Cyber attack forces Aussie beer giant Lion to shut operations

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Australian brewery giant Lion announced Wednesday that it suffered a major cyberattack that forced it to shut down its IT systems, resulting in a disruption to the supplies of beer to suppliers and customers.

The lion is Australia’s largest brewer, brewing popular beer brands such as Corona, Budweiser, Guinness, and Becks as well as local brands such as XXXX GOLD, Tooheys, Speights, Steinlager, Lion Red and Brown. Owned by Japanese brewery Kirin Holdings, Lion faces stiff competition from Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) which is owned by Belgian brewery company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev).

A statement issued by Lion on Wednesday suggested that its IT systems were still down even though the company was engaging cybersecurity specialists to diagnose the attack and work on a recovery plan. It said it had introduced a number of manual systems to continue to take orders and ship products to networks.

“We are working through the impacts. There is no evidence to date of any data breaches, but we are still investigating every aspect of this major incident. We recognise that this is not perfect and it is impacting our customers. We are doing everything possible under the circumstances.

“We have teams working around the clock to bring our systems back online safely. Again, we apologise for the inconvenience this has caused our suppliers, customers and our broader supply chain. We appreciate your patience and support during this challenging time. We are thankful to our team for responding so quickly, using the latest advanced tools to return systems safely as soon as possible,” Lion said.

“This attack could not have come at a worse time for Lion, particularly for our valued pub and club customers who are in the very early stages of recovery following the COVID-19 closures. They are in the early stages of rebuilding, restocking and reengaging their staff and in New Zealand are able to operate with no restrictions for the first time in months following the move to COVID-19 Alert Level 1 this week. This has been the most devastating time on record for the hospitality industry.

“Throughout the COVID shutdown, we were able to continue to brew beer safely, meaning we have a good supply of product for the time being. In saying that, this attack has impacted crucial aspects of the brewing process. We operate multiple large-scale breweries, which are heavily reliant on IT infrastructure,” it added.

The cyberattack comes not long after Lion entered into an agreement with China Mengniu Dairy Company to sell its dairy and drinks business for $600 million to the Chinese dairy giant, 16% of whose shares are owned by COFCO, a Chinese government-owned food company.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.teiss.co.uk/

Five Tips to Secure Office 365

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If you’re moving to the Microsoft cloud, you’re not alone: Office 365 adoption continues to increase, with 180 million monthly active users. But while migrating your data to the cloud offers numerous collaboration and productivity benefits, it can also pose data protection and compliance challenges.

Here are five best practices you can follow to keep your data safe and accessible in Office 365.

 

  • Enforce least privileged access to SharePoint Online

Least privilege – ensuring each user only has access to the data they need to do their job – is simple in theory but can be difficult to execute. Start by organising user accounts into groups with similar job functions, and then grant data access permission in Office 365 to these groups. Keep things simple: never allow individual user accounts on access control lists (ACL) in Office 365.

IT is often responsible for making data access changes on behalf of users. It’s inconvenient and adds to their workload. Instead, assign a data owner, or a group owner, as the gatekeeper of each group’s membership (and, in turn, the group’s data access). The group owner can approve new group members and audit the group on a regular basis.

 

  • Classify sensitive data in SharePoint Online

You must scan and identify the data that lives in Office 365 for personally identifiable information (PII), data that falls under the constraints of GDPR, and confidential information, such as intellectual property, and other kinds of information that could result in a fine or competitive disadvantage, or put you at risk. After identifying files with sensitive information, ensure they are locked down to least privilege and labelled so your security tools can handle that data appropriately.

 

  • Prevent downloads from unmanaged devices

You must keep your team data in-house as much as possible. One way to do this is to prevent downloads to devices that your IT team doesn’t manage. If you have the appropriate authorisation, viewing the data in a browser from an unmanaged system is okay if you have the link and approval of the group owner.

 

  • Minimise and audit external sharing

When users create sharing links in Office 365, they might grant anyone with the link permission to access the file. Those links can get stolen, intercepted or potentially brute-forced to allow access to those files, or even folders.

You must prevent users from creating folder-sharing links that access multiple files. If a user must access files owned by another group, they should request access from the Group Owner.

