The major challenge is that proliferation of internal IT fraudulent activities typically go unnoticed and undetected for a longer period. It costs a bomb to organizations beleaguering their financial conditions and puts a big question mark on their reputation. 

A single IT fraud can be catastrophic if adequate measures are not taken on time.

Types of Internal IT frauds – Reasons

Large organizations and SMBs face various kinds of fraudulent activities internally that leave long-lasting consequences. One of the main reasons for internal fraud is that organizations often fail to keep a check on end user activities. Not only do security staff fail to identify the fraudulent activities but they are also incapable of learning the patterns behind the data abuse or misuse.  

From IT security perspective, the major fradulences are as below:

• Manipulation of data: Internal users end up manipulating data if he/ she wishes to conceal his/ her mistake or malicious activity while performing any task, and to avoid any kind of punitive actions. 

• Malicious Intention: Malicious insiders and sometimes compromised third parties that have access to the systems, exploit the IT security vulnerabilities especially in the access control management and steal data, mainly for financial gains. Even other white-collar crimes like skimming of virtual money happens due to poor access control management and inadequate monitoring.

• Cyber Espionage: In this act, organized cyber criminal groups or malicious third party users collide with some ‘compromised’ insider to extract confidential information for social engineering and zero day attacks. This occurs frequently in government organizations to acquire intellectual property, highly sensitive information and strategic blueprints. 

• Data Theft: Typically, the culprits behind data theft incidents are organized cyber criminal groups or malicious third party users. However, it has been observed in the last few years that internal users are also responsible for data theft incidents. Lackadaisical attitude towards following IT security policies, including poor access control and sometimes, inadequate knowledge of robust IT solutions that can protect data, results in data theft.

How to Prevent – The Remedies

During the pandemic, many organizations globally have shifted their IT security gear towards predictive measures. With this, organizations can stay proactive in identifying the risky user behavioural profiles and take timely action to prevent data breaches. The advent of advanced and sophisticated technologies like Big data and cloud computing have resulted in multiple and frequent changes in the IT threat patterns.

Benefits of Predictive Security Measures

Predictive user behavioural analytics is the use of end-user data with the help of artificial intelligence and machine-learning techniques to identify and detect the possible risks in future outcomes based on historical data. Predictive security measures enable the IT security teams to answer the below critical questions. 

• Is there any anomaly in end users’ activities?
• What is happening with anomalous activities?
• What’s the data patterns and the context behind suspicious events?

In order to vouch for the credibility of the business and the organization, these questions need to be answered. If organizations have a typical distributed IT environment, where the number of end users are large in numbers, the risk multiplies automatically. However, adequate predictive IT security measures in the policies can build a different picture altogether.  

Due to the recent pandemic and other factors, the number of devices is exploding significantly across the globe as organizations look to build a digital infrastructure. Amid increasing pace of digitalization, however, the number of digital identities is going to skyrocket in no time. While the world has 7 billion people, the number of devices has gone up to 15 billion and is expected to reach 50 billion in the next ten years. Hence, protecting these identities from malicious elements through predictive analytics is highly important. 

Conclusion

Is it ever possible to completely eradicate Internal IT frauds? Until we do not have proper user behavioural assessment mechanisms in place round the clock, we are surely at the risk of losing confidentiality of critical data assets. It eventually impacts on the regular business processes and on larger consequences, affects brand reputation and credibility.

• Emerging operating models

Some businesses will have to switch to new operating models. Cybersecurity and IT rights would require cautious assessment and careful handling for these organizations in any incident’s immediate aftermath. 

Monitoring and support for remote workers will become critical. Before permitting the relocated system to reconnect to the network, cybersecurity specialists must adopt a  system and access scrutiny for personnel who move from home to the workplace.

• Security at the edge

Recognizing the impact of working from home is the next stage in repositioning security in an organization. Almost all workforces became remote during the pandemic’s peak, and even when enterprises progressively return to offices, there will still be a large network of remote workers.

Without VPN architectures, this rapid and massive shift to remote working at the initiation of lockdown constraints would not have been possible. However, the safety governing VPNs is not as powerful as it needs to be for the heavy reliance on these systems to link employees to critical applications within organizations. As a result, businesses have shifted to Privileged Access Management (PAM) to support global remote access, including SD-WAN. These systems now have integrated security measures, providing remote workers with nearly the same level of protection as the head office. 

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions are a more secure alternative to VPNs that are projected to become more prominent in the future. These services combine network and network security into a single cloud service that is both secure and capable of providing the amount of connectivity required by edge devices.

