How to protect your business from rising cyber crime in 2017

Whether it was a big bank or hospital, a hotel chain or transit system, cyber attacks affected organisations and individuals alike. Industry experts and analysts agree: cyber crime rates will continue to increase in 2017. But what’s next?

eSentire CTO Mark McArdle and BBC journalist and technologist Ben Hammersley are available to discuss their 2017 IT security predictions, how those predictions will directly impact small and mid-sized businesses, and what steps organisations can take to protect their networks from new and emerging threats. They will also be presenting a webinar on the same topic on 26^th January 2017 at 11:00am EST. (Register here: http://www2.esentire.com/2017ITSecurityTrends).

Here’s a sneak peek of the trends they can discuss:

• DoS attacks: while these attacks usually don’t yield devastating effects, they can be disruptive, particularly when it comes to organisations reliant on web traffic. Becoming a DoS attack target isn’t fun, but neither is unknowingly participating in a DoS attack against another network. There are a number of measures businesses can take to help guard against both scenarios.
• Ransomware: this throwback attack technique skyrocketed last year to become of the most used and highly effective cyber attack tools. Ransomware’s popularity won’t wane in 2017. In fact, Mark and Ben agree that ransomware will evolve at a rapid and more sophisticated pace, morphing into somewhat of an internally-focused, disabling DoS-style attack, with potentially crippling results.
• Cyber weaponry: with an increase in nation-state attacks, expect to see cyber criminals adopt and adapt similar weaponry for attacks targeting small and mid-sized enterprise.
• Phishing-based attacks: phishing and business email compromise aren’t new, however these attacks will continue to plague businesses this year. Expect attackers to use more sophisticated veils and malicious attachments. Awareness is key - businesses who fail to invest in employee awareness training will find themselves at greater risk for phishing-based attacks.