Limit external sharing to only non-sensitive files. If you must share sensitive files with third parties, add them as guests in your Azure AD, and grant them appropriate access that way. Because they are guests and listed in the group membership, group owners will audit the list and remove any extra users when appropriate.

Finally, be sure to set all user-created links to expire. While this means that your users might need to generate multiple links to collaborate on a file, it also means you effectively and continuously remove risk.

 

  • Monitor SharePoint Online

Lastly, monitor Office 365 for data breaches by insiders and outside attackers by tracking file and folder activity, group membership changes, admin activity, and more. Correlate network traffic with monitored data to detect possible cyber-attacks in progress.

Varonis monitors Office 365 to protect your data in the Microsoft Cloud. You can classify your Office 365 data and more to identify your sensitive data. You can build a complete workflow to approve, deny and manage access to your data that makes the group owners the true keepers of their data. Varonis creates individual user behaviour baselines to detect abnormal Office 365 activity that indicates a potential insider or external attack.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.teiss.co.uk/

Covid-19 – IT support expectations

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Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown has had a profound effect on all our lives and presented huge challenges to businesses great and small. Many businesses have been forced to close, and many of those able to continue trading have been forced to adapt-to-survive by adopting new technology and ways-of-working to facilitate remote operations.

While the crisis has affected all businesses to some extent, it is fair to say that the IT sector is better equipped than many to deal with the challenges posed by working from home and the need to keep physical contact to a minimum.  It is therefore fair to expect a certain level of service of your IT support provider despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.  This article reviews some of the expectations you should continue to have, and allow you to consider areas where your IT provider might be falling short.

 

So, what should I continue to expect in terms of IT support?

Uninterrupted maintenance and timely support when it’s needed.  Proactive systems maintenance should continue as before.  If your team are logging more support tickets than usual this may be a sign your IT provider isn’t being proactive, resulting in a greater number of issues arising.

Similarly, you should expect your provider’s Helpdesk to be manned and operational when you expect it.  Your IT support provider should continue to be responsive to support tickets, and while some delay in terms of resolution times may be acceptable due to increased demand, you shouldn’t be waiting days for simple issues to be resolved.

Consultancy and Appropriate/cost-efficient solutions.  If working from home is a new concept for your business (as it will be for many) then the transition could prove fairly stressful and daunting.  It’s important that your IT provider is able to guide you through the process and propose solutions that are appropriately scaled and cost.

Solutions should be realistic in terms of cost, but also shouldn’t be so compromised that your business isn’t able to operate effectively.  For example, if your business is ‘data heavy’ you may want to enable easy access to files through either remote access to your Office Network or by introducing a Business-Grade Cloud storage solution.

Similarly, if another priority is communication – both within your business and with clients and potential clients – your IT provider should be able to propose and implement solutions that enable video conferencing and perhaps the continued use of your office phone system by setting up cloud-based VoIP.

Ultimately, your support provider should know your business well enough and also know the technology well enough to provide solutions that are a good fit for your operation.

Solutions that are secure and compliant.  Whether you are required to follow industry-specific codes of conduct and regulation or you fall under the all-encompassing scope of GDPR, ensuring that you maintain data security and operate compliantly is as important now as ever.  The FCA, for example, stated that companies should ‘take all reasonable steps to meet their regulatory obligations,” in a statement before lockdown began.  You should expect your IT provider to only propose solutions that allow you to meet any regulatory obligations you currently have.

The use and storage of data is among the most common compliance considerations for businesses.  Your IT provider should be able to provide your team with secure, functional devices such as laptops or tablets.  They should ensure that such devices are backed up, maintained and run adequate anti-malware protection.  You may also want to consider remote device and application management to ensure access to data is tightly controlled – particularly relevant if you intend to allow staff to use their own devices.  Your provider should be able to talk you through the options available to you.

A Disaster recovery plan.  Any IT support company worth their salt should be able to explain how they’ll recover your data in the event of a disruptive event such as a cyber-attack or device damage/theft.  Ask your provider how they would recover your important files, databases, applications etc if such an event were to occur while your team are working remotely.

The above list is not exhaustive by any means but it does provide a basis from which to evaluate your IT provider’s performance through the Covid-19 crisis.  Many businesses outsource their IT for peace of mind, believing that their IT provider will act as a safety net to their business when disaster strikes.  Therefore, if your IT provider is falling well short of your expectations at the moment you should ask yourself whether they can be trusted to look after your business in the future.