• Emergence of micro-segmentation

Segmentation and micro-segmentation are anticipated to control digital identities and implement zero-trust network security. Increased investment in vendor roadmap related to zero trust investments will allow for more effective interventions to secure networks. 

• Deploying advanced technology

Advanced capabilities backed by next-generation technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning must be included in threat detection and response capabilities. These are required to recognize & respond to end-user anomalies on machines without human intervention on a real-time basis. 

A new paradigm of cyber security has dawned due to the pandemic. IT security professionals who push the game and defend their organizations’ people, technology & data against new or increased threats from more skilled cyber-criminals will be critical to ensure business continuity. 

Conclusion

Cyber security teams have surmounted the initial obstacles during the crisis, there is an opportunity to learn from the pandemic to strengthen cyber security posture in the long run. The pandemic has posed a significant challenge for businesses worldwide; IT security experts who step up their game against the increased threats posed by skilled cyber-criminals are critical for the future.

A “zero-day exploit” and a “zero-day vulnerability” are, in essence, quite different from each other. In simple terms, we can simply describe the former as the “cause” while the latter is its “effect”. 

Zero-day Vulnerability 

A zero-day vulnerability is a flaw or bug in hardware, software, or firmware that is unknown to its vendor. Security flaws that are known but haven’t been corrected yet will also sometimes be tagged as zero-day vulnerabilities.

A zero-day vulnerability generally opens up a timeline for a hacker before the developer or vendor fixes the bug. Its life cycle comprises of the following: 

• An organization or a vendor has developed a website, system, or software, which features a severe flaw. 
• The specific vulnerability has been discovered by the vendor and will be disclosed in the near future. 
• The developer is trying to fix the vulnerability, which may take from around a week to several months. 
• The developer has deployed the found fix (or patch) of the vulnerability, which has been successful in fixing the bug. 
• The user has installed the patch on their system, which currently protects the affected device from cyber-exploits. 

Usually, the opportunity for exploitation lasts anywhere from the discovery of the flaw to the deployment of the patch. An efficient cybercriminal may find out about the flaw before the vendor themselves and take advantage of the situation before anyone knows there is a problem. 

Where Do Vulnerabilities Appear? 

A zero-day vulnerability can appear almost anywhere in your system. It might be present in the code, or an inexperienced user may create it by abusing the program. Zero-day vulnerabilities are commonly found in IT infrastructure, which tends to pass through various operators regularly.

In some cases, a vulnerability can occur due to not updating software or firmware properly. You may also create a flaw in your system by clicking on a phishing email and give hackers the opportunity to manipulate your security code. Once a vulnerability is discovered in this code, anyone can exploit it. 

Zero-Day Exploit

A zero-day exploit is the “effect” of the occurrence of a zero-day vulnerability. It is usually done using a particular technique or code to take advantage of the flaw. Essentially, a cybercriminal can exploit the issue from the get-go and gain unauthorized access to your system. 

However, searching for a particular vulnerability in a lot of code can be a difficult job. Therefore, hackers tend to use various automated tools that work on a massive scale to detect bugs in your software.

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Zero-Day Vulnerability vs. Zero-Day Exploit-The Differences 

Here are some aspects that differentiate zero-day vulnerabilities from zero-day exploits. 

• A zero-day vulnerability is essentially a flaw in any available system or program. It does not cause any concern or damage. However, it can be further exploited by using several automated tools. This kind of attack is known as a zero-day exploit. 
• A zero-day vulnerability can occur at almost any given time but a zero-day exploit can only occur after the flaw has been found. 
• You can use various security technologies to prevent a zero-day exploit situation. Nevertheless, it’s almost impossible to stop zero-day vulnerability. 

How to Counter a Zero-Day Exploitation Issue? 

Here are some things that can help you counter a zero-day exploit.

• TLS/SSL Certification: Along with various software and firmware programs, a zero-day vulnerability can occur in a website-based infrastructure as well, which can be secured by following the HTTPS protocol closely. You can perform this by installing a TLS/SSL certificate via the web hosting control panel. You will need to update and install your CMS to deploy HTTPS-based URLs and secure them thoroughly afterwards. 

• Use End-to-End Encryption: Email is the primary method of communication between individuals in an organizational environment. Hackers create or detect vulnerability in your system by dropping a phishing mail in your inbox, which, if opened, allows them to access your system. End-to-end encryption is one way to prevent phishing. E2E makes sure that no third party can access your data and keeps it away from prying eyes. 

• Use Security Compliance Management (SCM): An SCM is an extremely effective industry-grade security solution that can detect, evaluate, and mitigate the risk of system flaws. Essentially, it can be used to find vulnerabilities in your system and get rid of them before anyone can take advantage of them. This system can also help you in adhering to IT security standards properly. 

