Posts

The 3 Most Common Cloud Admin Oversights

/in

Cloud AdminIf you use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, managing your services requires time and effort. Failing to do so can lead to wasted money and security risks. Here are the three most common cloud admin oversights we encounter.

1 – Data and Account Retention Policies

Every business has some degree of employee turnover. Whether you are hiring replacements, reducing staff, or growing, having data and account retention policies will guide how you handle user accounts and data when an employee leaves. Without such policies, we tend to keep accounts active “in case we need some of their files or emails,” long after the need has passed. 

Data and account retention policies can be both effective and simple. Here are some key elements for simple data and account retention policies: 

  • Determine how long you need to keep an employee’s data accessible for legal or regulatory reasons. The length will depend on your business and the user’s job function.

Outside of legal and regulatory requirements, think about:

  • When should you transfer emails, files, or other content to another person.
  • How long to keep an account active in the system.
  • How long to keep an archive or the user’s account in the system.
  • How long to keep a copy of the user’s data in your backup/recovery system.
  • If you choose to export the data, how long to keep the export.
  • When to delete the account after it becomes inactive, allowing you to reuse the license.

Since archive and backup/recovery solutions allow you to restore data to a different user, they offer a more cost-effective option than keeping an account active and licensed. They also help meet your legal retention requirements without the expense of an active user license.

2 – License Management

Sometimes we overlook simple actions that can save us time and money. Both Microsoft and Google allow you to add users at any time during your annual contract term. These additions become part of your contracted commitment, which you cannot reduce until renewal.

Too often, when a new employee or contractor joins the team, we immediately add a license and set them up to work. By not checking for available licenses or user accounts that can be deleted, we miss opportunities to reuse existing licenses. Consequently, we end up paying more without any added benefit.

If you have data and account retention policies, you can safely determine if and when to remove a former employee’s account. This allows you to reuse licenses and avoid incremental costs.

While the process may take a few minutes, it is simple and effective in saving money. We have seen businesses with seasonal employee turnover accumulate 25% to 50% more licenses than they actually need.

3 – On-Boarding / Off-Boarding

Small and midsize businesses may not see the need for formal on/off-boarding processes. However, not having them in place can lead to wasted time and potential security risks. Simple, efficient checklists can save you time, effort, and money

On-Boarding

The key to efficient on-boarding is knowing which applications, tools, and data the new employee should be able to access and use.

Create a simple checklist of applications, tools, and file shares. When on-boarding a new employee, determine what access is needed and check off each item as it is provided. This ensures new staff members only gain access to the resources they need.

Creating standard checklists for specific departments and jobs ensures consistent access and permissions across teams.

As a best practice, create security groups for departments and/or job functions to which you assign permissions are access rights. When on-boarding, adding new employees to the appropriate groups streamlines the process and saves time.

Off-Boarding

One of the most common mistakes made during employee departures is leaving accounts active with continued access to systems and data. This poses a security risk and can create confusion for remaining staff.

Having data and account retention policies helps ensure that past employee accounts, also known as “ghost accounts,” are removed from your systems. Creating off-boarding checklists helps ensure that application and data access gets transferred, as appropriate, to other users. Using security groups further simplifies the off-boarding process.

Your Next Step

With time-saving best practice, cloud admin services, Cumulus Global co-manages and remotely administers your IT services to save you time and money, improve productivity, enhance security, and protect your business.

Contact us about our Managed Cloud Services or schedule a no-obligation meeting with a Cloud Advisor today.

Contact us or schedule a no-obligation meeting with a Cloud Advisor today.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America. Starting his first business at age 12, Allen is a serial entrepreneur. He has launched strategic IT consulting, software, and service companies. An advocate for small and midsize businesses, Allen served on the board of the former Smaller Business Association of New England, local economic development committees, and industry advisory boards.

