Imagine walking into your office one day and finding that all your systems are down. On all workstation screens is a digital ransomware ransom note demanding tens of thousands of dollars in bitcoin to unlock your data. You realize you've fallen victim to a cyber attack. What do you do now?
At first, you’re shocked, and then slightly relieved you have a recent backup, and keep your backups for three months. You figured that was plenty of time. But as you go through your backups, you come to find out that all of them have the same malicious code, it had just been sleeping all this time. Long-term types of cyber attacks are usually VERY effective.
Cybercriminals often play the long game when it comes to attacks on both on-premises and cloud infrastructure. Especially the larger state-sponsored groups and those run by organized crime. They’ll plant malicious code in a system and poke around, stealing data for months. Then one day they activate the code that results in systems being crippled and the company finally realizing it has been breached.
When business owners think of cyberattacks, they often think they’re a quick “cash grab.” Hackers breach a network or endpoint device and immediately unleash their malicious code. The company is alerted and does what it can to stop the attack and mitigate the damage.
But this isn’t the case in many attacks. Hackers go into stealth mode and infiltrate networks long before doing something that will alert a company to an attack.
For example, in an attack studied by researchers at cybersecurity firm Sophos, it was discovered that threat actors spent at least five months exploring the network of regional U.S. government agency systems. The investigation found that potentially two different groups may have been in the system covertly before one of them launched a visible ransomware attack.
Why do they wait so long? There are several reasons.
Once a company learns that it has been the victim of a targeted cyber attack, it is naturally going to get help from an IT security expert to stop the attack and remove the malicious code. The hacker has only so much time before they lose access to the system once they launch a visible cyber attack.
So, just like burglars that creep around a building, trying not to set off alarms, cybercriminals do the same. They try to make as few digital footprints as possible as they creep around a company network gathering sensitive data they can benefit from.
When you find out a computer is infected with malware, one of the first things you should do is disconnect that device from your network to help stop the malware from spreading. Hackers know this.
They know that if they just do a quick attack, then what they gain is going to be limited. But if they can infiltrate multiple computers and other systems, the hack is often more profitable.
For example, if you have one computer infected with ransomware, and quickly disconnect that PC to keep the ransomware contained. The hacker doesn’t have much leverage over you to extort a ransom. That one computer being down is inconvenient, but most likely isn’t going to cause your entire company to stop operating.
However in a long-term cyber attack, if the hacker infiltrates that computer, but doesn’t trigger the ransomware code yet, they won’t usually be found out as fast. This gives them time to work their hacker tricks to move from that first device to several others on the same company network, and even into any syncing cloud storage systems.
They plant the malicious code as “sleeper cells” inside the devices, THEN triggering the ransomware attack. With so many devices infected, a company often experiences complete downtime and must pay the hacker to get operations back up and running.
Advanced threat protection systems monitor your network for the slightest anomaly that could indicate an unauthorized 3rd party breach. They will employ artificial intelligence and machine learning to learn normal network patterns and then identify things that fall out of that pattern.
This helps you catch those sleeper attacks immediately before they’ve been in your network for months. We recommend running these audits as a solid first step in preventing or even catching the different types of cyber security attacks.
A majority of global cyber attacks happen through compromised login credentials. This is often the easiest way for a hacker to breach a network because authorized users will face far fewer security barriers than someone not authorized to be there.
Improve your credential and password security by doing the following:
Prepare for a cyber attack BEFORE IT HAPPENS! You don’t only want to run a system audit after a visible attack has happened. Have these health checks run regularly to ensure your IT security isn’t suffering from new vulnerabilities.
This is another proactive way to monitor your technology infrastructure and catch hacker infiltrations early. You wouldn't buy flood insurance AFTER the flood comes, would you?
Digital Crisis can conduct a cybersecurity audit and system health check for your Houston area business to keep you one step ahead of the cybercriminals at no charge to you!
Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.
