Cloud-dominated architectures are ubiquitous as more organizations are seeking to reap benefits from cloud-based technologies. Agility and flexibility are the critical elements offered by cloud-based technologies even as they offer developers the ability to run applications and tools quickly and dynamically, necessary to keep up with the pace of market requirements. 

And in this pursuit of agility, dynamism and flexibility, organizations are creating large numbers of non-human identities that interact with high velocity cloud workloads such as DevOps pipelines, virtual machines, scripts, applications, containers, RPA tools to conduct day-to-day automated IT tasks. 

But when organizations have high-velocity cloud workloads, spread sometimes in multi-cloud environments, and both human (console level access for DevOps users) and non-human identities get into action, at this point, it is extremely crucial  to protect the passwords, API keys, SSH keys, certificates or OAuth tokens etc. to ensure that there is secure access to high-velocity cloud workloads. Secrets management enables cloud security teams to securely manage the cloud workload. 

Just like human identities and their interaction with critical systems need to be brokered for secure access, secrets management is vital component for ensuring secure access to dynamic cloud workloads. Secrets management allows developers to securely rotate vault credentials such as passwords, keys, and tokens with strict access controls is known as secrets management.

What are the Challenges in Secrets Management

• Sprawling of Secrets: With the proliferation of multi-cloud services and microservices, there are hundreds of secrets that the developers use for accessing critical systems, cloud-native applications, or virtual machines. If these secrets are left unrevoked, the organization is left open to catastrophes.
• Fragmented Control of Secrets: In some organizations, different teams manage their secrets separately. Such decentralized platform can lead to security loopholes, some might abide by the policies, some might not. This bears risks of non-compliance as well.
• Cloud Services: While opting for different cloud service models such as AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure or GCP (Google Cloud Platform), organizations work with many virtual machines that require their own secrets. Some are default secrets while some are organization-made. There could be vulnerabilities of default secrets and if those are overlooked, there could be unprecedented incidents. 

Automate Secrets Management with ARCON Digital Vault 

ARCON is focused on developing cloud-native applications so that organizations cloud-first journey is successful. ARCON Digital Vault is a centralized engine that provides the capability to generate, vault, and randomize credentials for non-human identities and broker trust between two non-human identities, along with ensuring authorization and policy enforcement for the same. The powerful engine can support dynamic functions like secrets management for RPA, bots, etc. to control and mitigate the threat vector arising from large-scale process automation.

ARCON Digital Vault: Key Points  

• Leverages native application attributes and role-based access controls to authenticate applications and containers
• Manages credentials/tokens used by applications, container platforms, automation tools, and other non-human identities 
• Manages and securely pass credentials to validated containers and clusters as and when required
• Secures credentials, certificates, APIs, tokens, secrets in digital vaults and protects and monitors both non-human and human identities with CI/CD consoles 
• Implements role-based access control policy to authenticate cloud applications and containers
• Controls both human and non-human access during continuous integrations (CI) and continuous deployments (CD)

Conclusion

Secrets management is not only critical for the security of passwords, keys, tokens, or certificates, but also systematic management of IT operations and resources. With this systematic approach, organizations can prevent unauthorized/ unknown access, credential misuse and subsequent catastrophic incidents on cloud environments.

New technologies and IT infrastructure modernization have extended the boundaries of identity. And these ever-expanding IT boundaries pose a mighty challenge for information security heads. The challenge is not simply to maintain strict identity controls. The bigger challenge is that these ‘trusted identities’ are dispersed in decentralized IT environments. 

There is a growing hodgepodge of applications, systems, APIs, and data that is scattered across IT networks in distributed data centres and multi-cloud environments. This hodgepodge of sensitive information is at constant risk from unauthorized access from vast user population- employees, third parties, and customers.  

A single unauthorized access to any of these IT resources from any access point made from any “trusted identity” is enough to shake the foundation of enterprise IT infrastructure. 

Against this backdrop, the Zero Trust model, also dubbed the “Zero Trust Approach” (ZTA), is assuming a lot of importance in the overall cybersecurity framework.  When implemented properly; the Zero Trust Approach (ZTA) can help build an unshakable IT infrastructure.     

Why is the “Zero Trust Approach (ZTA) so crucial in today’s enterprise IT context?

Once an organization opts for any new technology, the employees are the ones who drive the day-to-day tasks on disparate applications and systems. IT operations and administration staff define role-based attributes and create identities for end users. 

At this point, the organization does not have any choice but to “trust” the end users who can manage the new systems. Having said that, the question here is how to assess or understand the “trustworthiness” of the end user. An end user can be a compromised insider, or an unscrupulous third party.

That’s why IT security practitioners show their immense concern over who should be trusted and who should not be. Further, in a heterogeneous IT environment, it is never easy for IT administrators to ensure trustworthiness while hundreds of users regularly access multiple systems and applications for different purposes at different points of time. 

