When an organization suffers a data breach or other anomalous incident, how does the news reach the world? We all know that the media and entertainment industry plays the key role here. But what happens if the media organization itself is affected? It’s time to understand cyber security concerns and challenges in this industry as well. 

The IT Security Paradigm

The Media & Entertainment industry nurtures a preconceived notion that this industry bears less risk of cyber threats. This lackadaisical attitude gives ample scope for cyber criminals to explore the vulnerabilities and breach data. A couple of years back, the ‘fame’ and ‘popularity’ of a global producer of movies and web series turned ‘ill-famed’ after their streaming service went live without the knowledge of the organization. The hackers actually compromised the site’s users by stealing their user credentials, changed all their passwords and logged off from all the devices to take control of the activities and huge amounts of data. 

Just before the pandemic hit the globe, this incident turned out to be an eye-opener for the global cyber security community. However, after multiple levels of scrutiny, the truth got revealed that entertainment companies have their own set of security challenges that were ‘ignored’. The hackers group found it luring and took the best advantage out of it by launching data breaches, creating data cloning, compromising user accounts, using impersonations and more.

The IT Risks

The entertainment industry has come a long way from electronic modes to digital modes where production houses migrate their broadcasting services towards online content and streaming services. As a result, the risk of hacking, data theft and potential damage of reputation increases daily. Here are some predominant IT security threats that can damage the organization beyond recovery.

Insider Threats: Insiders with easy and regular access to the ‘not-yet-released’ content bear the risk of leaking information to file-sharing servers. Most of the time, media companies lack any seamless user monitoring mechanism that increases the risks. When ‘trusted’ insiders remain involved in the malicious act, it invariably takes long to detect the malpractice or rather the source of it.

Cyber Sabotage: Group of hacktivists or organized cyber criminal groups attack media organizations to steal data, malign reputation and manipulate information of terrorism, religious fundamentalism, political idealism or simply spread baseless rumours. Organizations face real pain to deal with the consequences of such incidents.

Inadequate Public Scrutiny: Hundreds of public emails are inboxed in organizations’ official email everyday. It could be service feedback, service requests, complaints and more. In case of running contests, organizations check responses in the emails to decide the winners. Phishing threats loom large here. A potentially harmful email in disguise of an appreciation email could be disastrous if opened and clicked.

State-sponsored Threats: In order to stop spreading of controversial entertaining content, government-authorized ethical hacktivists compromise every access point. On several occasions, the media organizations face legal consequences as well in this regard and face financial and reputational setbacks.

Non-Compliance: The rules and regulations of global compliance standards are applicable to every industry including media and entertainment. Hence, in case of any data breach incident, the organization could surely be charged with non-compliance penalties. It raises financial stress and has adverse effects on the business future. 

Security Measures

Cyber security in the entertainment industry is crucial because a vast number of users are habituated today with online services. Hence, a robust IT security is the only key to stay above from the predominant cyber threats.

• A seamless monitoring of the end-users accounts round the clock can help the organizations to keep a track of who is accessing critical information at what time and for what purpose.
• Proper prioritization and segregation of data assets is highly critical. Along with that, determining the access control mechanism of every database as per rule and role can minimize the risk of unauthorized access.
• A robust mechanism to authorize and authenticate the user before allowing access is mandatory to ensure secure access.
• All the privileged set of identities that are gateways to most confidential information such as action plan for streaming services, upcoming productions etc. should have ‘Just-In-Time’ privilege policy to ensure privileged access only when it is required and not round the clock. It strengthens access control policy and protects confidential data.
• Following the global compliance mandates by following the best IT security practices can keep the organizations away from cyber threats.

Conclusion

As the media and entertainment sector grows to their digital potential and expands their online presence, it is highly recommended to protect their members, customers, partners and other associates and governing bodies. Today, it is one of the most profitable industries across the world provided it has the best IT security practices. Hence, organizations should invest time and money to strengthen cybersecurity and mitigate emerging IT risks.

“The best defense is a good offense” – ever came across this adage? Situations arise very often when protecting oneself becomes the best and only way to stay safe. 

In cybersecurity, the term ‘cyber defense’ refers to the ability or capability to protect critical systems from cyber attacks. It also involves taking actions to predict risky IT actions and identifying vulnerable areas to counter intrusions. A typical cyber defense strategy is built upon three components: predict, protect, and prevent cyber threats.

Why is it Important? 

If organizations take proactive steps to ensure adequate cybersecurity in place, they will be able to avoid cyber attacks and prevent data thefts at the right time. With the best possible cyber defense strategies, organizations can ensure uninterrupted business processes round the clock. It builds the ‘trust’ between the organization and its stakeholders because in case of any cyber incident, the brand image of the organization is tarnished. Not only that, there are legal consequences that lead to huge financial losses.