US Cybersecurity Policy Shift Increases Risk of Successful Cyber Attacks

/in

Data Protection & SecurityThe current United States administration continues to issue and execute dramatic changes in US policies and programs. For businesses, tariffs and their potential impact on the economy and various business sectors gets most of the media attention. Getting less attention, US Cybersecurity Policy changes will have an immediate and potentially devastating impact on many businesses and individuals.  

Multiple reputable news and information sources are reporting that on March 2nd, the current administration ordered the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to cease tracking and reporting on Russian threats. This is a tectonic shift in policy as Russia is generally understood to be the largest nation-state sponsor of cyber attacks. This change in focus for CISA will dramatically reduce the availability, reliability, and timeliness of cybersecurity threat intelligence. 

Here is what you need to know, what to expect, and what to do.

What to Know

Here are three things to know about cyber threats, CISA, and nation-state cyber attacks.

1Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is the invisible backbone of your cybersecurity protections. As the name implies, threat intelligence is the collection of sharing of information about cybersecurity risks, threats, methods, actors, sources, and sponsors. It also encompasses knowledge of how to prevent, block, and stop attacks; fix hardware and software to close exploits.

Every legitimate cybersecurity product or service relies on threat intelligence to build, maintain, and improve their product or service. Larger and better-funded cybersecurity companies conduct their own research and share their findings.

2CISA: Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency

CISA is the US federal government agency responsible for collecting, evaluating, and sharing threat intelligence across government and private sectors. The agency also partners with core infrastructure companies, such as Internet Service Providers, to actively prevent, block, and respond to potential and active cyber attacks.

3Nation-State Cyber Attacks

Industry experts estimate that over 40% of cyber attacks originate from, or are sponsored by, hostile nation-states. The Microsoft Digital Defense Report Report 2024 notes that in 2024, 58% of nation-state attacks originated in Russia. These attacks account for up to 25% of all cyber attacks globally.

What to Expect

Expect more cyber attacks and greater challenged to your cyber security profile.

1More Cyber Attacks

Expect an increase in cyber attacks and, more importantly, successful cyber attacks.

With CISA no longer tracking Russian-sourced cyber attacks, expect Russia, Russian-sponsored, and Russian organized crime to increase the frequency, intensity, and scope of the cyber attacks. Knowing that CISA is no longer watching signals a huge opportunity to attack US government entities, businesses, and non-profits with fear of early detection or responsiveness.

2More Successful Attacks

Without fast and accurate threat intelligence, cybersecurity systems and services will take longer to identify threats and attacks.Their response to zero-day (new, immediate) and other cyberattacks will take longer.

Unprotected and under-protected systems will be more vulnerable to successful attacks as the frequency and scope of cyber attacks increase.

3More Challenging Recovery

In addition to sharing information to help block and stop cyber attacks, CISA shares information on how to repair and recover. Without this information, obtaining decrypt keys and other help to undo the damage will be more difficult and will take more time.

What to Do

Use our Security CPR™ model to guide your next steps:

Communicate and Educate:

Inform your team to expect an increase in cyber attacks and ask for additional vigilance. Have security awareness training in place to reinforce the message and to occasionally test if your team can recognize phishing and other email-based cyber attacks.

Protect and Prevent:

More than 80% of cyber attacks originate, directly or indirectly, by email. Make sure you have next-generation email threat protection services in place. Beyond header validation and basic sandboxing, your solution now should analyze character sets and fonts, images, QR codes, graymail, and email delivery patterns.

Microsoft estimates that more than 90% of cyber attacks on small and midsize businesses can be stopped with multi-factor authentication (MFA). If you do not have MFA in place for critical systems (preferably ALL systems), do so now.

Restore and Recover:

As the risk of successful attacks increases, ensure that you have the ability to restore damaged and lost data and systems. Verify that you can recover – return to operations – quickly, even as you continue to restore systems and data.  Continuity solutions for critical systems and software will save you time and money.

Your Next Steps

Assess your immediate needs and take appropriate action. Our Cloud Advisors can help you assess your cybersecurity needs and priorities, and can offer budget-friendly, effective solutions.