Organizations always want to ensure that each end user access is genuine and authentic. However, does every access is verified before allowing access? If not, then the risk is huge. Hence, we can say that “risk” is directly associated with “trust”. 

The Zero Trust Approach is based on the principle of “Deny Access” unless the trust is verified at every step. The Zero Trust journey requires careful planning and implementation. Essentially there are five building blocks to construct a Zero Trust architecture. Each building block helps to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access stemming from heterogeneous and distributed IT environments.

 How ARCON helps build the Zero Trust Architecture?

At ARCON, our focus has always been on building Access Management solutions that complement the Zero Trust Approach (ZTA). These solutions are built on the credo – “we trust you, but we will continuously assess the trust”. 

The table below suggests how ARCON IAM stack constructs the Zero Trust architecture. The table below also shows how the risk vector expands in the absence of Zero Trust Approach. 

Conclusion

The user access control framework in an enterprise network is always vulnerable due to “assumed trust.” With Zero Trust architecture, organizations can ensure “verified trust” in every layer of the access management space.

Furthermore, government rules and regulatory mandates of data-security make it highly imperative for a company to ensure data security measures everywhere in the IT environment. It is more necessary in a shared and distributed environment where the critical information is shared among multiple stakeholders. Data security measures helps to protect business information from unauthorized access and malicious third-parties.

Data Privacy vs Data Security

Confidential business data and its security should not be treated lightly by enterprises that are accumulated or transferred every day. In order to safeguard fundamentally sensitive information such as digital identities, finances, business contracts, strategic blueprints and even medical records.

Cyber criminals and other malefactors look for loopholes to access volumes of potentially valuable data (in terms of money). However, not everyone is aware of or can comprehend the distinction between data privacy and security. As a result, the terms are frequently misunderstood or used interchangeably.

The distinction between privacy and security boils down to whose data is protected, how it is protected, from whom it is protected, and who is responsible for it. However, the primary difference between security & privacy is that security is inclined towards safeguarding data from malicious threats, whereas privacy is concerned with data usage – who is accessing what and why? 

Data security is meant to protect sensitive information. Data privacy deals with who is accessing which data that could be protected from cyber threats. Regardless of who the unauthorized person is, data security is primarily concerned with preventing unwanted access, mostly with malicious intent. Organizations can ensure this by deploying IT security tools and advanced technologies. IT security policies also play a big role to prevent sensitive business information from data breaches.

The Importance of data privacy and data security in current scenario

Financial data, enterprise data, healthcare information & other personal consumer or user data can become deadly if they get into the wrong hands. Due to some lack of secured access control mechanisms, enterprises might be subject to fraud and identity theft.

Furthermore, a data breach may jeopardize the security of the entire business set up. And once it happens, it exposes the confidential information to a competitor or in the gray market. Data protection regulations come into play in this situation. Safeguards against data loss or corruption are also included in this approach. SMEs and MNCs are also included in this approach. Every organization might face alarming consequences if they don’t have adequate information security processes in place.

Conclusion 

As our computing dependence rises, there are a lot of potential threats to our data. We can lose data due to a system failure, computer error, or a hacker’s manipulation. Private data and its security should not be treated lightly by enterprises as it is the core of any business. ARCON provides modern, advanced and industry-specific information security solutions that ensure business scalability, continuity and compliance.

In a world where privileged credentials are stolen in an estimated 74% of security breaches, deploying a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is one of the most important steps businesses can take to secure their IT assets.

Privileged accounts grant unique account privileges to certain end-users with elevated rights to execute key business operations such as accessing private company information, resetting user passwords, and implementing changes to IT infrastructure systems. However, if these accounts are compromised, the organization may face major consequences.

Organizations can use a strong PAM solution to ensure that individuals who require privileged access receive it while protecting vital business systems from devastating assaults. But before all, what is a PAM solution?

Privileged Access and PAM

 In a corporate environment, “privileged access” refers to special rights or ‘entitlements’ that go above and beyond a typical user. Privileged access enables enterprises to secure their network and apps, conduct their businesses efficiently, and protect sensitive data and key infrastructure.

Privileged access can be assigned to human and non-human users, such as applications and machine identities. Privileged accounts, credentials, and secrets abound: it is claimed that they outnumber employees three to four times over.

 The privilege-related security risk in current business environments is rapidly expanding as systems, apps, machine-to-machine accounts, cloud, hybrid environments, DevOps, robotic process automation, and IoT devices become increasingly interconnected.

Today, nearly all advanced assaults rely on privileged credentials to access a target’s most sensitive data, services, and infrastructure. Privilege access has the potential to disrupt a company if it is misused.

Endpoint compromise and privileged credentials are virtually usually the cause of data leaks. As a result, monitoring and protecting privileged accounts has become critical. Endpoint least privilege security is crucial, as local administrator rights are a prime target for cyber thieves.