Hence, a cyber defense strategy is a must to build  robust cyber defense: It mitigates the probability of:

• Cyber attacks
• Data breach incidents
• Interruption in business process and business continuity
• Financial losses
• Reputation loss
• Increase in legal expenses
• Non-Compliance penalties
• Breach of ‘trust’ among stakeholders

How is it possible? 

A best-in-class solution with adequate access control security features powered with AI and ML capabilities can ensure robust cyber defense in an organization. A Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is the best bet in the modern cyber age to stay safe and secure from cyber threats. Let us see why PAM is becoming indispensable in organizations everyday.

Avoid Insider Threats: Knowing from where the attack is coming is the best way to secure data assets from any compromise. Most data breach incidents stem from compromised end-users. Due to the abrupt transformation in the IT environment, privileged identities are becoming very vulnerable. Since those identities are large in number for typical organizations and a gateway to confidential information, securing those identities proactively makes the overall IT infrastructure stronger.

In order to identify suspicious insiders, features like just-in-time privilege, seamless monitoring of the users, multi-factor authentication and frequent rotation and randomization of passwords help organizations a long way in mitigating looming IT attacks. Likewise, a PAM empowered with AI capabilities can help to understand the risky and anomalous identities that pose a serious threat to confidential information.

Ensure Best Security Policy: In the era of a complex and distributed IT environment, the major challenge that organizations face, lies with whether the users are doing what they have been assigned to do. Any deviation from their roles and responsibilities generally means that they are not doing what they are supposed to do. Herein lies the challenge and a PAM solution like ARCON | PAM identifies the suspicious user and notifies the IT administrator immediately.

We need to note here that organizations, even if they deploy PAM, adhering to the IT security policy is a must. The IT administrators, IT users and organizations need to follow the policy to ensure end-to-end security in the environment. If the policy is poor or ambiguous, it creates a gap between the three and overall IT security is affected. Moreover, a robust IT security policy shows the cyber readiness of an organization that builds the foundation of cyber defense.

Conclusion

A variety of individuals from different levels are involved to ensure cyber defense initiatives in an organization. Starting from the management who prepares the policies, the IT security team who ensures that the policies are in place and the IT users who follow the rules and regulations strengthen overall cyber defense. Nevertheless, regular audits help organizations to examine cyber security measures and offer recommendations regarding reset of priorities and implementation of new tools.

The world has become increasingly complex, and it is becoming clear that organizations need to prioritize digital security over many other aspects to prevent losses. Implementing a strong and holistic cybersecurity strategy can also provide competitive advantages in the marketplace. 

The fact is, your business needs to be aware and prepared for potential cyber vulnerabilities. If the pace of security updates is out of alignment with the adoption of new technologies, you may have a serious problem on your hands.

Cloud technology is becoming more prevalent than ever. As a result, exterior loaded security measures are out of fashion now since they are easily bypassed, sabotaging the security of business infrastructures. Moreover, supply chains are growing complex, leading to many potential entry points for hackers. The crux of the matter is the nature and motives of the hackers themselves. Earlier, hackers needed to write their codes, but now, these codes are readily available on the internet. The more user-friendly your infrastructure, the weaker it is digital malfeasance. 

Most hackers are money motivated and data is worth a hefty sum. In the unpredictable yet vital information technology sector, there is a constant need to deploy protective measures to meet cybersecurity requirements. 

PAM as a Solution – What is it?

The biggest cybersecurity threats lie with hackers who gain easy access to business systems and steal secure data by installing malware or making significant changes to system configurations. A person with privileged access to your system can override security settings anonymously. It is necessary to stay ahead when it comes to privileged access. This is where PAM kicks in. A PAM solution brings the potential to control and monitor privileged accounts that can potentially expose business systems and data to risk. 

Privileged Access Management combines tools and technology, securing critical information of your business. In addition, the solution is capable of enforcing privileged access policies for privileged users. 

PAM administrators can track every step undertaken by privileged users using this solution, providing them with an unalterable audit trail of their activities. In addition, a PAM solution provides effective cybersecurity planning, with the means to assign or revoke privileged access rights. Such users can set up or modify settings on every sensitive system that is equipped with security defenses. Moreover, PAM offers accurate and updated audit records, implements necessary security policies, and efficiently executes privileged access permissions. 

The sanctity of data security depends completely on the organizations’ preparedness in the areas of access control management, user monitoring, robust management of passwords, and others. A progressive implementation of enterprise-class PAM solutions can help you there.

Top 5 Reasons to Invest in PAM:

In a world where over 80% of data breaches involve the theft of sensitive data and privileged credentials, investing in a PAM solution should be one of your most crucial security strategies.