 

We’re Cloudscape

At Cloudscape, we know what technology means for your business.  While some IT companies live on cloud-nine, we are very much grounded and realise that for many firms IT is a vehicle for their business and not the destination itself.  We only deliver solutions that will get results and instead of dazzling our customers with jargon and shiny, new products at every opportunity we focus on plain-English guidance and an efficient, friendly and reliable support service that your business can have confidence in.

Hackers steal secrets from US nuclear missile contractor

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Hackers have stolen confidential documents from a US military contractor which provides critical support for the country’s Minuteman III nuclear deterrent, Sky News has learnt.

After gaining access to Westech International’s computer network, the criminals encrypted the company’s machines and began to leak documents online to pressure the company to pay extortion.

It is unclear if the documents stolen by the criminals include military classified information, but files which have already been leaked online suggest the hackers had access to extremely sensitive data, including payroll and emails.

There are also concerns that Russian-speaking operators behind the attack could attempt to monetise their haul by selling information about the nuclear deterrent on to a hostile state.

Court documents in the US allege that Russian cyber criminals with a financial motivation have collaborated with the intelligence services in order to steal classified government documents.

A spokesperson for Westech confirmed to Sky News that the company had been hacked and its computers encrypted, and that investigations to identify what data the criminals had managed to steal were ongoing.

The company is involved with the nuclear deterrent as a sub-contractor for Northrup Grumman, providing engineering and maintenance support for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://news.sky.com/

Covid 19 – Is your IT support provider failing to deliver?

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The Covid-19 crisis has presented considerable challenges to most businesses.  For some it has meant having to close completely, while others have had to overcome severe operational challenges as they make every effort to maintain some sort of normal service to their clients.

With the recommended advice being to work from home wherever possible, many businesses have closed their offices and relied on the guidance and support of their IT provider to enable secure and effective remote operations.

Therefore, it is now more important than ever that you have an IT provider you can rely on. Your provider should continue to offer the same quality of support and maintenance you expect of them, but they should also have been able to help carry your business through this period of uncertainty by proposing and implementing new solutions that are fit for purpose and economically viable.

This article should help you consider whether or not your IT provider is doing enough to help your business through the crisis. Listed below are a few things to look out for.

 

Knowledge and Skills gaps

The upheaval and forced change caused by the crisis is a test for IT providers.  While many providers cope well in their day-to-day provision of IT services, they have now been forced to think on their feet and come up with new and inventive solutions for their clients which for some may lay bare knowledge and skills gaps.  If your provider is struggling to implement changes and you sense they are learning as they go this could indicate inexperience or a lack of continuous training and staff development. Technology never stops evolving and as a result IT companies should ensure that their staff are familiar with the latest developments so that they can deliver the most up-to-date solutions to their clients.

When you are looking for an IT provider don’t be afraid to ask about their experience, qualifications, accreditations and even things like client testimonials.  You may also want to consider whether they invest properly in staff training development, as conscientious firms will pay attention to this!  Lastly, while there are no doubt many capable young firms you shouldn’t be afraid to ask how long a provider has been in business for, as long-lived firms tend to be long-lived for good reason.

Failure to meet guaranteed response times

Pay particular attention to how long it’s taking your provider to register your request for support.  While not all companies offer response time guarantees they will likely have target figures so that their clients know roughly how quickly requests will be dealt with.  While support request has been higher than usual in the wake of lockdown restrictions being applied you should still have reasonably high expectations on this; after all ‘response time’ only refers to the time taken to acknowledge a support request, not actually resolve it.  Response times may vary depending on the level of support you have agreed with your provider and the level of priority assigned to different support requests but if you have been with your provider for a reasonable length of time you’ll likely know what to expect.

Failure to meet response time pledges or expectations may be a sign of an under-resourced helpdesk, a lack of organisation or it may be indicative of false promises that the company is not serious about sticking to.

Lax security Practices

Businesses generally assume that their IT provider applies the highest standards when it comes to security as ‘reducing risk’ is cited as a common reason for outsourcing IT in the first place.  The assumption of good security, however, can be dangerous, as assumptions often are, so it is important to know what to look out for to ensure that your provider considers security a top priority.