Contact us or schedule a no-obligation meeting with a Cloud Advisor today.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America. Starting his first business at age 12, Allen is a serial entrepreneur. He has launched strategic IT consulting, software, and service companies. An advocate for small and midsize businesses, Allen served on the board of the former Smaller Business Association of New England, local economic development committees, and industry advisory boards.

Business Email Compromise: The Second Costliest Crime

/in

Originally Posted December 9, 2024.  Updated to add a link to a related article published by the Washington Post.

Cyberattacks, specifically Business Email Compromise attacks are back in the national news. This feature story on CNN.com covers the risk, nature, and impact of Business Email Compromise attacks on a national level.

Back in March of 2022, we blogged about Real Estate Cyber Security and the rapid increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. We followed up in April of 2022, with a post Business Email Compromise – The Costliest Type of Cybercrime. The post explained how BEC attacks work and how you can prevent them.

Related Update: The latest housing scam: Using AI to impersonate your agent or lender, Washington Post, December 14, 2024.

Are YOU safe from Business Email Compromise Attacks?

A $2.9 Billion Problem

With 2023 adjusted losses exceeding $2.9 Billion, the FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report identifies BEC attacks as the second-costliest type of crime. In a recent survey by CertifID, more than half of the 650 homebuyers and sellers were not fully aware of these types of fraud risks.

While the victims in the CNN article believe the compromise was from the title company, these breaches often initiate with the real estate agent or brokerage. The fragmented system of real estate franchisors, franchises, brokers/groups, and agents, gaps in cybersecurity awareness and protections are common. Real estate is a rich target for these BEC attacks. Large dollar amount transactions and low security-vigilance among agents, buyers, and sellers attracts cyber attacks.

Your Business Email Compromise Risk

The scope of BEC attacks spans businesses of all sizes.  Your small business is a target because you are less likely to have adequate cybersecurity protections in place.  As a small business, you are also less likely to have procedural checks and balances in place. Your chance of identifying and thwarting a BEC attack is lower.

Business Email Compromise attacks may target payments you make, or those your customers make to you. In either case, a successful BEC can destroy your reputation, expose you to litigation and liability, and cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Your Next Step

Your best next step is to evaluate how well you are protected from BEC attacks.  Use Referral Code 24RSA50 to request savings of at least 50% off our Rapid Security Assessment*. You can also schedule a brief, free call with one of our Cloud Advisors to discuss your cybersecurity risk and protections.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America. Starting his first business at age 12, Allen is a serial entrepreneur. He has launched strategic IT consulting, software, and service companies. An advocate for small and midsize businesses, Allen served on the board of the former Smaller Business Association of New England, local economic development committees, and industry advisory boards.

* Discount RSA offer requests must be received prior to 3:00 PM EST on Dec. 31, 2024.

ALERT: Threatening Emails are Spiking

/in

ALERT

In the last 72 hours, our clients have reported an alarming increase in threatening emails. These emails contain enough personal information to legitimately trigger worry, fear, and in some cases, panic. 

This post covers three types of threatening messages and how to respond.

The Attacks

This type of attack is known as a “Exposure Threat” or “Fear of Exposure” attack. Attackers threaten to release embarrassing or sensitive information about you or your business. They may share bits of information or make claims that imply or confirm that they really do have some information. 

Here are three common forms of the threat:

1 “We Know Where You Live”

The email arrives in your inbox from what looks like a “legitimate” Gmail, Yahoo!, or other email service. The subject line contains your name or that of a family member. The message includes your full address and a valid phone number. In some cases, this threat may also include a picture of your home or office. 

Most often, this type of email does not include any explicit threat or demand.

The implication “we know where you live” is intended to instill fear. The goal is to make you more likely to respond and cooperate with future threats. 