Solutions that safeguard both endpoints and privileged credentials must be in place to protect sensitive data. That’s when PAM comes to the rescue. Privileged access management (PAM) is used by organizations to protect against the hazards posed by credential theft and privilege access abuse.

PAM is a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that includes people, procedures, and technology to govern, monitor, secure, and audit all human and non-human privileged identities and actions in an organizational IT environment.

How does PAM protect your real-time data?

 Unmanaged and unmonitored accounts expose your organization to a slew of privileged dangers, whether by design or accident. Humans are considered as the weak link in the cybersecurity chain, whether they are internal privileged users exploiting their degree of access or foreign cyber attackers aiming and hijacking privileges from users to operate discreetly as “privileged insiders.”

Privileged access management assists organizations in ensuring that employees only have the access they need to execute their tasks. PAM also enables security teams to detect harmful actions associated with privilege abuse and quickly mitigate risk.

# PAM is critical for achieving compliance

 The capacity to observe and detect suspicious occurrences in an environment is critical; yet, without a clear emphasis on what poses the most risk – unmanaged, unmonitored, and unsecured privileged access – the organization will remain exposed.

Incorporating PAM as agile security and risk management strategy helps firms capture and track all key IT infrastructure and sensitive data, simplifying audit and compliance obligations.

# PAM restrains credential sharing

 Numerous people inside the organization share many administrator accounts, and for convenience, they frequently use the same password across multiple systems.

These techniques can make determining which actions were performed by specific personnel hard, raising a company’s security risk and exposing a lack of compliance with regulatory obligations.

PAM can assist organizations in mitigating these risks by requiring each individual to utilize a unique login. PAM solutions may additionally demand strong passwords, which must be changed regularly depending on the account’s level of sensitivity.

Administrators can also use PAM to deploy single sign-on (SSO) authentication to hide credentials from users and ensure effectiveness each time they access critical assets.

# Review risky behavior notifications in real-time

 Many PAM solutions provide administrators with real-time email and text warnings that alert them to potentially dangerous or suspicious behavior.

They can create alert settings to receive messages whenever a privileged user accesses certain data or systems, when potential policy breaches occur, or when hazards such as too many allocated privileges to specific accounts are highlighted. Administrators can swiftly make modifications to maintain a high degree of security by analyzing notifications in real-time.

#  Integrate with access management systems

 In recent times, Leading PAM systems can integrate with an organization’s larger identity and access management (IAM) system, closing security gaps and eliminating repetitive processes for privileged and non-privileged accounts.

Companies that combine the capability of PAM with identity governance can benefit from automated provisioning and de-provisioning and speedier reporting and auditing throughout their user accounts. As a result, you can save time & the complexity of securing all user identities is reduced.

# ‍PAM secures cloud-forward and hybrid remote access

 Distributed, and even completely remote, workforces are becoming the standard, implying more Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, infrastructure automation tools, and service accounts connecting from different locations.

Companies need something more precise than a VPN to secure cloud access & hybrid environments as these privileged accounts outnumber humans in an organization, where PAM emerges as the solution.

Managing privileged access is a critical component of an organization’s overall identity governance strategy. With a solid PAM solution, businesses can be confident that they are granting privileged access to those who require it while safeguarding their systems from destructive attacks that could collapse the business.

Final Thoughts:

ARCON | PAM is designed to handle expanding use case issues of privileged access by providing IT security with granular controls and implementing least privilege principles in enterprises.

ARCON, a firm trusted by over 1000 worldwide companies, provides solutions to emerging use-cases that ensure business scalability and compliance. So, if you want to invest in PAM solutions, consult an expert to choose the best possible security goal!

But, how does it work in a professional environment?

The endpoints are usually utilized as an entrée to any network and create different points of entry. An individual with malicious intent can exploit them to gain critical information from an organization and wreak havoc on their reputation.

An endpoint security tool protects such entry points through encryptions and prevents malware programs from accessing delicate details. By ensuring endpoint compliance with your data security structure, you can gain superior control over everything.

Why Should You Worry About Your Endpoint Devices?

In today’s digitized world, almost everyone uses either a smartphone or a laptop. As per a report, 6.4 million people are using mobile in 2021 (a 5.3% increase since 2020). However, the worrying part is that each of them has an entry point.

Thus, it becomes easier for hackers to exploit the severe lack of security and extract personal information from an endpoint device. Endpoint attacks are reasonably prevalent as well. In 2020, the number of such cyber-threat increased by almost 68% than the previous year.

So, if you have any vital information on your devices, they may get stolen at any time. However, an endpoint security system can put an end to such worrisome circumstances.

An endpoint security infrastructure is built on two aspects – detecting a suspicious end-user and preventing unauthorized access.