Implementing PAM in your business management strategy can bring comprehensive benefits. Here are the top 5 reasons investing in a PAM solution can be a terrific security option to business assets. 

• Reduce threats to MSPs and MSSPs

MSPs are prime targets for hackers as they offer access to data and devices of multiple companies. Therefore, for such MSPs and MSSPs, there is no better time to invest in a PAM solution.

Large- and medium-sized enterprises don’t have the resources to manage their security and cloud requirements. Outsourcing these cybersecurity responsibilities to MSPs allows you to focus on core business goals. Investing in PAM software can help secure the endpoints of clients and protect passwords efficiently. In addition, ARCON | PAM offers best-in-class control features, bringing efficiency with compliance. 

• Transparent and Frictionless – 

Cybersecurity incidents are known to generate considerable friction in boardrooms, giving rise to the need for strong and transparent security controls. A frictionless version of cybersecurity is helpful in guarding the access of illegitimate visitors, continuously monitoring such activity. With a comprehensive PAM solution, businesses can work on the principle of “least privilege”, allowing users to only access data that they need. For a hybrid working environment in the post-pandemic era, a transparent and frictionless solution such as the one ARCON | PAM offers is indeed necessary.

• Operations & Automation-ready 

With the evolution of the IT world, there has been a rise in multi-platform environments and robotic process automation. ARCON’s next generation PAM solution has been designed to take into account the entire processes and policies of privileged access management. It is designed to be operations and automation-ready. In addition, this next-gen PAM solution considers the working processes of admins, bringing maximum transparency while removing friction, enabling transformation and scaling of your business. 

• New Revenue Opportunities

While offering increased security, PAM solutions are also instrumental in expanding business horizons. With PAM solutions, businesses can work across hybrid environments with ease. The ARCON | PAM solution grows with business systems, transforming them at every step, allowing the business environment to evolve accordingly. With privileged access, your company can expand its existing offerings and increase its revenues. 

• Ease of Deployment 

Unlike the first generation of PAM solutions, the modern-day solutions of privileged access management demand minimal changes to the environment of your business, its processes, and its systems, easing the overall deployment process.

With the growing availability of next-generation solutions, ARCON | PAM integrates well within your current system and applications. In addition, the ease of deployment allows businesses to gain immediate value from the solution without having to make any major changes in the existing work atmosphere. 

ARCON | PAM is built to address the evolving use case challenges regarding privileged access, offering IT security with granular controls while enforcing the principle of “least privilege” in your business. A company trusted by over 1000 global brands, ARCON provides industry-level solutions to ensure business scalability and security compliance. If you wish to invest in a PAM solution, ask an expert for the best possible security objective!

Just find out the vulnerable areas and people in the IT system, misuse them one by one and compromise the confidential information. That’s the modus operandi of cyber criminals to harm the entire IT community across the globe. 

The cyber experts, however, on most occasions are a step ahead, which is why many possible cyber incidents are averted. The number of cyber attacks averted across the globe every year is almost thrice the number of cyber incidents that actually happen. It includes data breach, cyber espionage, unauthorized access, critical password compromise, insider/ third-party threats and more. 

Who is responsible for cyber incidents?

Malicious insiders, suspicious third-party users, organized cyber criminal groups are majorly responsible for cyber incidents in any organization. Internal frauds and social engineering stem mainly from those people who are privy to confidential information.

Whoever is the reason, some sort of IT infrastructure vulnerability of the organization or maybe lackadaisical attitude from the workforce builds the base of this threat possibility. Identity management and governance is one of the major sources of data assets compromise. 

So who is to be blamed for a cyber catastrophe? Definitely the organization itself, though apparently it appears to be the rogue intention of the cyber criminals. Statistically speaking, the post investigation of every incident reveals some sort of single/ multiple loophole(s) in the IT infrastructure that has (or have) driven the destruction. The most common and possible reasons behind cyber incidents include, especially identity related include:

• Unmonitored endpoints 
• Absence of multi-level authentication 
• Poor/ Improper password management
• Poor access control and management 
• Absence of granular level monitoring
• Too many elevated/ privileged user accounts
• No regular reporting, audits and weak IT governance
• Loopholes in the IT security policy
• Non-compliance

Cause & Effect of Cyber Incidents

In 2018, one of the ex-employees of a USA-based multinational technology conglomerate inflicted malicious code in the organization’s cloud infrastructure that deleted more than 450 virtual machines used for testing several applications. As a result, almost 16,000 users could not access their accounts for more than two weeks. The organization had to cough up $ 1.4 million to audit their IT infrastructure and fix the damage. Not only that, they had to pay around $ 1 million to restitude the affected users. The investigation went for more than two years before the culprit was eventually put behind the bars. But what about the additional legal cost that the organization had to bear? What about the business prospects that were lost during the tenure? Practically, the loss is immeasurable! Парень, наконец, зашел на сайт в онлайн доступ и устроил себе страстную дрочку вечерком

There are numerous reasons behind unprecedented cyber incidents. On one hand, there are cyber crooks who always look for IT security vulnerabilities, poor access control mechanisms, non-compliance and on the other hand, there is urgency to adopt advanced technologies to survive the competition. 

