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SMEs are the perfect victims for cybercrime. Focused on getting their businesses off the ground, they are oblivious of the vast amounts of data they’re accumulating, says Alain Tshal, district sales manager, sub-Saharan Africa, F5 Networks. Furthermore, F5 statistics show:
• 43% of cyberattacks target SMEs
o Cyber breaches on SMEs increased by 424% in 2019.
o Cyber-crime costs SMEs over $2.2 million a year.
o 60% of SMEs that encounter a cyber-attack go out of business within 6 months.
The writing is on the wall: SMEs are prime targets for hackers. It is therefore imperative that SMEs have robust measures in place to deter cybercriminals. Tshal explores the top recommended security controls for 2020 in order of urgency.
Use strong authentication to limit unauthorised access
Strong authentication is essential as access control attacks are prevalent and often the tip of the spear for most cyber mayhem. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is recommended, especially for any system that connects to high-value services and data stores. When MFA isn’t feasible, strengthen the use of passwords. Key tips include regularly checking passwords against a dictionary of easy-to-hack credentials, using long passwords and eliminating password hint mechanisms. All authentication systems should have a mechanism to detect and throttle floods of login attempts.
Practice regular monitoring and logging
Monitoring and logging are all about knowing what is going on in your environment. With a good logging and review regimen, it’s possible to catch breach attempts in progress before real damage can occur. When reviewing logging capabilities, remember the goal is to be able to determine how an attacker got in and what they did.
Take inventory
Knowing what you have, where it is, what it talks to and how it is configured is the foundation for all risk decisions, both strategic and tactical. While there are plenty of automation tools available, it is important to ensure they are a precise fit with your specific business requirements.
Strategise and practice incident response
No affordable defence is going to keep all attackers at bay forever. Plan accordingly with a well-tested and detailed incident response plan. Incident response relies on strong inventory and logging practices, so make sure those are well-honed.
Apply crucial patches
It’s unreasonable to assume that the average enterprise is going to patch everything without shutting down all useful work. The highest priority is closing vulnerabilities with published, weaponised patches. Even unskilled attackers will pound your systems with these types of point-and-click attacks. Browsers and mail clients should also be kept up to date to safeguard against malware.
Enforce strict authorisation
Authorisation means forensically interrogating permissions associated with any credential set. Once someone is logged in, what can they do? This is where the ‘principle of least privilege’ should be used so that users can only perform tasks specific to them. A good middle ground is to implement role-based access and broadly lock down authorised actions based on general job duties such as administrator, developer, office staff and remote user. System administrators are frequently targeted by attackers due to their unrestrained access to resources; administrative usage should be partitioned to just the systems a given administrator is responsible for managing. The same goes for service accounts that run in the background.
Scan for vulnerabilities
Vulnerability scanning is useful for gaining a 'hacker’s eye view' of your systems and is also a great way to double-check your inventory. Weekly vulnerability scans are advisable for both internal and external assets.
Detect and block malicious bot activity
It’s getting harder to identify humans. Many bots are evident from previously observed, unique patterns that have been encoded into signatures. However, newer and more sophisticated bots require deeper analysis such as looking for irregular behaviour and illogical client configurations.
Conduct security awareness training
F5 Labs’ analysis notes that training employees to recognise phishing attempts can reduce their click-through rate on malicious emails, links and attachments from 33% to 13%. The key to effective training is to consider what decisions you want your users to make and what you can reasonably expect from them.
Use Web Application Firewalls (WAF)
Web Application Firewalls (WAF) are essential for application protection. The technology offers a level of application-layer visibility and control that can help mitigate a wide range of threats. Many WAFs also include the capability to inspect, validate and throttle API requests (the transfer of resources between connected applications).
Use SSL/TLS inspection
More malware and phishing sites are being buried within encrypted SSL/TLS sessions, often using legitimate certificates. This traffic needs to be decrypted, inspected, and sanitised.
Use antivirus solutions
Antivirus remains a powerful tool for detecting and stopping malware infections. It should always be configured to update its signatures without intervention and alert when it stops functioning.
Love your apps
Get to know and love your apps, wherever they are. Always make sure your controls are fit for purpose and running smoothly.
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