With it, you can not only control your endpoint access but also monitor malicious activities on your network. You may block a user of the same device if you feel they are attempting to input malware into your endpoint devices.

The endpoint devices of an organization (or an individual) are considered the weakest link in the networking cosmos. Therefore, ensuring its safety and security will be beneficial in a long-term scenario.
 

Integral Features of Endpoint Security

As per RiskIQ, organizations all over the world experience more than 350 cyber-threats every minute. Hence, if you want to make your network, make sure to opt for an endpoint security tool with the following features.

• An endpoint security tool must be capable of detecting a malicious e-mail and terminate it instantly. This way, the commonality of phishing can be countered efficiently.
• It should protect against zero-day (a type of difficult-to-identify flaw found in software during development) and any other further exploits.
• The system needs to offer alerts when something malicious enters your endpoint infrastructure. Besides, it must provide a daily report with regards to questionable activities as well.
• An endpoint security system can also scrutinize the outgoing and incoming traffic of your network system. Conjunctively, it must offer browser protection to save you from downloading something malicious.
• It needs to have a DLP system integrated into it as well. This way, the software program can access violations caused by your employees and prevent unintentional/intentional data loss.
• Availing endpoint security with implemented machine learning can analyzing good/bad files much more manageable. It may also help the module to block malware variants before they can damage your endpoint devices. Machine learning may also help in monitoring your employee’s behavior and find the culprit beforehand.
• An endpoint security system should be flexible to be deployed as per the organization’s requirements. Finding a tool, which offers both cloud and on-premise security, will be ideal for any corporation.
• Finally, the software programs need to be integration-friendly as well. This way, it will be easier for the system to communicate with the other security tools in your organization. Through proper incorporation, endpoint security can also prevent intrusion, create an active directory, and monitor your network.

Endpoint Security and Other Cybersecurity Systems

An endpoint security system can only do so much in a vast network environment. Therefore, you need to pair it up with at least one or two other protective infrastructures to maximize its potential. Let’s learn more in this regard through examples.

Endpoint Security and UBA (User Behavior Analytics)

In some cases, the threat of exploiting the weakness of your endpoint devices is caused by your end-users. Hence, if you know about those individuals who conduct suspicious activities, you can avert the worst conclusion efficiently.

However, the catch is that an endpoint security system alone cannot perceive user behavior entirely. So, you will need to use a UBA tool to maximize its efficiency in this respect. Here’s how User Behavior Analytics can be ideal for your cause –

o   Allows you to perform data profiling and detecting anomalies

o   Collects insights on the malicious IT profiles (can be implemented on the endpoint security system to block them before any demurrage)

o   Offers superior analytics capabilities and quicker risk detection

o   Lowers the risk of data abuse or misuse in an organizational environment
 

Endpoint Security and EPM (Endpoint Privilege Management)

Using EPM with a dedicated endpoint security system will improve the latter’s performance in several aspects. For instance, it can help in increasing the overall security efficiency during a privileged task. This way, you won’t be bothered with malware programs that may cause hindrance to your work.

Additionally, it will be easier for you to create a role-based access infrastructure in your organization. By doing so, you may not have to create unique profiling for all of your employees. Finally, you can also use the dashboard of EPM conjunctively with endpoint security to get a real-time view of the privileged sessions.

Conclusion

In truth, adding an endpoint security system alongside other cybersecurity programs might not seem like a cost-effective decision at first. However, it can save you from data theft and severe network breakdown, which may cost you even more. So, a business should implement and integrate a dedicated endpoint security tool in their organization’s infrastructure.

Good health is a priceless asset! To stay healthy and fit, more and more people ensure health hygiene. In short, we don’t mind footing increasing healthcare bills as maintaining health hygiene helps to avoid incurring bigger unforeseen health-related expenses. 

Similarly, for modern organizations, cyber hygiene is desirable. 

Organizations adopt adequate IT security measures and policies to ensure a ‘healthy’ IT environment. There are several attributes of cyber hygiene that ensure IT security safeguards of a digital infrastructure. This requires continuous assessment of the security policies and mechanisms. 

Nevertheless, the question is, how many organizations regularly conduct assessment of IT security preparedness to ensure a safe and ‘healthy’ IT environment? 

Even though there is an assessment, are the organizations adopting adequate IT security measures to ensure a secured IT environment? Shockingly, however, 40% of global business organizations spend nothing or are under-invest to secure their information assets from cyber threats.

5 Reasons why today’s Organizations need ARCON | UBA

Cyber Hygiene and IT Risk Mitigation 

Cyber hygiene is nothing but the security practices that maintain IT systems’ health and improve cybersecurity. These routine practices ensure the security of digital identities, safe access control mechanisms, continuous monitoring of end-users and other safety practices like network security. 

