Several years ago, I wrote the first iteration of Barbarians at the Gate, you can still find it on medium.com at https://medium.com/@gmatt.johnson/barbarians-at-the-gate-11b324a04459
Unfortunately, the Barbarians, amongst others are still at the gate, and it does appear that they are setting up for a long-term siege of your business. Since I wrote the first article, the world has seen its share of high-impact security breaches ranging from Twitter to a small Managed Service Provider that SOClogix worked on a few months ago.
The beginning of the pandemic saw one of the worst quarters in history with an estimated 8 billion records exposed. These records consisted of credit cards, home addresses, phone numbers, and other personal and sensitive information. Information that not only exposes your private information but could easily put your company at risk for lawsuits and other regulatory actions.
Are there really barbarians at your gate?
The answer to this question is based on how you define a barbarian. Wikipedia defines barbarians as a human who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. By this definition, we would assume that hacking is uncivilized and primitive with no real sophistication.
In contrast hacking attacks portrayed in the media are often perceived as sophisticated, elaborate, and multi-layered. The key to that portrayal is that as stated by Chris Scott of IMB’s X-Force IRIS incident response team, “No one is going to say they were breached by average hackers.”
Are there barbarians’? Sure, there are, unsophisticated attacks that happen all the time. Often these barbarians rely on persistence instead of sophistication to attack your business. Think of a kid with a laptop attempting to log in to your network continuously. Given enough time and attempts, they will eventually gain access to your most data and resources.
On the reverse side, the skill, expertise, and motivation of elite hackers should not be underestimated. Elite hackers often used layered attacks and strategies to gain access to your business. These hackers often work in groups or can even be state-sponsored. These groups often are working towards specific types of business or information to gain the most valuable data.
When will it end?
The real answer, sadly, is that it will never end. Ransomware, Phishing attacks, and other hacks may change. However, the basic idea of persons or organizations attempting to access your business information will not end. If black-market users and criminal organizations are willing to pay handsomely for sensitive personal information. There will always be those who seek to gain access to that information.
What can I do in this ever-changing world of barbarians and non-barbarians?
Often good cybersecurity is less about keeping out attackers 100% but about keeping attackers out long enough that they realize their time is not worth attacking your system. At SOClogix we always recommend a layered (think of an onion, you peel off one layer and there is another.) approach to your cybersecurity strategy which can be built by SOClogix and our team of security consultants.
SOClogix can assist in developing your cybersecurity strategy today to create a layered approach to protecting your assets. The SOClogix layered approach starts with our Pulse Network and Asset monitoring service that allows our SOC team to monitor your network and assets for security events and incidents. SOClogix combines this service with our professional security consulting and security endpoint monitoring products to create your layered cybersecurity platform.
