Cybersecurity is a top concern for today’s business owners and technology executives, and with good reason. In JUST the first half of 2020 alone, 36 billion records were exposed due to data breaches, according to a report generated by the firm RiskBased Security, Today numbers are much higher than that.
Organizations and cybersecurity attacks
Cybersecurity attacks can happen to any organization at any time. In 2020, established organizations such as Marriott, MGM Resorts, Twitter, and Magellan Health all fell victim to cyber-attacks. Yet hackers don’t just go after heavyweights. More than one in four data breaches involved small businesses, according to Verizon Business’s 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report.
These attacks can be expensive. A 2019 report from Hiscox revealed the average cost of a cyber attack to be around $200,000. This economic impact has created great concern, especially among small business owners. A survey conducted by the U.S. Small Business Association revealed 88% of small businesses felt their operation was vulnerable to a cyber attack.
Preventing these attacks is financially critical. There are several different cybersecurity issues to be aware of in today’s business landscape — issues that only a seasoned cybersecurity professional may be able to help prevent.
Social engineering
Social engineering represents a catch-all term for various tactics that are used by hackers. These tactics are designed to trick individuals into giving out sensitive or confidential information. More often than not, these types of attacks appear as phishing. According to security software company Digital Guardian, phishing represents 91% of social engineering attacks.
Phishing attacks rely on emails designed to look like they come from a legitimate source, such as a business, bank, or government agency. When recipients click on a link or open a file within the email, they expose their network to malware. The practice has grown in sophistication over the years, making it crucial for employers to train their staff to understand what these attacks may look like, and how to avoid falling for their deception.
Ransomware
Ransomware is another tactic used by hackers. The objective is to hold a company’s data hostage until the affected user pays a specific dollar amount, which can often be hefty. These attacks can use email to penetrate a system, but can also be initiated by visiting an infected website, clicking on an online ad with malicious code, or hackers exploiting network vulnerabilities. Prevention requires a combination of training employees to exercise judicious caution regarding the websites they visit, and remaining diligent in identifying and fixing system vulnerabilities.
Cloud computing issues
The amount of valuable information that resides in multiple data sources has grown exponentially from the early days of computing. The opportunity for organizations of all sizes to have their data compromised grows as the number of devices that store confidential data increases. Cloud storage and the Internet of Things (IoT) have exposed new vulnerabilities. Organizations and businesses must make security plans that take new security threats into consideration, rather than only protecting business computers and mobile devices.
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
The hallmark of these attacks is coordination. A cyber attacker floods the system with a high number of simultaneous functions, such as a request to a webpage. The goal is to overwhelm networks, systems, or devices. This can ultimately expose vulnerabilities that cyber attackers can exploit. Like other forms of cyber attacks, this method’s sophistication has increased as technology has evolved, making it vital for organizations to be aware of the latest innovations to protect against these types of cybersecurity issues.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
In the hands of cybercriminals, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can enable cyber attacks to become more sophisticated and efficient. Both can “learn” which attack methods work and which do not, making them valuable tools for criminals. Fortunately for savvy cybersecurity professionals, AI and machine learning can also be deployed to combat cyber attacks.
In our opinion, the current protection measures are becoming outdated and are increasingly threatened by the development of artificial intelligence, which will be able to break through all protection measures and even study the user, i.e. his characteristics, habits, etc.
That’s why we decided to approach this problem with blockchain security solutions, as the only measure that can resist the increasing development of AI. Decentralized blockchain today is a system that is almost impenetrable to any cyber attacks and has only one weak point.
A 51% attack where attackers connect their miners to the network and brute force download and overwrite the blockchain, meaning they can manipulate data, transactions, etc.
But there is a solution for that too, and it is called a Centralized Blockchain, which has no weak points, no miners, is not open to the public and is under the complete control of an organization or company.
A centralized blockchain has only Validators and Synchronizers, it is much faster than a decentralized POW system, it is resistant to DDOS attacks (especially if RPC is turned off), the data distributed through the network is unusable and unreadable by an attacker who, even if he manages to physically enter the network cannot do anything with them.
Also, the centralized blockchain does not allow any fraudulent transmissions to the network, such as an attacker physically breaking into the network and trying to send $10 million from Adam to Eve, i.e. make a transaction even though Adam does not have that much money in his account. Validators will recognize wrong data within one second, reject it and display the intruder’s IP address.
This solution is very useful and, in our opinion, will soon be very necessary for banking systems and large corporations for which the preservation of trade secrets is one of the main factors of survival on the market.
Our company is also working on an e-mail system solution through the blockchain, with which the user would have several advantages:
1. He would never lose a single received or sent an e-mail
2. He would be forever free from spam and unsolicited emails
3. His mail can never be stolen (for example, like nowadays when there is a breach at the provider)
4. Blockchain mail has no provider, and cannot be hacked
5. All data sent through the blockchain is encrypted and an attacker cannot use or read it even if he were to physically enter the network
6. No malware had an impact on blockchain mail
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT OUR SOLUTIONS PLEASE CONTACT US.