Cyber hygiene wards off IT threats like:

• Data breach
• Loss of data privacy
• Malicious end-user activities
• Anomalous end-user behaviour
• Cyber espionage
• Unauthorized access
• Insider threats
• Misuse of elevated access rights
• Non-compliance to the global standards

Cyber hygiene does not necessarily depend on adequate security policies adopted by organizations. It largely depends on the IT culture, employees’ sincerity and willingness to follow the rules, and cyber knowledge/ skills. Even if the policies and processes are in place, there can still be concerns over the relevancy of the policies as per situational demand. It also requires regular audits to assess cyber security preparedness of the organization. Any kind of vulnerability anywhere can pose the biggest threat to the digital assets of the organizations. After all, cyber crime is the greatest threat to every company in the world in the digitalization age.

Cyber Hygiene and Right Solutions

In the modern IT environment, the threat patterns have evolved a lot. In addition to malicious network traffic, threats like cloud-based identity theft, social engineering attacks, cyber espionage, unpatched security vulnerabilities, IoT-based threats and privileged access misuse tops the list of modern cyber threats.

Against this backdrop, cyber hygiene is the foremost priority of every industry today. Adoption of these solutions cannot only ensure safe day-to-day IT operations but also compliance with global regulatory standards. The solutions that top the requirements are:

Unified Identity Governance Platform – A unified identity governing engine such as Identity and Access Control Management (IDAM) solution enables IT staff to control, monitor and audit every digital identity. Centralized control mechanism helps to discover and on-board every digital identity for better management of the lifecycle of identity. Moreover, Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution, a subset of broader IDAM helps to identify security vulnerabilities in privileged access environments with advanced access control mechanisms even at a granular level.

User Behaviour Analytics (UBA)– Internal frauds, data abuse among other identity-related IT incidents happen due to the lack of end-user behaviour monitoring. For that, analyzing end-user behaviour is mandatory. Solution like UBA, with the help of its AI/ML-based algorithms, helps organizations to identify risky behaviour profiles and flag alerts beforehand. It helps organizations to take necessary steps well in advance before any probable IT catastrophe.

Endpoint Privileged Management (EPM)– Misuse of endpoints is on the rise. With a comprehensive mapping of every IT environment, EPM solution ensures a strong user validation mechanism and improves endpoint governance. Moreover, restricted elevations (just-in-time endpoint privilege) control endpoint access in every IT environment and help the organizations to mitigate risks of application abuse. 

Conclusion

Health hygiene is the best way to live a healthy life. We hardly have any choice over this. Similarly, digitalization has necessitated cyber hygiene in every layer of the enterprise IT ecosystem. A renowned American author Katherine Neville once said, “Privacy – like eating and breathing – is one of life’s basic requirements.” Today, data privacy and data security have become so important that they are being associated with the ‘basic needs’ of humans.

Amid rapid adoption of digital technologies, vast digital healthcare ecosystems have sprung up. However, the security posture to protect digital information needs to be more robust in the wake of rising cybersecurity incidents. Digital transformation has meant that there are large lakes of data — patients’ health records, R&D related data, Intellectual Property, personal health data ( healthcare devices that interacts with cloud-based servers to store and process health information) – stored in the public cloud, private cloud and outsourced to managed service providers. So, access control vulnerabilities at any of these data storage platforms can result in data breaches. 

And the challenges to protect healthcare data have increased in the last 12 months. The  healthcare industry faced unprecedented challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world. 

The Ponemon Institute and Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report says that the healthcare industry experiences more data breaches compared to any other industry across the globe. The latest report reveals that more than 15 million health records have been compromised till date.

Why is the Healthcare Industry prone to cyber risks?

The healthcare industry is a treasure trove of personal data, medical records, and diagnostic information along with critical third-party data. Large hospital chains, pharma MNCs, pathology labs, virtual healthcare chains,  global R&D companies focused on life-saving drugs/ vaccines are the prime targets for cyber threats.

Vulnerability 1: Critical applications that store and process patients’ healthcare data are highly vulnerable to illegitimate access. Cyber incidents happen when there is a lack of rule-and rule-based access to mission-critical applications.  Besides, endpoint privileges are easily available and access credentials are not changed while the authentication process is weak. And since this data is sold on the market, it incentivizes cybercriminals. 

Vulnerability 2: Many healthcare organizations use third-party infrastructure to manage their 24X7 medical services. It is not uncommon to find several large healthcare chains outsource healthcare-related data for storage and processing work. 

The applications and databases require 24X7 access since the attendants serving the maternity ward or emergency ward might require emergency access even in the wee hours of midnight.

In this scenario, IT risks double up if the organizations do not have any mechanism to monitor who is accessing what and for which purpose. Any unauthorized access can be catastrophic if there is no mechanism to detect and identify end-user anomalies on time. 