Why does your enterprise need ARCON | Privileged Access Management?

Conclusion 

A zero-day vulnerability is a common incident that usually gets patched up before anything unfortunate happens. Nonetheless, you should still be wary about this issue and take measurements to prevent it. Keep your systems updated regularly, use different security protocols, and talk with a security expert to learn other ways of protecting your network or system from exploitation. Good luck! 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations are still going for remote work. Thus, the security threats have become pretty prominent again. However, this is where Zero Trust comes in. It helps the workers of the association to assess their network security constantly through identity authentication.

This way, it becomes easier for them to find the risk, even before it could affect the system. Nonetheless, before you begin implementing the module on your system, you will need to learn more about it. Hopefully, this write-up is going to help you out in this aspect!

Zero Trust Network Access: A Brief Overview

In essence, Zero Trust is not like any other security system you can acquire from the market. Unlike most others, it offers a fundamental shift to the traditional security method and tries to simplify it in a unique way. For example, when working in a ZTNA-implemented network, you will need to prove yourself trustworthy and non-malicious.

Through its complex modus operandi, Zero Trust tries to restrict the common access to the entire network. It does so by isolating each and every application that is operating on it. The isolation is implemented based on authentication, user permission, and verification.

Let’s understand the concept through an example. Consider the network system of your organization to be a house with a lot of rooms. You will need to use a proper key to enter through the front door. After getting inside, you will need a unique key to get into either of the rooms. So, even if you have gotten access to the room, you will need to ask for permission again to get into somewhere else.

This way, Zero Trust aids an IT organization to operate and protect each of their cloud-based network modules in a proper manner. This sublime shift to basic security function can not only help you to prevent the outside attackers but also flush out the insiders.

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What are the Advantages of Zero Trust Security?

The Zero Trust system is one of the rare security modules available out there, which guarantees to prevent cyberattacks. According to an expert in the field, Michael Hornby, it can be even more efficient than an AI-based software program. So, let’s quickly check through its advantages to learn more about the module properly.

1. Ideal for Remote Working Environment

Unlike most other security modules available out there, Zero Trust can offer secure and safe remote access to almost every user. It is, in truth, much more superior than a VPN system, which can cater to the users only at a single location. Moreover, it provides too much network access as well, which, in turn, can prompt security issues.

Conversely, with Zero Trust, you can make the network system of your organization a little bit more lucid and dynamic without affecting its security. For instance, with it, you can create access policies on the basis of attributes and identities rather than relying upon IP addresses.

Moreover, it offers the ability to modify privileges and isolate crucial systems to make your whole infrastructure more scalable. Thus, the members of your organization can become much more efficient and resilient to cyberattacks.

Besides, Zero Trust also offers superior control over the cloud-computing system, which is the prime point behind remote working. It aids with almost any audit-related procedure and improves the overall agility even more.

2. Easier Integration

If your organization is not using a cloud-based system, then you probably already have a wide array of private servers and networks. So, if you wanted to integrate any other security module on it, then you might have had to go through a lot of different procedures.

However, it does not happen in the case of the Zero Trust system. It is quite easy to implement and integrate. Moreover, it also has a flexible base. So, it can complement almost anything and offer a transparent and seamless authentication procedure.

3. Unparalleled Security

As mentioned before, Zero Trust’s ability to provide security is pretty unique and excellent in its own accord. It does so by dividing your organization’s network system and does not let anyone else enter another server without authentication. This, in turn, can eliminate both internal and external security risks quite efficiently.

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Why Should You Implement ZTNA alongside ARCON?

The ZTNA framework, indeed, can be ideal for protecting the network system of an IT organization and assess the risks properly. However, if you wish to protect the whole environment properly, then it alone will not be enough for you. Aside from it, you will need to use something else too. In this aspect, nothing would be better than the Privileged Management System of ARCON.

The module was specifically designed to integrate with ZTNA sublimely and improve its overall performance. Moreover, it can protect some of your crucial profiles all by itself once you have installed them correctly. The PAM solution has three layers of security checking component, which includes – MFA and Adaptive Authentication (such as location check and device check).

It prevents an identity to access classified systems of your network unless he or she has the desired level of trust. You can establish the same through the overall connection time and usage of data. Just like the ZTNA framework, PAM, too, helps an organization to operate remotely and without using a VPN. Thus, in essence, they complement each other perfectly.

