense mechanisms, the previous problems still remain. The most important of which should be mentioned are wrong configurations of settings, neglecting the installation of security patches, social engineering, lack of employee training, using incomplete and vulnerable protocols, and similar cases. Unfortunately, most of the organizations are still careless about the principles of cyber security or think that they are immune from cyber attacks. These businesses are easily attacked by hackers.

Due to the events of the last five years, the security experts of organizations have had to increase their level of knowledge in the field of methods that hackers use to attack infrastructures and use advanced tools to deal with threats. For this reason, companies active in the field of cyber security, considering the destructive effects of recent incidents, suggest organizations to use new solutions to deal with threats and to minimize attacks on infrastructure through hidden vulnerabilities in tools and especially firmware. Integrate security features to reduce incident response time.

Why are hackers more successful in this field than security experts?

In recent years, there have been extensive changes in the type of activities of organizations. For example, at the application level, we observed that the majority of companies have changed their strategy of using computers for employees to mobile devices such as laptops. The same applies to home users. Due to this paradigm shift, it is difficult to define new security requirements. At the infrastructure level, many businesses have moved from the in-house model to edge computing, fifth generation internet, and cloud technology.

In addition, the number of devices used in enterprise networks has grown significantly. Maybe ten years ago each user had only one computer, laptop and smartphone, but today many users have dozens of devices connected to the Internet and Internet of Things, each of which may be infected with various security vulnerabilities.

Of course, not all news is bad. For example, many companies have moved towards a zero-trust strategy, but implementing this policy is not an easy task. With significant advances in data analytics, artificial intelligence, and incident response, are security investments keeping pace with business operations? Are there any unfilled gaps? Unfortunately, this balance does not exist in some companies, so that the improvement of business productivity has been accompanied by an increase in the level of risks and security threats, an increase in the problem of data leakage, and a decrease in the level of trust in the brand.

Some managers are still indifferent to security

Although geopolitical and socioeconomic events have caused organizations to invest more in security, it is still complicated to apply logical and correct methods, such as implementing security from the early stages of design. To achieve this goal, the benefits of improving the level of infrastructure security in order to continue business activities must be explained in detail to CEOs.

Rules and regulations are motivating. SEC rules, GDPR requirements, state regulations and requirements set for critical infrastructure are forcing organizations to invest in security, but just one misinterpretation can ruin everything. For example, the board of directors may seek to implement minimum requirements or make the implementation of security policies the second or third priority of the business, so that the cost of implementing security policies according to international standards is as low as possible. Therefore, it is still difficult to establish a balance between the two areas of security and business, unless the IT team or the chief information security officer has a detailed understanding of the business in which he is operating and clearly states why, in previous years, the risk It did not seriously threaten the business, but in the coming years, serious risks threaten the business activities of a company. At its most basic, security experts must teach employees how to protect valuable information.

Data protection

Fortunately, not all issues are murky in the world of cybersecurity, provided some behavior changes. First, we have to accept that companies and home users generate huge amounts of data. Based on research, we will generate more than 180 zettabytes of data by 2025. It is good to know that each zettabyte is equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Who owns this data, who processes it and how can you manage this data? Technology is only one member of the triad of "people, processes and technology". In addition, people are gradually becoming more sensitive to their privacy, and as a result, it may be difficult to use biometrics to perform tasks such as authentication. What is the solution in such a situation? First of all, we need to understand the data life cycle; That is, how is the data generated and managed and what is the best way to delete it? Undoubtedly, some organizations prefer to keep data for as long as possible, which may cause problems related to the three principles of "confidentiality, integrity and availability" of data. Therefore, data that is not needed should be deleted.

Another thing to consider is that data should be looked at from a privacy perspective. For this reason, you must first change your attitude and imagine that the data belongs to others and not to you. Understanding your responsibilities towards the data you store is a good way to achieve a better risk tolerance threshold. It is better to ask yourself if it is necessary to store and maintain this data?

Social networks, attractive but dangerous

Despite their charm and harmless appearance, social networks have hidden various dangers in their heart. This issue has made laws and regulations to limit the use of these networks in some situations. For example, some American states have banned the use of the Tik Tok social network in government offices. A social network that allows users to produce and publish short videos with music, special effects and special features.