Vulnerability 3: When there is an outbreak of a deadly disease, bio-scientists work day-in and day-out to identify the pattern of the virus or bacteria and prepare sensitive reports on that. Based on the report, they work on medications or vaccines to rescue the human race. The biological formula of the vaccines and the life-saving drugs are highly case-sensitive and are extremely vulnerable for IT threats. The malefactors that can target these sensitive information can be rogue states, cybercriminals or malicious insiders. 

Safeguarding healthcare information

In all of the above vulnerabilities, poor access control mechanism, absence of governance framework, lack of endpoint privilege management, credential abuse or misuse (especially privilege passwords and keys) often results in illegitimate access to applications and databases. 

Being at the forefront of protecting highly sensitive data, ARCON has been witnessing a very robust demand from the healthcare industry for Privileged Access Management deployments. ARCON | PAM enforces a governance framework that ensures any administrator or privileged user gains access to target systems only after a proper authorization and authentication process. Please read this case study to learn more about how ARCON | PAM is securing critical IT infrastructure of one of the largest healthcare chains in India. 

Conclusion

The healthcare industry grabs news headlines, especially when there are epidemics. While healthcare organizations remain busy with serving mankind, cyber criminals take advantage of the social crisis and sneak into the IT infrastructure loopholes to inflict financial losses and malign goodwill. In the current backdrop, the healthcare industry is facing enormous IT risks. To improve cybersecurity measures in the healthcare industry, organizations need to continuously incorporate, customize and strengthen IT security measures to manage data assets and protect it from all malefactors. 

Overview

Cyber espionage is a nefarious act of engaging in a single or multiple attack on systems that allows any unauthorized user/ users to secretly view sensitive information without the knowledge of the owner. The major objective of such activities is to acquire intellectual property of corporates or sensitive data belonging to government organizations.

Typically, these attacks are subtle in nature as there is ‘no visible harm’ to the victim, though non-stop spying on the business secrets is a serious breach of conduct and the impact is very damaging. The consequences of cyber espionage can be grave with loss of competitive advantage as business-critical data, strategic blueprints or government secrets no longer remain ‘secret’ as they are supposed to be. The malefactors in this act are motivated by greed and make unexpected profit by misusing the information assets.

A couple of years ago, a 12-year cyber-espionage incident came into light where hackers from one suspected nation from Asia were eavesdropping on different Government agencies and firms of other nations to sabotage their regular IT operations for an indefinite period.

Who are the targets?

The information stolen is used by rival companies or nation states. Sometimes, it is even sold to some higher bidder or to the dark web. There are two conventional targets for cyber espionage:

• Governments: Government organizations possess the most sensitive information of a country. Most of the Government organizations are increasingly getting digitized. With the incorporation of new technologies, the work processes have turned time-saving and most case-sensitive data are stored digitally. This has prompted cyber crooks to take unauthorized possession of the data.
• Corporates: Global businesses are continuously at risk from cyber espionage. The spies are lurking in every sphere of possible data sources to covertly access information that can badly affect the victim – by damaging the brand reputation and business trust. Corporates from every possible industry have become more or less victims of espionage.

Forms of Cyber Espionage:

Two major or common forms of cyber espionage are –

• Spear phishing/ Phishing: Among all, this is the most attempted form of this crime. Common phishing is quantitative in nature, whereas spear-phishing is more qualitative and target-oriented. This target can be geography, industry or even a specific piece of data. It requires lots of research about the potential victim.

• Malvertising: Sometimes, cyber criminals use malicious advertising strategies to compromise data. They misuse the medium of online advertising to snag the target. These advertisements are too convincing to prevent any kind of malicious intention behind. Once clicked, the victim is immediately routed to the hostile server for the rest of the attack.

How to Prevent?

Threats like cyber espionage can remain undetected in a particular network for months. Eventually, when the criminal gang is busted, enterprises by then suffer huge losses. There are some easy and advisable precautionary IT security measures to stop cyber espionage at the roots.

• Endpoint Security: Today most of the spying incidents happen due to unmanaged and unmonitored endpoints. A secured Endpoint Management helps mitigating targeted attacks including malware and ransomware threats.

• Rule and Role-based access: With the help of advanced security tools like Privileged Access Management (PAM), User Behaviour Analytics (UBA), user restriction on the basis of authentication process can deter suspicious activities. As critical data assets are consistently under threats of misuse from malicious corporate elements, organizations need to strengthen security with a rule and role based access.

• Robust Password Management: Breaking through a password is the only way to access every confidential data file. Hence, enterprises should always ensure randomization and rotation of passwords to put an end of unauthorized data access.

• Segregation of database: There is a saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Similarly enterprises in IT security should ensure proper and multiple segregation of data that can minimize the risks to a large extent. A single database would simply make the job of a data spy easy.