Conclusion

The time to retool and re-establish the security system in a unique way to prevent cyberattacks has come. Using the conventional methods, especially in this aspect, is not going to be ideal at all. So, instead, you will need to opt for something sophisticated and adequate, like PAM and ZTNA, to bolster your network environment. Hopefully, you will succeed in it. Good luck!

What is the moral of the story?… never assume the ‘trust’ but always reassess it.

A modern IT ecosystem is no different from a fallen empire where a major part of the infrastructure security relies on reassessing the trust. For any IT ecosystem, privileged identities hold the key to the ‘kingdom’ of confidential business data. If any of those identities breach the ‘trust’, it could result in a catastrophic IT incident.

The IT environment that is capable of defending both internal and external threats and can continuously re-assess the trustworthiness of privileged identities, is the strongest “commander” of the organization. Therefore building a Zero Trust architecture, wherein the ‘trust’ of every identity is continuously evaluated is of utmost importance.

As the global organizations are prioritizing health and safety due to the on-going pandemic, employees and employers are increasingly getting accustomed to remote work culture. It’s a huge security challenge especially when end users remotely access business-critical information. Traditional firewalls can no longer offer the same extent of IT security for employees who are logging remotely.

Further, distributed data centers, adoption of cloud environments and integration of IT operations with third-party service providers have expanded the threat surface. This is where the Zero Trust security framework becomes crucial.

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The crux of ‘Zero Trust’ security model

Banking, Government, Insurance… Almost all industry verticals are adopting this new security architecture. So what exactly is it? How different is the Zero Trust framework from the others?

The Zero Trust security model is a conventional shift from a perimeter-centric security approach to the data-security centric model. This model challenges the conventional model, which is more inclined towards perimeter (network) security… focus is on firewalls and advanced tools like network intrusion detection systems.

More importantly, the conventional models assume that there is no threat inside the inner IT realm. That notion is wrong. If that’s the case then why are we witnessing the abuse of privileged identities so often?

On the other hand, the Zero Trust model never assumes ‘trust’ but it continuously assesses ‘trust’ using risk-based assessments available from information gathered. Secondly, the model rightly assesses a modern-day enterprise IT ecosystem, which is distributed. Users access to databases and applications is not only happening from on-premises data centers, but from remote and third-party environments as well.

Resultantly, the model says there is an urgent need to have a unified data security policy for all applications and databases, which can be done by constructing semi-perimeters and semi-segmentations, so that access to every database and application is secure, controlled, and documented. ‘Deny all access, until the identity’s trust is verified’… that’s the need of the hour.

ARCON | Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution helps organizations to build the foundation of Zero Trust architecture. The tool is built on the credo which is ‘Assessment of trust is not a one-time task, it is a continuous process’ and therefore, “we trust you, but we will continuously assess the trust’.

Why Segmentation is must today
Today modern enterprises are adopting digital means for every bit of function and operations. They want to automate processes and make the IT ecosystem agile. However, in the process of digitalization, there is a proliferation of privileged identities. As a result, managing whole set identities becomes extremely challenging for an IT administrator unless there is a proper segmentation of the network and the privileged identities. This rule and role-based policy help the organization to define the tasks and remove any kind of ambiguity regarding who is doing what with an underlying set of digital identities. To know more in details, you can refer to our exclusive Newsletter on Zero Trust Privileged Access Security redefined by ARCON | PAM.

Benefits of Segmenting Identities

• Overall systematic IT infra and datacenter approach: Any enterprise always looks for a systematic approach within its IT infrastructure and datacenters. Best Privileged practices such as segmentation of identities make the administrators’ job easier as it enables seamless monitoring of the user activities. It helps in defining and segregating the set of privileged accounts (users/ user groups, services, service groups) that are meant for different target devices or systems.
• Protecting the endpoints: Unprotected endpoints are the major entry doors for malicious actors to gain illegal access to critical systems and steal confidential information. Therefore it is highly advisable to maintain the segmentation of the network at the endpoint level to avoid any kind of unauthorized access. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management ensures endpoint security by segmenting users based on their roles and responsibilities.
• Special focus on user role & responsibilities: The privileged users in an enterprise environment should have a segmented workstation to access privileged accounts in the network. When the roles and responsibilities of these privileged identities found in different workstations are pre-defined, it helps the administrators to monitor, control and manage the activities. The IT security staff can identify and remove any suspicious activity happening in the network periphery in real-time.

The Bottom Line:
Nowadays, large and mid-scale organizations across the globe are adopting the Zero Trust Privileged Access Security Framework to strengthen IT security infrastructure. Segmentation of the privileged identities which ensures “least privilege principle”, is the first step towards achieving the Zero Trust Security model.

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.