US government agencies point out that software owned by foreign countries provides users' information to the intelligence agencies of those countries. Information that may include identity, keyboard usage patterns, location information (based on users' IP or SIM card), user activities, search history, web browsing, and biometric information. In addition, the personal use of social networks by the employees of an organization may have a negative impact on its credibility and create risks for the employees of that organization. Hackers can use social networks to find out where a person works, the branch where they work, and find their physical address. Potential risks include especially employees and senior managers of an organization who are directly related to financial transactions.

Of course, employees of organizations use social networks for things like conducting marketing campaigns, announcing news, or disseminating important information about the organization and products produced by the organization to others. However, cybercriminals can use social networks to identify threats that infect an organization's critical infrastructure. In addition, advertising teams based in organizations use social networks to evaluate the news of the day related to their business. Regardless of the reason for using social networks, the important thing to be aware of is that said networks can cause unwanted problems for both employees and organizations.

Risks of social networks for employees

Among the important risks that social networks create for employees, the following should be mentioned:

Violation of privacy: For example, hackers can cleverly use the social network TikTok to collect information about users and their privacy. This is why security experts do not have a positive view of this social network. This software is able to collect a lot of information about users, the most important of which should be the device information and the location of the user.

Online Harassment: Social networks can become a breeding ground for hackers and cybercriminals who aim to bully and harass others, even employees of an organization who use such networks for work.

The security risk of cyber attacks: Due to the large amount of data collected by popular social networks, these networks may be targeted by cyber attackers. For example, in November 2022, a database of phone numbers of 487 million WhatsApp users from over 84 countries was put up for sale on the hacking forum Breached.vc.

Security risks of social networks for businesses

Users are not the only ones who may face security risks when using social networks, businesses may also become victims of these networks. Among the important risks of these networks for businesses, the following should be mentioned:

Damage to reputation: In social networks, all users can write their positive and negative reviews about a business. Negative reviews can damage a business's reputation, so businesses need to react and fix the problem as soon as possible.

Employee misconduct: Employees using social media on behalf of their employer may accidentally or intentionally post inappropriate content that damages the reputation of the business.

Possibility of information breaches: If a social network faces information breaches, the organization's data may be at risk. An information leak in a network like LinkedIn may pave the way for phishing attacks to be implemented against the organization. In addition, a seemingly innocuous picture that employees post of their work environment on social networks may inadvertently lead to the disclosure of sensitive organizational data.

How to reduce the risks of activity in social networks?

The first thing you should do is to limit the use of social networks in the organization's systems and especially the people who have important responsibilities in the organization. Companies should separate personal and business applications from each other. If employees need to use two separate devices to deal with personal and business issues, clear policies should be developed in this field. Businesses with such policies should use a mobile device management tool and regularly notify users to install security patches on the devices they use.

Therefore, it is better to formulate an explicit policy for the responsible use of user and organizational devices. In this policy, the expectations of the organization in the field of social network management should be defined in order to maintain the credibility of the organization. In addition, it is better to provide users with advice on the safe use of Android and iOS devices.

Computers and mobile equipment used for social networks should be protected in the best way and the protection level of the security tools installed on them should be set to the highest level.

Ensure that multi-user tools used to manage social media content have access levels set appropriately and based on needs. You can specify policies for the use of multiple users of the same account. Carefully monitor these tools when using them. Register and monitor all social channels used for official communication of the organization. Make sure users are aware of which channels are being used by the company. Also, designate someone to monitor how tools and networks are used. Teach employees to use a multi-step authentication mechanism for all user accounts on social networks. It has been observed many times that hackers have published opinions and statements directed at the company and harmed the reputation of the organization by gaining unauthorized access to company accounts on social networks.

Increase the level of email security for users who work with the organization's social network accounts to reduce the likelihood of a phishing attack.

The future world will be based on cyber resistance

In the coming years, we will see the design and deployment of more protection technologies by home users and enterprises. Some of these technologies, such as quantum cryptography, can bring about a big revolution in this field, but no matter how useful future technologies are, any centralized data repository has its own risks and responsibilities. On the other hand, as we mentioned in the predictions of cyber security in 2023 in the last issue of the network magazine, the preventive response to incidents and the implementation of resilience plans will also increase.

Therefore, we suggest that at the beginning of 1402, you should remove the security risks from yourself and put the resistance plan in the defense doctrine of your organization. In this case, instead of becoming a profitable target for hackers, you will be able to deal with threats and minimize threats through integrated security solutions and information distribution in different platforms. The bottom line is, don't underestimate your responsibility to protect other people's data, because hackers may capitalize on this weakness, which will cost you dearly.