The extent of need varies from industry to industry and as per geographical expansion. Today, the proliferation of cloud computing, and other advanced technologies based on AL/ ML have enticed the malicious actors to search for new loopholes and to exploit their critical assets. 

Any action leads to two types of effects – primary and secondary. Cyber incidents are no exception. While organizations strive to reinstate their business as soon as possible after an incident, there is immense pressure from the compliance, legal and cyber administration to assess the loss and thrust penalties upon them. Let us delve deep into the pattern of effects after an organization suffers a cyber attack:

Positive Repercussions

We have discussed the above-mentioned primary effects in our multiple blogs earlier. Let us find out the secondary after-effects of a cyber incident. Apart from the maligning of goodwill, losing of business partnerships, non-compliance penalties, there are positive repercussions as well. It helps to learn from the mistakes, and rectify the mistakes so that future incidents can be everted. 

• The IT infrastructure audit after a cyber incident strengthens the security measures and sometimes there are even changes of roles in the workforce to ensure end-to-end security in daily operations is maintained. 

• An unprecedented cyber incident in an organization compels the other organizations, especially the peers to re-evaluate their IT security practices and fix the vulnerabilities as soon as possible. Definitely it narrows down the scope for cyber criminals to inflict further similar damages immediately.

• Regulatory compliances turn more stringent and organizations as a result deploy robust security solutions like Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), Endpoint Security Management and Security Compliance Management (SCM) to ensure comprehensive security. It eventually helps them to stay away from unwanted cyber incidents.

Conclusion

Risk Predictive IT security solutions  are the need of the hour for modern organizations. And cyber incidents,  help cyber experts to understand and analyze the threat patterns. Thus, the vulnerabilities of IT infrastructure can be addressed in a timely manner before any possible catastrophe.

Business alliances and partnerships are key growth enablers for both large organizations and SMBs. The main purpose of a business alliance is to achieve the desired financial goals by sharing operational responsibilities that are mutually and easily doable. 

Many organizations even go for alliances to fulfill the gaps in their business process with the help of their partners. It not only brings efficiency gains but also boosts profitability. 

Now, to make a collaboration that brings the desired results, secure IT infrastructure plays a pivotal role. A single IT security loophole or a cyber incident cannot only affect the victim but also the alliance partner who is involved in the business collaboration with the victim. In other words, in addition to business synergies, both parties need to understand the significance of IT security measures being implemented in place. 

Why is IT security crucial in business alliances?

Although business agreements between two organizations cover the scope, objectives, requirements, and profit sharing details, crystal clear policies on data security and IT governance framework must be part of any partnership agreement.

Every organization desires a secured IT infrastructure today to ensure an uninterrupted business process. With the rising complexities of cyber security, it is highly imperative to keep in  mind the IT infra security requirements of both merging businesses for a smooth transition.  

A single breach incident cannot only cost heavily to both partnering organizations, but other business stakeholders and investors will distrust the company if they find that the data is not managed properly. 

For any partnership to prosper in today’s digital landscape, the partnering organizations have to be at par with global standards. It should start with establishing stringent IT security policies and standards. IT governance is critical to ensure sustainable business growth. 

What are the apparent IT risks?

As business-critical data flows from system to system and is shared and accessed by multiple end-users, what would happen if it lands in the hands of any suspicious third-party user or any malicious insider? What if there is cyber espionage or data exfiltration?

The answer to all these questions boils down to one and only way out:Strengthen IT security policy and mechanisms to ensure business continuity. 

For instance, a manufacturing company with large on-prem IT infrastructure collaborates for business synergies with another company with strong supply chain capabilities that has installed multiple SaaS applications.

That means, once merged, the new entity will have large hybrid IT environments, exposing it to more IT and data vulnerability. 

If the new business collaboration fails to establish robust IT governance and policies to manage and monitor end-users in hybrid environments, the threat to systems will amplify. 

Besides, suffering heavy financial losses stemming from the data breach, today’s organizations have to face a double whammy: massive financial penalties arising due to non-compliance. Adding to the woes is the loss of reputation. 

Business Alliances: Some Measures for Data Security 

Unified IT governance: Organizations do require a unified IT governance framework for better visibility. A centralized governance approach ensures authorization and audit of every IT activity even as data flows endlessly within the organization. Unified IT governance enhances end-points’ security and secures identities that continually interact with business-critical applications.

