Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Lessons to learn from recent ransomware attack on Deloitte
2017 has witnessed some of the major ransomware attacks, but
the list hasn’t ended yet. The new victim of the ransomware attack is the big 4
accountancy firm Deloitte. On 25th September, the global accounting firm announced that it has been hit by cyber-attack which has affected a small
number of its clients. It was confirmed by the company that the attackers
accessed the data from the company’s email platform from October,2016 but it
was discovered in March,2017. The attack resulted in the leak of its
confidential information which included the private emails and documents of
some of its clients.
This cyber-attack affected several blue chip companies and some
US government departments which were clients of Deloitte. The hackers
compromised the server by using an administrator’s account, which might have
given them the access to IP addresses, password, username and several other
business documents. The attack also exposed the potential access to 5 million
emails. With 80% of the Fortune 500 companies in Deloitte’s client list, even a
small breach on any platform of the company can create disaster.
So, in this article, we will be looking at some of the
essential lessons which we can learn from the recent ransomware attack on
Deloitte.
v Two-step verification- A strong password protection can act as the biggest roadblock
for hackers who are trying to breach into your data. The two-step verification
includes one-time authentication password after the correct password is
provided and the one time authentication password is only generated if the
provided password is correct. The Two-step verification is also known as Two
Factor Authentication(TFA) and the generated password can only be used for a
particular time period after which it expires. So, even
if the hackers get the expired password, it will be of no use. It was seen that
the account through which the attack on Deloitte was made, didn’t have any TFA.
That’s why the importance of TFA for avoiding such kinds of hacks becomes
important.
v Testing your system- Precaution is better than cure and that’s
why you should check the loopholes of your digital security before anyone else
finds it and simulating a cyber-attack is the best way for that. You can easily
conduct a controlled hack which can uncover the loopholes of your server, so
that you can fix them before any attack.
v Well-informed employees- All your
employees should be well-informed about the various security patches, phishing
and attacks, so that any potential threat can be easily spotted.
v Cloud Access Security Broker- It is a software service that
acts as a mediator between an organization on premises infrastructure and the
service provider. Through CASB, various
security layers are deployed to protect the data and software. The device used
in the attack on Deloitte didn’t belong to the account user but if there was a
CASB, it could have restricted the account user to limited devices. With the
help of CASB, possible threats like fraudulent login attempt can also be easily
identified.
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