• Monitoring user behaviour: Lastly, seamless monitoring of every user behaviour is the ultra-modern way to assess IT risks. Any kind of unconventional behaviour from insiders, third-party users, partners, external auditors, MSPs or even ex-employees should be detected and flagged off to the administrators on time. AL/ ML based User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) tool has been in high demand today to deter cyber espionage.

Conclusion

Cyber espionage is rising. This threat, if not taken seriously on time, can put business processes and progress at ransom. Training the employees and spreading awareness about cautious IT behaviour can largely reduce the risks associated with cyber espionage.

Alongside the intricate world of cybersecurity, the myths and misconceptions regarding the same are growing continually as well. As most people tend to ignore the details, they usually believe in these fallacies and end up prejudicing everything. Thus, in this write-up, we are going to bust a few myths.

Myth: Only the IT team of an organization is responsible for cybersecurity breaches.

Reality: It is, indeed, pretty accurate that the IT professionals of a company generally set up and implement a new cybersecurity infrastructure. However, it is almost impossible for them to stay on guard all the time and protect the network environment. A well-planned cyberattack can occur from almost anywhere at any time (around 1,470 breaches occurred in the year of 2019). So, in reality, almost anyone in the corporation can be responsible for cyber assault. Due to this reason, each and every employee needs to be wary before opening any e-mail from an unknown source. Furthermore, they should avoid clicking on unidentified links as well. Besides, the head of the organization will also need to use a User Behavior Analytics tool in their system. It, in turn, will help him or her to keep an eye on their employees and identify any suspicious behaviour.

Myth: A complete security of a network system is possible.

Reality: The continuous need to become accustomed to the new cyber-threats has always been a never-ending struggle for cybersecurity providers. There is no way you can completely secure your network. It will have at least one loophole, which might lead to cyberattacks. Hence, it becomes imperative to incorporate a strong backup system in the organization. This way, even if you end up losing some of your crucial data, you can always get them back without paying any ransom.

Myth: Using only a single Antivirus tool is adequate to prevent IT security breaches.

Reality: Most people usually think that using a single Antivirus software program is enough. However, due to enforcement of advanced IT technologies, new vulnerabilities are also arising. Hackers are finding new ways to exploit the vulnerabilities. To prevent these anomalies, we need to strengthen the IT security system. For example, identity and access management solution can prevent suspicious behaviour almost instantly. Besides, it helps to establish a proper password management.

Myth: Only some specific industries encounter cyberattacks.

Reality: Even today, some organizations still believe that the hackers will not target them, as they own a mid/ small-sized business. People even tend to point a few specific industries to be less-exposed to the cyber-threat. However, it is needless to say that they are absolutely wrong. According to a report, almost 43% of the cyberattacks are made on smaller businesses. While planning their attack, most cybercriminals tend to ignore the background of a company. They unleash the assault simply driven by the fact of acquiring some money or stealing data. For example, the retail sector is currently at a higher risk of being exposed to cyberattacks. As per reports, almost 59% of data breaches tend to occur in this industry only. Moreover, the healthcare industry has been under the influence of cyber-threat for quite some time. As per reports, around 9.7 million personal records were unearthed in this sector in the month of September 2020. But, it does not mean that the other sectors are safe. The hackers are quite active in the BFSI, hospitality, telecom, and IT industries too.

Myth: The cyber-threats are only carried out through the internet.

Reality: Most cyberattacks are, indeed, carried out through the web. Thus, many organizations think that disconnecting themselves from the internet will be an ideal solution. However, a brand new cyberattack gets unleashed almost every 39 seconds and not all of them are carried out through the internet. Let’s understand it through an example. If an employee brings an infected pen drive and plug it into the office PC, it can affect the whole IT infrastructure and unauthorized access is possible. The organization might lose a substantial amount of sensitive information due to this and might incur financial losses. Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) can be an effective tool in this scenario.

Conclusion

The cybersecurity universe is ever-changing. Along with the security system, the pattern of cyberattacks are transforming everywhere. So, to prevent these sophisticated attacks efficiently, prediction of IT threats as per IT environment is very important. Believing in myths might hinder in technological progress!

When it comes to protecting data exploitation and mitigating the risk, IT security professionals know that a majority of prominent threats does not come from malware attacks, instead, they are sourced from the behaviour of users of the system. Understanding this user behaviour can assist you in developing more effective strategies to prevent threats that are caused intentionally or inadvertently. In this detailed article, we discuss what UBA is and why businesses need it.

What is User Behavior Analytics?

Similar to any antivirus software which regularly scans files for any sign of threat, user behaviour analytics centers on scanning the actions performed by users within the systems. The objective of this identification and logging of data usage is to highlight as well as notify members of the security team about abnormal and potentially threatening activities. Although anti-malware software and firewalls do a good job in protecting attackers from exploiting the system, UBA works to identify the sign of such activities. Therefore assist the security team to be more agile and act quickly to the potential threats.