Robust Access Control: It is always advisable to have a tight access control in any IT environment. Both for on-cloud and on-prem IT infrastructure, a robust access control mechanism with multiple layers of user authentication validates the end-user. Especially for organizations where a large number of privileged users regularly access business-critical applications and systems, it is highly imperative. Moreover, when two organizations merge, role and rule-based access control helps both the organizations to segregate the users in task-based groups, which again is more secure from an IT risk perspective.

Regulatory Compliance: By building security controls that adhere to regulatory mandates, organizations can mitigate data breaches and avoid paying hefty fines for non-compliance. Several global regulations such as the EU-GDPR and IT Standards like the PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001 etc. among many regional and Central Banks mandates explicitly mention the need to reinforce the Access Controls, Access Management, Password Rotations, Segregation of end-users based on responsibilities and frequent IT audits and reporting. 

Conclusion

Robust IT security must be at the core of any business alliance. Poor IT security planning or an IT incident will only result in higher cyber insurance premiums and eventually impact the profitability and sustainable growth – the purpose for which entities forge alliances. 

 Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a mechanism that securely manages and controls the privileged users. These users have elevated rights to access the critical IT resources, which could be databases, cloud resources, business applications among many more.

Privileged IDs, login credentials created for privileged users, are high-value targets for cyber criminals since these are the gateways to the most confidential assets of an organization. That’s why a robust Privileged Access Management is a must for organizations.

However, there are several loopholes in IT practices that are less-discussed and could impact the overall security of privileged accounts.

Here are ten major mistakes that prevail in enterprise IT environments due to which organizations can be a target of malicious insiders.

1. No Multi-factor Authentication: Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) of Privileged Access Management is an essential component of modern identity and access management. The general thumb rule of a robust end-user authentication is more layers between request and access. It gives more security to the data assets. A single layer of authentication becomes easy for the hackers to circumvent the authentication process. To breach the passwords, the hackers take help of multiple tools like phishing, social engineering, etc. to steal critical data.
2. Management of Service IDs: In an enterprise IT infrastructure, there are service IDs, and Privileged IDs, that possess individual importance. In special scenarios, the IT admin requires the Privileged IDs, that are accessed and controlled by PAM, to be integrated with other root IDs that could have equivalent privileged rights. This happens only because of the convenience of the user to login repeatedly for every assigned task. However, it invites and increases malicious activities. Thus, we should avoid duplicacy of credentials and access rights.
3. Server Hardening: If a PAM server is not hardened as per Computerized Information System (CIS) policies, then there are security risks. CIS is a computer hardware and software system that collects and processes data and disseminates information throughout the organization. Hence, if the policies are not matched, the security risk increases exponentially.
4. Default TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) Port: For any enterprise IT environment, the SQL Server is hardly recommended for highly critical IT tasks like database management. Instead, organizations prefer customized server access routed through PAM so that the IT risk assessment team can track and control the number of accesses, time of access and duration of logs. Also, to understand and keep a track of the number of ports, it is recommended having customized servers.
5. Absence of HANDR (High Availability and Disaster Recovery): Like in real life, it is always wise to have alternatives in IT as well. In the Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution, there are two modes of mechanisms: primary and secondary modes. During any IT disaster, if the primary mode stops working, then the secondary mode takes the charge so that the business operations of the organization don’t hamper. Hence, dual-mode PAM solution is highly required in the DR sight of the organization. Absence of HANDR might not prevent organizations from unprecedented IT security circumstances.
6. Valid SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate: SSL Certificates are the protocol that allows authentication, encryption or decryption of data sent over the Internet in an enterprise. Once applied, it activates the standard https// protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser. PAM helps to authenticate the SSL certification and prevents malicious elements from entering the enterprise IT ecosystem.
7. Absence of Domain Authentication: PAM helps enterprise IT teams to create a separate repository of end-user credentials at granular levels. All the end-user details, end-user authorization, generation of access to the target devices are managed by PAM. It is comparatively more effective (from security perspective) rather than managing the end-users centrally where there are chances of losing the track of user activities. PAM identifies the user domain and allows access to the target systems post authentication.
8. No Detection of bypassing Outside Access: Since the IT infrastructure is expanding exponentially, organizations are forced to give access to the third party users for various tasks. If these users try to bypass the PAM authentication process, for malicious intent or simply for convenience, are blocked immediately. However, as per organizations’ preferences, instead of blocking the user, the IT team can just receive an alert of anomaly. Thus, the role of PAM becomes imperative.
9. Ignore Critical Alerts: Every critical alert should be mandatory for all the servers prevailing in the IT ecosystems. Organizations put themselves at risk by not activating alerts for all the existing servers or databases which increases IT risks.
10. Service Request Workflow: There are situations where organizations have no other options but to allow third party vendors to access critical applications and perform some scheduled tasks. For this, they require access to the application server as well. PAM helps to give temporary access to the vendor for a specific application only during a pre-defined date and time and avoid unnecessary extra time access to the servers and avoid probable malicious attempts. Once the task is completed, the access rights are revoked automatically. To know more, please refer to the Just-In-Time Privilege Whitepaper of ARCON.