2“We Know What You Did”

This form of attack claims to have documents, images, or video of you doing something embarrassing or illegal. The attacker will claim to have access to your email account, or all of your contacts, and will threaten to share the information if you fail to pay a ransom.

This is an explicit form of extortion.

The attackers are betting that the fear of exposure will cause you to pay the demand and prevent you from reporting the attack.

3“We Have Your Information”

This form of attack threatens to disclose sensitive information about you, your business, or your customers. The threat is the damage a data breach causes. This can include serious and costly legal, regulatory, or contractual issues. The attackers may share a sample that “proves” they have the information on hand.

This attack typically includes a specific threat and an extortion demand.

The preview information shared by the attackers may be from sensitive files, but it may also be available from other sources. This form of attack warrants some investigation.

How to Respond: Do NOT Panic!

First and foremost, do NOT panic. The success of these attacks is dependent upon your fear and your reaction. If you receive an email that is like one of these cases or similar, how you respond can make a difference.

No Specific Threat

  • If the email does not contain a specific threat or demand, your best response is to mark and report the email as spam. Doing so should direct future emails directly to your spam or junk folder.
  • You can take the extra step of reporting the message as abuse to the email server. Here are links to report email abuse for Gmail, Sky/Yahoo!, and Xfinity/Comcast.

With a Specific Threat

  • If the email contains a specific threat, you can and should report the message as spam/junk. We recommend your report this to your IT service provider. Your IT team should investigate the possible risks and take appropriate preventative and responsive measures.
  • Extortion is a crime. While many local law enforcement departments do not have the expertise to investigate cyber crimes, most state police organizations have cyber crime units. You can also report the attack directly to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The IC3 will route your report to the FBI and other relevant agencies. Depending on the nature of the attack, the response may range from acknowledgement of the report to a full criminal investigation.
  • If the email includes a threat to show up at your home or business if you do not respond or comply. we strongly recommend reporting the threat to law enforcement.

Possible Data Breach

  • If the threat indicates that the attacker has, or can, access sensitive data, promptly take additional steps to protect yourself and your business.
  • If the attack references personal information, placing locks on your credit reports is always a good step. If the threat mentions (or indicates) a source, such as your bank or investment accounts, report the incident directly to that institution or business. Discuss protections they can put in place on your behalf.
  • If the attack references information from your business, promptly investigate the possible breach. This may involve scanning systems for malware and advanced threats, analyzing logs for unauthorized access, and verifying compliance with security measures. The level of your investigation should match the level of risk. Your IT service provider can help you assess the situation and determine the best course of action.

Your Next Steps

You can protect yourself and your business from these attacks, and other cyber attacks before they happen. Our Security CPR™ model provides a guide.

  • Communicate and Educate: Learn about, and help your team understand, the risks, nature, and impact of cyber attacks. Communicate the need for vigilance and how their behaviors can enable or prevent a successful attack.
  • Protect and Prevent: Put cybersecurity policies, procedures, systems, and services in place commensurate with your business’s risks, needs, priorities, and budget. This includes advanced threat protection for email and strong settings for your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols in your DNS record. 
  • Respond and Recover: Ensure that you have systems, processes, and services in place to respond and recover should an attack be successful. Beyond restoring data and systems, have resources available to address the legal, regulatory, and customer service issues that often arise. Ideally, have solutions in place that allow you to keep your business running while you respond and recover.

For help assessing your current cybersecurity protections, please send an email or schedule time with one of our Cloud Advisors to discuss our cybersecurity assessments and solutions.

About the Author

Chris CaldwellChristopher Caldwell is the COO and a co-founder of Cumulus Global.  Chris is a successful Information Services executive with 40 years experience in information services operations, application development, management, and leadership. His expertise includes corporate information technology and service management; program and project management; strategic and project-specific business requirements analysis; system requirements analysis and specification; system, application, and database design; software engineering and development, data center management, network and systems administration, network and system security, and end-user technical support.