You might want to consider whether your provider holds ‘cyber essentials’ accreditation and whether they operate on the basis of a ‘no trust’ policy (whereby all individuals within and outside an organisation are considered a potential threat to security).  You should also be confident in your provider’s approach to preventative maintenance and backups.  Effective update and patch management will help safeguard against some forms of malware that exploit weaknesses in software, and regular backups will safeguard your files against attack provided that files are backed up in multiple locations.

They won’t accept blame

There is a certain amount of shared responsibility between IT providers and their clients, as no single party is fully responsible for ensuring systems run smoothly and that data is kept secure.  It’s your responsibility to take on board advice given to you by your provider and act in good faith, and it is their responsibility to ensure the solutions they implement pose an acceptably low level of risk to you and your business.

This relationship can be tested however when one party makes a mistake and fails to accept responsibility for it or blames the other party.  If your provider has a tendency to do this it may be time to look elsewhere for an IT partner who’ll treat you and your business with more respect.

You’re not learning anything

Your IT provider should function as a sort of ‘Tech guru’ in some capacity to your business.  Many businesses outsource their IT to tap into the expert guidance and knowledge of IT companies, seeing it as an opportunity to adopt new technology and learn while doing so.  If your provider leaves you to figure things out on your own and seems unwilling to provide proper guidance then it could be a sign that they don’t value their relationships with their clients.

They aren’t commercially savvy

For many businesses, IT is just a means to an end: a tool for managing client relationships and increasing revenue.  It’s therefore important that your IT provider has some understanding of how a particular Tech solution will affect your business’ performance and the implications for things like sales and financial performance.  If your provider never explains technology in the context of your business or businesses in your sector more generally and calls routinely sound like a sales pitch, it could signal that they don’t know your business very well and/or don’t understand your sector.

Poor Proactive maintenance

Reactive IT companies resolve problems after they have occurred whereas proactive IT companies monitor systems to anticipate issues before they arise, leading to less downtime and increased productivity.  You want the latter! Reactive IT support is a sign that your provider doesn’t have adequate insight into the ‘end-user experience’ either because they don’t have the tools in place for monitoring or because they aren’t actively carrying out preventative maintenance.  A proactive company, on the other hand, has the capability to tackle issues before they arise using monitoring tools and will be able to resolve issues often without you realising anything has taken place.

If your staff are logging an excessive number of tickets this could be a sign that preventative maintenance isn’t happening.  You might also want to ask your provider if they use a monitoring platform.

It’s understandable that IT support may not be your primary concern at the moment, however, the current crisis provides a valuable opportunity to evaluate your IT provider’s performance to determine whether they have what it takes to safeguard your business against cyber threats and the possibility of future crises.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best technology solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that you’re not getting the most from your IT Provider, please get in touch.

easyJet Says Details of Nine Million Customers Accessed in Data Breach

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easyJet has revealed that the personal data of approximately nine million of its customers has been accessed following a “highly sophisticated” cyber-attack on its system. This includes credit card details of a small subset of these customers (2208), with the airline confirming it has already taken action to contact and offer support to those individuals.

For the rest of the customers affected, email addresses and travel details were accessed. Easyjet said these customers will be contacted in the next few days to and the company will “advise them of protective steps to minimize any risk of potential phishing.”

The company took immediate steps to manage the incident once it was aware of the attack and closed off the unauthorized access. It also stated that it has notified the National Cyber Security Centre and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of the breach. The firm has not given any details on the nature of the breach.

There is currently no evidence that the information accessed has been misused; however, the airline is urging its customers to stay alert to any unsolicited communications and to be “cautious of any communications purporting to come from easyJet or easyJet Holidays.”

Johan Lundgren, easyJet chief executive officer, said: “We take the cybersecurity of our systems very seriously and have robust security measures in place to protect our customers’ personal information. However, this is an evolving threat as cyber-attackers get ever more sophisticated.

“Since we became aware of the incident, it has become clear that owing to COVID-19 there is heightened concern about personal data being used for online scams. As a result, and on the recommendation of the ICO, we are contacting those customers whose travel information was accessed and we are advising them to be extra vigilant, particularly if they receive unsolicited communications.”