Conclusion

Privileged accounts are omnipresent. They differ from other accounts in terms of elevated permissions, ability to alter access mechanism settings for a large group of users. Moreover, multiple people having access to any specific privileged account, even if temporarily, might invite unwanted and unpredictable risks that could wreak havoc on the overall IT ecosystem. The points discussed above, once implemented, could surely safeguard organizations from insider threats.

Cyber risk insurers inspect and analyze several parameters of the organization before issuing any policy. These are:

• If any organization lacks adequate IT security policies, then the insurer might refrain from issuing a policy to that organization
• If any organization is in non-compliance with global Information Security standards such as the EU- GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, SOX, etc. then the insurer might reject the organization’s insurance coverage application
• If any modern organization with a huge number of privileged accounts in their network infrastructure, has no Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution deployed, then the organization might be deprived of any cyber insurance
• If any organization has partial deployment of any information/ IT security solution to secure its network and systems, then the insurer might deny issuing any policy
• If any organization applies for insurance during the process of migrating data to the cloud or MSP environment, then the insurer might reject the application and ask them to re-apply after the completion of data migration, because

When Cyber insurance premiums can rise manifold?

There are a good number of deciding factors that Cyber Insurance organizations look for deciding whether the insurance applicant organization is eligible for insurance coverage and the premium:

• A cyber insurance company always insists that an organization has to undergo a security vulnerability assessment test for cyber attacks. The insurer inspects the organization if it has adopted the best IT security practices by enabling robust defenses and is able to control the user activities in the modern IT ecosystem. Any kind of loophole in the security infrastructure pushes the organization towards uncertainty for insurance coverage or a higher premium. Therefore organizations should always conduct cyber vulnerability tests regularly.
• Employee education regarding every crucial security awareness, such as phishing, social engineering or malware attack should be part of an overall IT security framework. For administrative level IT threats, insurers expect that the organization should have a robust security mechanism (e.g. Privileged Access Management., PAM) in place to mitigate threats like malicious insiders’ risks, unauthorized users, compromised third-party access, password management misuse and more. Therefore for cyber hygiene, administrator-level access should be always secure, governed and controlled.
• Best security practices also include Zero Trust Privileged Access Security based. With modern-day organizations’ IT operations getting increasingly segmented and distributed, the insurers evaluate security weaknesses in the IT ecosystem and make decisions on insurance coverage. Therefore organizations should have adequate safeguards to monitor users in a distributed and segmented environment.

The Bottomline: Cyber Insurance premium is inversely proportional to an organization’s cyber hygiene. The more robust is cyber hygiene with appropriate tools especially Privileged Access Management (PAM), lower will be the cyber insurance premium.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real-time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.

Shared and Distributed Environment

The recent malware attack incident at one of the Nuclear Power Plants in the South of India proved that unmonitored and uncontrolled privileged accounts can cost heavily to an organization. A forensic investigation suggested that the infected system was used by a malicious user who connected to unauthorized internet for performing official administrative tasks. The breach highlights that the risks arising from unmonitored shared IT environment is huge. The ramifications of such incidents malign organizations’ financial position and reputation.

ARCON | PAM would have ensured that the privileged activities were monitored in real-time and the malicious activities were mitigated before any disaster.

Migrating Data to Cloud

A popular Thai Airlines company suffered a massive breach where personal data of 21 million passengers were compromised. After investigating the overall data security structure in the organization, it was found that the customers used to get unsolicited calls asking to verify personal information. After a few customers drew the attention of the organization regarding the calls, it was found that the cloud vendor of this Airline company had several suspicious activities which eventually resulted in the breach.

Regarding this, Nasscom has come up with a very interesting statistics which shows that the Cloud Security market will reach almost $7.1 by 2020 in India. Cloud adoption is going in such a rampant speed that most of the organizations would invariably invite cyber crooks to exploit the vulnerabilities if adequate security measures are not taken. Migrating IT workloads to a cloud service provider (CSP) offers scalability, flexibility, and efficiency. However, at the same time, it increases risks of compromised third-parties and malicious insiders.

ARCON | PAM ensures that the third-party and malicious insider risks are mitigated as the solution reinforces authentication and authorization mechanism.

