A battle of attrition

Malware, DNS tunnelling, zero-day exploit, death by SQL injection and denial-of-service attacks are just some of the weapons of choice used in the cyber security war of attrition.

Johannesburg, 18 Jun 2020

Every day, the incessant, belligerent and focused cyber crime syndicates endeavour to wear you down to the point of collapse by peppering your systems and network with assaults. They aim to profit from your loss, and so inflicting continuous damage on your personal and business network is but a means to their malevolent end.

The importance of an educated, aware and continuously on-guard staff complement can save your organisation from numerous intrusions. Over and above educating your staff complement, your organisation must employ a thorough cyber-resilience strategy.

Cyber resilience speaks to the preventative measures taken by your organisation to ensure that the business is prepared for cyber attacks. E-mail security, Internet security, Internet/Web security, data backups and recovery, endpoint protection, identity and access management and a host of other business-critical components all inform a cyber resilience strategy. However, these can be collated into four major categories, namely: threat protection, adaptability, durability and recoverability.

Threat protection

Threat protection references the policies and tools used to defend your network. Simple enough, right? Well, considering that there has been an uptake in the acquiring and deployment of advanced threat protection (ATP), the answer isn’t so cut and dry. ATP is an integrated, multi-layered security solution that is geared to prevent, detect and defend against more sophisticated attacks targeted at sensitive data – attacks that ordinarily would circumvent conventional security systems.

ATPs give the organisation an integrated arsenal of endpoint agents, network devices, e-mail gateways, malware protection systems and a centralised management console to keep the baddies out. In the world of threat protection, the organisation that deploys advanced threat protection is truly king.

Adaptability

In his groundbreaking book, "The Origin of Species", Charles Darwin argues that species that adapt best to their changing environment have the greatest chance of surviving. The infamous phrase by Darwin: “Adapt or die” has found revised meaning in the rapid rate of deployment of security projects that would have otherwise taken years to roll-out.

This has, in turn, given syndicates the impetus to follow suit by doubling their efforts. One sees this in the increase in impersonation/business e-mail compromise and phishing attacks. In a recent article, we make the case for AI-centric cyber security solutions being the future, largely due to their perpetual ability to learn and adapt on the fly.

Durability

With the rise of out-of-office work, every employee has become a possible chink in your cyber security armour. The resilience strategy must take this into account and make contingency or scenario plans for it. Durability speaks to the business continuity plan should there be a sustained attack or even breach of your security system. Often, the criminal syndicate will try to incapacitate the organisation’s decision making ability through shock and disruption. Not only must the organisation be aware of these, but arming yourself with a prepared and thorough response will create the difference.

Recoverability

The average downtime after a ransomware attack is three days. That’s three days of the business equivalent of white noise, not being able to compete, not being able to deliver and three days of frantically looking for answers you should have had all along. The cold and inescapable truth is the fact that security breaches are real. Dozens of high-profile security breaches have made breaking news and even more frighteningly, an exponentially larger number haven’t. A cyber security resilience plan helps your organisation cut that 72 hours of downtime to mere minutes.

Axiz is aware of the perils and pitfalls that companies of all dimensions encounter when it comes to cyber security. Medium and large corporations remain the victim of choice for cyber crime syndicates, but small businesses are just as vulnerable, if not more. Whatever the size of your business, cyber security is essential to your survival. The bad news, in a war of attrition, you can expect wave after wave of attack.

The good news is, in every instance of war, victory belongs to the technologically superior opponent. Axiz has invested in building a security ecosystem of in-house professionals, vendors and trusted managed services partners (MSPs).

Its security ecosystem is second to none and the business has developed the capability to transcend technology by fulfilling the role of digital advisor partner to stakeholders. The Axiz security business units’ assessment services will help your organisation choose and support the appropriate security solution for your needs.

Pairing next-generation cyber security with Axiz, a channel partner that can aggregate vendor technology and reseller expertise, is a sure-fire way to get your resilience strategy war-ready.

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