The incident has come a particularly bad time for easyJet, who face the possibility of a large fine under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules.

Commenting on the breach, Felix Rosbach, product manager at data security specialists comforte AG, said: “The aviation industry is struggling at present given the current pandemic so seeing another major airline succumb to a data breach is not pleasant. On first glance, easyJet has followed the correct procedures and informed all affected customers who have had their sensitive data compromised. However, this situation could have been avoided.”

Last year, British Airways (BA) was hit by a record £183m GDPR (intention to) fine after failing to prevent a digital skimming attack in 2018.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news

The Fort of Cyber Security – What is Data Encryption?

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Encrypt your data before the Hackers do it for you…

What exactly is Data Encryption?

Encryption helps protect data you send, receive and store using any device. Including text messages, emails on your desktop, phone calls, banking information and most importantly, password logs.

It works in a simple manner, by scrambling the readable text so it can only be read by the person who has the secret code or decryption key. Providing data security for personal and sensitive information.

 

Why bother encrypting your data?

Aside from securing your sensitive data, here are the three main reasons to encrypt your data:

 

Internet privacy concerns are very real – Encryption is a key part of securing outgoing and inbound data, making sure the information you send out isn’t readable let alone viewable by anyone other than the intended recipient. Encrypt every single message.

Hacking is no longer a hobby, it’s a big business – Cybercrime is a professional, global enterprise. Large-scale breaches are now demonstrated with ease, purely for the financial gain.

Regulations demand protection – Depending on the industry, certain acts and regulations now enforce encryption as compliance in securing public data & information held and distributed online.

Never underestimate the importance of securing your data; whether it’s from a backup perspective, or from the very beginning. All it takes is one intercepted email and your data could be breached within hours.

 

How do you encrypt data?

Data Encryption is the method of taking plain, readable text, like a text message or email, then scrambling it into an unreadable format — called “cypher text.” Helping protect the confidentiality of online data either stored on IT systems or transmitted over a network.

When the intended recipient acquires the message, the information is translated and reverted back to its readable form, otherwise known as decryption. Usually, in order to gain access to the message, both the sender and the receiver have to use a ‘secret encryption key’, being a collection of algorithms that scramble and unscramble data back to its original form.

There are multiple types of encryption, each designed with unique requirements and security measures in mind.

 

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We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

Ransomware Costs Could Reach $70m

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IT services giant Cognizant has admitted that a ransomware attack it suffered back in April may end up costing the company as much as $70m.

The firm announced revenue of $4.2bn for the first quarter of 2020, an increase of 2.8% year-on-year. In this context, the $50-70m hit it expects to take in Q2 from the ransomware attack will not make a huge impact on the company.

However, the big numbers involved are illustrative of the persistent financial threat posed by ransomware, not to mention the reputational impact on customers.

CEO Brian Humphries claimed on an earnings call that the company responded immediately to the threat, proactively taking systems offline after some internal assets were compromised. However, the resulting downtime and suspension of some customer accounts took their toll financially.

“Some clients opted to suspend our access to their networks,” he explained. “Billing was therefore impacted for a period of time, yet the cost of staffing these projects remained on our books.”

Remote workers were also affected as the attack hit the firm’s system for supporting its distributed workforce during the current pandemic.

It does appear, however, that on this occasion the Maze attackers were not able to steal sensitive internal data from Cognizant servers, as is usually the case with high-profile victims of the gang.

Nobody wants to be dealt with a ransomware attack,” Humphries said on the call. “I personally don’t believe anybody is truly impervious to it, but the difference is how you manage it, and we tried to manage it professionally and maturely.”

Maze was in action most recently to target a Minnesotan egg supplier, one of the country’s largest.

Victim organizations are estimated to have paid out in excess of $6bn to ransomware attackers last year, but the real cost could be many times more, according to Emsisoft.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news

Data Breach Exposes Four Million Dating App Users

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Almost four million users of a popular Android dating app have had their personal and log-in data stolen by hackers, according to Risk Based Security.

The security vendor said it found the data on a prominent hacking forum — now free for anyone to access, although it had been previously up for sale.