Managed Service Provider (MSP)

The infamous and shocking breach incident in one of the major renowned international IT giants proves that cyber threats arising from Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are a big concern today. Organizations opt for MSP (Managed Service Providers) to ensure uninterrupted business operations although, the major security challenge with MSP lies with the uncontrolled and unmonitored access to privileged accounts. The same incident happened with this IT giant where the organization was bound to share the privileged account details to the third-party users, which turned out to be fatal because there was no third-party monitoring mechanism in place to ensure the prevention of unauthorized access. Despite having data security assurance from the service provider, the organization had to suffer because there was no security initiatives from their own.

ARCON | PAM would have ensured that the third-party users were authenticated before performing any task and their activities would have been monitored in real-time to prevent any suspicious activity.

Regulatory Mandates

The global social media giant Facebook has been slapped a fine of $2.2 billion as per the GDPR act for violating standard regulatory mandates. The company stored confidential and private user passwords insecurely in plain text. GDPR commission was notified that millions of passwords of the users of Facebook, Facebook Lite and even Instagram were stored in plain text format in internal servers without the knowledge and consent of the users. Thus, GDPR had to commence a statutory enquiry regarding the same and eventually had to impose the penalty.

Apart, HIPAA has unveiled a fact that almost 51% of global healthcare organizations fail to comply with the mandates of HIPAA. This means, more than half of the organizations storing digital records of the patients are not ensuring the security of those patients’ private information and are not compliant to standard HIPAA norms. For instance, Inmediata Health Group, Corporation, San Juan, Puerto Rico was penalized by HIPAA for affecting more than 15,65,338 patients private information due to some unauthorized access.

Once deployed, ARCON | PAM ensures that all these standard global regulatory compliances are met. Data Integrity, data security, access control and password rotation are also maintained and the organizations follow the mandates to avoid any kind of breaches.

Conclusion

All the above incidents give alert messages to global organizations. These incidents urgently demand a plan of action, which is to reinforce best privileged practices with the help of Privileged Access Management. However, many organizations today are far from being equipped with a robust risk-predictive and risk-preventive solution that could safeguard their digital assets. With digital assets increasing due to digitalization of IT operations, the number of Privileged users administering roots accounts, database, applications and network devices keeps on rising. Hence, these accounts need to be managed, controlled and monitored in real-time so that any bad actor in the IT environment – be it a malicious insider or a compromised third-party element – can not abuse data by gaining unauthorized access to critical systems.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real-time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.

ARCON would like to recollect and highlight some glorious moments of our journey, wherein it shared in-depth knowledge of Information Security space as data security becomes the most indispensable issue for IT security and risk management teams.

Dhaka, Bangladesh
Starting with a customized event in association with our local partner, ARCON kicked-off the annual journey in Bangladesh. This exclusive security summit was organized for the customers of Bangladesh in Dhaka on 21st March 2019. Being a global risk control solution provider, ARCON showcased its unique product features and functionalities of Privileged Access Management (PAM). Additionally, Yahyaa Khan, Senior Enterprise Solution Architect, ARCON, delivered an engaging speech on the role of Privileged Access Management (PAM) in modern enterprises and received an overwhelming response from the audience which included IT pros from large Banking institutions in Bangladesh.

Nigeria, Africa
ARCON’s next destination was Africa. IDC West Africa CIO Summit in Nigeria is considered as one of the biggest IT security events in the continent. ARCON took the opportunity to exhibit the intuitiveness of its IT risk control solutions, which is highly crucial as far as the changing technologies and enterprise security infrastructure is concerned. With an agenda of “Strategies for an Era of Multiplied Innovation & Automation”, ARCON found this event as a good platform to showcase the best-fit architecture of ARCON | PAM solution for global enterprises. Paresh Makwana, cyber security expert and business development consultant, ARCON, gave an interview at one of the interactive sessions wherein he explained the significance of risk-predictive technologies for a modern-day enterprise.

Munich, Germany
From Africa to Europe! European Identity Conference conducted in Munich was a four-day mega event organized by Kuppingercole Analysts. More than 900 thought leaders, leading IT security vendors, technology analysts and visionaries gathered under one roof to create a bevy of IT experts discussing identity and security challenges. It was a great occasion for ARCON as our Chief Mentor, Anil Bhandari was among the eminent panelists who shared their views on “Leveraging Privileged Access Management Solutions for Enterprises”. ARCON highlighted the importance of Privileged Access Management (PAM) and why it should be considered as the most important precautionary security measure to mitigate advanced cyber and insider threats.