UBA logs users’ activities, and it will log:

• When Users will request access to the files
• When the requested files are accessed
• By whom the files were accessed
• How often the files were accessed
• All the activities associated with those files
• What was done to the data
• The time user logs the apps
• Which network they used to access
• What are their activities on the apps

5 Reasons why today’s Organizations need ARCON | UBA

Why is UBA important for every Business?

With cybercrime on the rise, companies need to leverage every possible method to protect their systems and data. Implementing effective user business analytics can assist companies in multiple ways including:

Detect Data Breach

Businesses collect sensitive data in a huge amount. You should be able to know who is accessing the data, what they are doing with it, where the data is being transferred, and everything else. The user behaviour analytics systems hold the potential to identify such things and alert you when they determine some unusual activities.

It does not merely detect outside activities, but UBA also keeps track of internal activities as well. There might be situations where an employee might go rogue and steal sensitive information by using his or her access. User behaviour analytics can assist you in identifying privilege abuse, sabotage, data breaches, policy violations, etc. Furthermore it allows companies to stay in compliance with the security guideline. It also facilitates more secure opportunities to work remotely.

Better Customer Understanding

One of the objectives behind collecting behavioral data is to understand the users. The data analytics allows you to identify user activities and understand what they are looking for. This allows you to create strategies that are more focused on their needs. Moreover, with relevant data as the bedrock of your strategies, you can eliminate the guesswork and focus on catering to the needs of your target users.

 Track Human and Machine Behavior

Normal behaviour for accounts utilized by humans will appear differently in comparison to the service accounts that are used to execute automated application activity. Moreover, these machine accounts have a lot of permissions, but their activities are more predictable as opposed to human user accounts. The activities of automated accounts are higher than human activities. When the user behaviour is tracked, it is prominent to identify which type of account is monitored when identifying the unusual behaviour.

Identity Brute Force Attacks

Cyberattacks at times, target the cloud-based units and third-party authentication systems. When you leverage UBA, you can identify many brute force attempts, enabling you to restrict access to such a unit. For companies that constantly monitor login failure, there is no sufficient time to go through an extensive list of accounts that generated these logins and determine the ones that are potentially threatening. An effective UBA tool can assist in prioritizing the accounts that create an unusual number of failed logins depending on the profile and offers contextual data to make an informed decision.

Reducing False Positives –

A great thing about UBA systems is that they continue to learn new ways to be more accurate and mitigate the chances of false alarms. This consistent approach mitigates the chances of false positives as various abnormalities must happen prior to alerting the analyst. UBA protects getting a series of false-positive alerts.

Tips for Improvement of ROI with UBA

Following are some effective tips to help you get most out of your UBA:

Determine Business as well as for Analytics Objective

Before you implement UBA, you have to determine the following things:

• What is the company working towards?
• What is the end objective?

Considering the business goals that you would want to achieve. Once you have established clear objectives, decide how you would work to achieve them. Set up key performance indicators or KPIs that you are focusing on improving to reach your goals efficiently. It is imperative to define the Business used thinking about analytics. This allows you to be clearer about what areas of the Business to focus on.

Create a Pathway that leads to your Goals

Critical paths are a series of actions that users take you to want the users to take when buying the products. For instance, in an e-commerce shop, this pathway could be –

• Searching the product
• Browsing the options
• Adding the preferred product to the cart
• Checkout
• Confirming the order

This will allow you to track the events that are important and cater to the goals of Business and analytics. In later stages, you can always add more events.

Arrange the Taxonomy

Behind every user behaviour analytics, there is an event taxonomy. This means the way businesses organize its collection of properties and events that it is using to define actions that people can perform within the products. Taxonomy is considered as the foundation for future analysis that the team will perform. This is why it is important to get it right.

Understand the Way Users are being Identified

A lot of analytics platforms need businesses to configure some type of identified, such as email or username in their HTTP API or SDKs for tracking the users. This allows you to align the data from different devices and sessions related to one user. Owing to this, it is imperative to ensure that the user id remains permanent.

Select Minimum Viable Instrumentation

Once you have determined how to establish your analytics as well as organize the events, the next step is to start analyzing the fundamental app metrics. This is the step where you integrate the SDK analytics solution and assign the users IDS. After this, you can start tracking critical paths and events to identify any threat possibilities and the necessary steps.

Final Thoughts

Every business, irrespective of its operational nature and industry is vulnerable to a cyber-attack. You cannot wait until you suffer from a data breach to implement the right security measures. Cybercriminals have become quite sophisticated and to protect your data, you have to be proactive and agile. If not, your business could suffer significant financial loss along with a damaged market reputation. User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) have become an important aspect of IT security as it determines abnormal activities. This allows businesses to treat the issues before they even enter the system. Investing in effective user behaviour analytics allow you to maintain operational efficiency and gain maximum return on your investment.

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.