2022 SMB IT Security Needs Study Highlights & Contradictions

/in

Security firm Action 1 recently published the results of its 2022 SMB IT Security study after surveying 750 small and midsize businesses.Data Protection & Security

Key Findings and Contradictions of the Action1 SMB Report

It is no secret that perceptions about our security risks differ from reality.  Not surprisingly, some of the 2022 SMB IT security needs survey results contradict one another.

52% vs 65% vs 37%

52% of respondents acknowledge that they lack sufficient skills and technology to effectively protect against cyber attacks. But 65% believe the cost of protection is too high and 37% complain that security controls hurt productivity. Businesses clearly struggle to balance the security they need with the cost and the user experience. Often SMBs are presented with security solutions designed – and priced – for larger organizations. As employees use added security steps for everyday transactions (online banking, etc.), the overhead of security protocols is less intrusive.

63% vs 81% vs 40%

While 63% believe that their SMB faces a lower cyber risk compared to larger companies, 81% of respondents had at least one security incident within the past 12 months. 40% of SMBs had 2 or more incidents. Too many SMBs continue to have a false sense of security. Cyber criminals understand that is easier to hack 10, or even 100, small businesses than it is to successfully attack 1 large enterprise. And with current tools, cyber attacks are inexpensive to launch and manage.

Where the Security Risks Exist

40% vs 39% vs 34%

The most common forms of successful cyber attacks are password attacks (40%), ransomware or other malware (39%), and phishing (34%). Note that these forms of attack are not mutually exclusive.  One form of attack, malware for example, can be used to gather the information needed for a successful password breach.

63% vs 43%

Looking at root causes, 63% of SMB IT Security study respondents noted that attacks began with phishing.  Unpatched systems were the starting point for 43% of attacks. These numbers make sense as these attack vectors provide access to information that supports further attacks.

Who is Helping

96% vs 23%

The vast majority of SMBs rely on outside experts for help with their security needs.  93% of respondents use an IT firm for at least some of their IT security needs.  That said, 23% of small businesses are looking to replace their IT service providers in the coming year. While security is not the only trigger for changing providers, it is one consideration.

48% vs 33% vs 29%

SMBs responded that poor system performance (48%), system outages (33%), and long problem resolution times (29%) are the three primary reasons for switching service providers. Each of these issues relate to business interruptions.

2022 SMB Security Study Conclusions

Examining the SMB IT Needs Security Study results, we see three clear conclusions.

  1. Failing to recognize the risks leads business owners to under value security technology and services.  The cost to respond and recover to a single incident dwarfs the cost of reasonable protections.  For SMBs, the average successful cyber attack can disrupt business operations for 18 to 21 days at a total cost to recover exceeding $200,000.
  2. With 50% of employees working remotely, at least part time, individuals and systems are more exposed to attack. Physical security is no longer sufficient. SMBs need a security services designed to protect against the most common and the most costly types of cyber attacks.
  3. As an IT service provider, we must ensure that our services, first and foremost, do no harm.  While security protocols can introduce some inconveniences, our services cannot interfere with performance, availability, or reliability.

Next Steps to Improve Your IT Security

Step back and take a look at your security services and footprint.  Our Rapid Security Assessment is a quick and simple starting point to identify security gaps. You can also schedule a call with one of our Cloud Advisors to review your security and IT services.

 

Security Trends Will Impact Small Businesses

/in

Security, Privacy, & ComplianceSpeaking at a recent CRN-hosted security summit for midsize enterprises, Paul Furtado, Gartner’s Vice President of Midsize Enterprise Security stated, “The only thing harder than defending yourself against a cyberattack is telling your executives and your partners why you didn’t do enough to protect yourself.”  His comments reflect current security trends from our historic “Trust but Verify” security model to one that is “Never Trust; Always Verify” — also known as Zero Trust.

Expectations are changing and our tolerance for breaches is dropping.  More than 56% of successful attacks exploit known vulnerabilities with patches available for more than 90 days.  Frankly, many of us are failing at the fundamentals of IT security and this needs to change.