It’s associated with nearly 3.7 million users of MobiFriends, a Barcelona-based dating app. The information was originally posted to the forum in January of this year by a threat actor named “DonJuji,” but is attributed to a breach in January 2019.

The data includes dates of birth, gender, website activity, mobile numbers, usernames, email addresses and MD5 hashed passwords.

“The MD5 encryption algorithm is known to be less robust than other modern alternatives, potentially allowing the encrypted passwords to be decrypted into plaintext,” warned Risk Based Security.

“Moreover, the data leak contains professional email addresses related to well-known entities including: American International Group (AIG), Experian, Walmart, Virgin Media and a number of other F1000 companies. This creates a notable risk of business email compromise as well as potential spear-phishing campaigns.”

MobiFriends has yet to respond to the researchers who found the data.

The number of records exposed in data breaches soared by 273% quarter-on-quarter to reach a record 8.4 billion in Q1 2020, according to Risk Based Security. However, the number of publicly reported incidents was down by 42% during the same period.

“The increase in records compromised was driven largely by one breach; a misconfigured Elasticsearch cluster that exposed 5.1 billion records. However, even if we adjusted for this incident, the number of records still increased 48% compared to Q1 2019,” said Inga Goddijn, executive vice-president at Risk Based Security.

“Hacking exposed an average of approximately 850,000 records per breach and most breaches originated from outside the organization. We are continually finding that simply meeting regulatory standards or contractual obligations does little to actually prevent a breach from occurring.”

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news

The Fort of Cyber Security – What is Malware?

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The existence of Malware is to cause chaos, don’t invite it into your Business

What exactly is Malware?

Malware is a contraction of malicious software. The pieces of software that are specifically designed with the intent of causing damage to devices, the aim of stealing private data or to simply cause destruction and chaos.

Often designed by a group of cybercriminals or hackers, looking to make money from either selling the software over the dark web, or by spreading the malware content themselves. Regardless of where the malware started from or who spreads it, if it ends up on your PC, it’s not good news.

 

What are the different types of Malware?

Coming in all different shapes and sizes, with a variety of forms, some types are much more harmful than others:

 

Computer Viruses – Anything that’s clean, viruses attach themselves to infect files, spreading uncontrollably damaging anything and everything in its path. Usually appearing as .exe files within your system.

Trojans – Disguised as what you think is legitimate software, or hidden with software that was once legitimate. Acts discreetly and creates back-doors within your security to let malware in.

Spyware – Spyware, as you can probably guess, is malware specifically designed to spy on you, your actions and what you get up to. tracking your browsing habits, noting passwords entered and learning all your security procedures.

Ransomware – Malware that locks down your system, encrypts your files and will threaten to erase everything until you pay a hefty ransom.

Worms – Just a wriggly, if not more with your IT Network. Worms infect entire networks of devices, either locally or across the internet by using network interfaces. Using infected machines as it goes to infect others.

Adware – Not the most malicious in nature, simply aggressive advertising software that undermines your security to serve you an obscene amount of pop-ups, which can allow other malware content to sneak in.

How do you prevent Malware?

When it comes to preventing malware, it’s more advised to follow rules to block it in the first place, instead of trying to find a cure to remove it from your IT systems after. There are a few common-sense practises to follow to avert malware from entering your infrastructure.

 

Don’t trust anyone online; Hackers have and will use social engineering to specifically target you, including strange emails, sudden alerts as well as fake profile and special offers too good to be true. If you don’t know what something is, don’t click on it.

Check your downloads; From official storefronts to dark websites that lurk in the corner of the internet, wherever you plan to download a file, be cautious that it could still be infected, regardless of where you found it.

Ad-blockers are the key; With advertising so prominent on websites, not all of them are what they seem. Hackers can use infected banners to trigger downloads once clicked, be wary to click on any that seem enticing.

Browse carefully; Sticking to trustworthy sites is always the best way forward. Malware can be found anywhere, but mostly in small, locally hosted websites with poor security standards in place, don’t run the risks.

 

Even if you follow all the steps, there’s, unfortunately, no guarantee that you’ll remain malware-free. Given the fact that worms have evolved from the depths of the ground to travel across your IT network infecting machines as it goes, no one is deemed safe.

** Get your FREE pinpoint guide on Malware below **

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We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.