Hong Kong
The Hong Kong, Cloud and Cyber Security Expo (HKCEC) was a mega conference with thousands of IT professionals and business leaders attending to meet the visionaries of IT risk control technologies. ARCON took the opportunity to showcase the importance of protecting privileged accounts in a shared and distributed network structure with the help of a powerful speech given by Sunil Dhaka, COO, ARCON. He delivered his views on “The role of predictive technology in changing cyber threat space” in front of a packed audience which included CISOs, CIOs, CTOs of organizations from South East Asia and other regions.

Litexpo, Vilnius
Back to Europe again! Baltic Cyber Security Forum, Litexpo was an independent cyber security event with an objective to increase IT security awareness in the Baltic states. With the rise of more and more sophisticated cyber threats, the event focussed on network security system and data protection methods. In this current situation, where enterprises are challenged with a myriad of IT security issues, ARCON, the pioneer in risk-control solutions, took active participation in spreading the importance of risk-predictive data security measures. Among all the eminent speakers, ARCON Chief Mentor, Anil Bhandari presented his views on “The role of predictive technologies, back to basics”.

Mumbai, India
Wisdom of Crowds, held in Mumbai, was a great opportunity for ARCON to collaborate with IT security professionals with an objective to expand more information security awareness.

The event also enabled us to discuss the roadmap of ARCON Privileged Access Management (PAM) in terms of offerings and functionalities to meet the rising IT security and compliance requirements. Led by ARCON Chief Operations Officer, Sunil Dhaka, Senior Product Specialist, Aditi Jain delivered an engaging speech on the road map of ARCON | Privileged Access Management and received a big applause from the crowd.

Toronto, Canada
Gartner Symposium ITxpo, Toronto was a fantastic platform to showcase the importance of Privileged Access Management (PAM) in securing data assets in front of the whole world. ARCON’s Chief Mentor, Anil Bhandari spearheaded the event with an hour long engaging speech on “The role of predictive technology in changing cyber threat space”. The learning and knowledge-sharing session was followed by queries and answers session attended by CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs from some of the largest organizations in the world. Anil Bhandari was accompanied by Zoher Mala, VP, Sales, America, who shared his invaluable experience in privileged access management space with the visitors to our stall.

The bottom-line
There are more milestones yet to come in this incredible journey of ARCON’s thought leadership campaign. With a packed schedule on the cards, we are going to continue with our R&D efforts to develop best-in-class solutions that will allow enterprises to mitigate emerging cyber threats.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.

Data is the most important thing which gets accumulated in our computers, laptops and other devices every day from various sources. We cannever deny the value of data because its mostly irreparable once lost. While OS (Operating Systems) and applications havere-install option, data doesn’t have. It is often classified and sensitive in nature(specially banking and financial details) which forces us to maintain privacy for the same. In addition, our business documents mostly include trade secrets, employee details and confidential monetary files.

IT security experts opine their views on the ways to shield the user data from theft, loss or unauthorized access.

Bring On Risk-Control solutions

There is a say “Prevention is better than Cure!” It is always advisable to take adequate precaution on data security measures rather than working on recovery of the data after theft. The risk-control solutions normally offers a unified framework which figure out the level of chances in network zone. Not only that, the highly important privilege accounts are managed and monitored to keep the malefactors at bay. With proper precaution from breaches, the organization data remains shielded from malicious acts.

Crucial Back-up

This is one of the vital stepsin protecting data regularly.The frequency of taking back-up depends on the amount of data gathering in the system.One can either use backup utility integrated to Windows to carry out basic backup exercises or use Wizard Mode to make the process for creating and restoring backups easier or configure the backup settings manually and set-up automatic backup routines.Irrespective of the program in use, the user should keepat least one copy of the backup at some other place in case of natural disasters which can destroy or damage backup data along with the original one.

Incorporate User Permission

Incorporating user permission on the data files and folders is another convenient way to ensure data safety. The data which is present in network shares, should have share permissions to manage the access of the accounts through the network. To keep your data safe from others, the best step forward is to put in place permissions on the data files and folders. The data present in network shares must have share permissions to manage which accounts can or cannot access the files via network.

Secure Wireless Data Transmissions

All the data transmitted over wireless networks is vulnerable to interception comparing to that of Ethernet network. In order to obtain illegal access to the targeted data, the cyber crooks do not require direct access to the network. They can do it with the help of any portable smart device if the access point is not safely configured. The only way out is to store or sent data on wireless networks with encryption, specially in WPA (WiFi Protected Areas) areas.

Retain Control with Rights Management

Employing Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) can control the recipients in handling their data safely. If there is too much of concern after leaving the computer, then it is better to set rights enabling the recipient for read-only format of the document which can not be edited, copied, or saved. Restrictions can be put on random forwarding of emails and the data can be made to expire after a specific time-period. It will refrain the recipient from further accessing it.