While smaller in size, SMBs remain prime targets of cyber attacks.  With “Ransomware as a Service” readily available, finding and attacking vulnerable small businesses is inexpensive and effective.  SMBs are more likely to have fewer security protections; SMBs are less likely to be able to recover from an attack and more likely to pay ransoms.

Here are 7 security trends that warrant our attention and action:

1 Zero Day Exploits

As the name implies, Zero-Day  Exploits take advantage of newly discovered security holes before our tools and systems can be updated to prevent an attack.

Next Gen solutions are needed to protect from attacks on devices, in the flow of email, and in web traffic.

2 Insider Threats

Insider risk refers to every account that has access into an organization’s environment such as service accounts, custom integrations, and API accounts. Insider threats, meanwhile, are the small percentage of insiders actually doing something that will cause a security incident, intentionally or not.  For example, the increased use of QR codes allows attackers to create malicious QR codes that install keyloggers and screen grabbers to steal identities and multi-factor authentication tokens.

We need Security Awareness Training to help individuals understand the risks and build safe habits.

3 Regulatory Changes

As noted, security expectations are changing.  State and federal laws are changing. Passed by the Senate this year, the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act will require businesses to report significant cyber events within 72 hours and ransomware payments within 24 hours. These requirements lay on top of other federal regulations, multiple states’ privacy laws (CCPA, MA PII, etc.), and industry regulations (PCI-DSS, etc.).

With cyber insurance and cyber response services in place, small businesses are more likely to avoid fines, losses, and legal actions.

4 IoT

Internet of Things devices, and similar automation technologies are popular and often lack basic security features.

As IoT-based solutions move into smaller businesses, we need to secure and monitor devices and the networks on which they run.

5 Supply Chain

Bad actors know that attacks on supply chains can be more effective than attacking an intended target.

If your smaller business is in the supply chain of a larger company, expect security to become an issue.  They are likely to request — or demand – additional security measures as a condition of your business relationship.  And, be ready to demonstrate (prove) that you actually do what you claim on the security checklist.

6 Data Mining

Data mining enables attackers to not only go after your business, but your vendors and customers as well.  Imagine attackers telling your customers their private data will be released if you do not pay the ransom.  Even more common, imagine your customers receiving emails “from” (impersonating) you instructing them to send money.

We need to start protecting unregulated data in the same ways we protect regulated data.  Encryption, for example, does not prevent a breach but ensures the data cannot be used.

7 Ransomware

It would be nice to think we are past the ransomware pandemic, but we are not.  Over 80% of ransomware attacks are on small and mid-size businesses. Because attacks have moved beyond encryption to data exfiltration, attackers are likely to understand your business and set ransoms that are steep, but payable (often 1% to 1.5% of annual revenue).  Businesses hit by ransomware average more than 20 days of significant business disruption. On average, they permanently lose more than 35% of their data.

A response and recovery plan that includes business continuity ensures that you can keep your business running while you recover from and respond to an attack.

Your Next Step

Please contact us to evaluate your security footprint and needs, and discuss possible next steps, or schedule a no-obligation introductory call with one of our Cloud Advisors.

XChange of Ideas – Security

/in ,

XChange EventsLooking at what we learned during three packed days at the XChange 2022 Conference, we have much to share.  The XChange conferences help IT service providers, like Cumulus Global, explore emerging trends, challenges, products, and solutions.  While we attend to improve our service offerings and business, many of the insights will benefit your business as well. This XChange of Ideas shares three emerging security trends.

1 Security is Not a Technology

Most small and midsize businesses see themselves as having security because they have some security technologies and systems in place.  Security, however, is not a technology; security is an ecosystem that spans people, processes, and systems, as well as a lifecycle of prevention, response, and recovery. As important, we need to understand that managing our security

Most businesses still lack the basic set of security protections that span the security lifecycle. A solid security foundation should include advanced threat protection, next-gen endpoint protection, DNS security, web protection, multi-factor authentication, and encryption. A solid backup/recovery is also necessary; having a business continuity solution is preferred.

With the dynamic nature of threats and cyber attacks,  many businesses are at higher risk and should be deploying advanced security services. Advanced security services may include managed security incident detection and response (MDR) services, internal application whitelisting, segmentation, and other protections that can detect, halt, and stop the spread of an attack.

2 Cyber Insurance is Not Assurance

Cyber Insurance is more than a good idea, it is a necessity for almost every business.  But cyber insurance is not assurance that you can quickly recover from a cyber attack.

  • Cyber insurance underwriters have you complete a questionnaire or audit about your cyber protections, policies, and procedures. When you submit a claim, most cyber insurers will ask you to demonstrate that the protections were in place, how they were functioning, and that you follow the policies and procedures noted in your application.  If you cannot show that you do what you promise, expect your claim to be denied.
  • Your cyber insurance underwriters may prevent you from starting your systems and data recovery. Recovery typically destroys evidence of the attack, it’s cause, and it’s method of propagation. You may be unable to restore your systems and data for days — or even weeks — while your insurer completes a forensics investigation.

Having the right protections in place, and being able to demonstrate compliance, is a clear expectation to resolve cyber insurance claims.  Having a continuity solution in place that allows you to return to operation in parallel with a forensics investigation should be considered.

3 HIPAA is Not Just For Doctors

HIPAA is the regulatory cornerstone for protecting personal health information (PHI). These regulations control how we store, transmit, and share — procedurally and technically — PHI. Compliance, however, is not just required of healthcare providers, insurers, and others direct access to patient records. Businesses serving healthcare providers — those that sign a Business Associates Agreement — face compliance requirements as well.

HIPAA enforcement is expanding beyond Covered Entities to Business Associates, as is notable on the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights HIPAA “Wall of Shame”

If you are not sure that your security services are up to par, contact us about our security assessments, or schedule an intro call with one of our Cloud Advisors.

Different Types of Email Security Features

/in

Different Types Of Email Security Solutions Can Help Protect your Business

When launched Cumulus Global 15 years ago to provide small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with email security and security solutions. As early adopters, we saw how managed cloud services and solutions made enterprise grade solutions affordable and effective for small businesses.  While much as changed over the past decade and a half, we still face email-based threats.

Email Attacks are Easy

According to Verizon’s 2021 Data Breach Report, email remains one of the most common vectors for attacks. And, phishing attacks are at the top of the list. Email phishing attacks remain prevalent because they are relatively easy. Cyber attackers are able to say one step ahead of our defenses, in large part to the rise in social engineering. With more of our personal information available through social media, attackers can use psychological tactics and personalized messaging to target specific individuals (spear phishing) and business leaders (whaling). In doing so, they garner sensitive information and gain access to systems and data.

Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks impersonate your email domains or emails for specific users. In most instances, BEC attacks look and feel like legitimate emails from your business. Combined with social engineering tactics and personalize information, they are hard to spot and often successful.  Cyber security attacks can be “internal” that target your employees, or “external” that use your business to defraud your customers and associates.

Email and Domain Impersonation

Preventing email and domain impersonation attacks bypass account level security, including multi-factor authentication. To prevent these attacks, recipients should only accept email that can be authenticated as coming from your domain.

Different Types of Email Security Protection: Good, Better, Best

Currently, you have three levels of email domain security that can protect your business and your identity: Good, Better, and Best.

Good: SPF Sender Policy Framework

SPF verifies emails sent from valid IP addresses, either from your domain or authorized senders. While most small businesses have an SPF record configured, errors cause individual emails, or emails from marketing and CRM systems, to be flagged as spam by the recipient. Cyber attackers can spoof email addresses to give the appearance of a validated sender.

Better: DKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail

DKIM verifies that have been digitally signed by the sending domain, or by services sending email on behalf of the domain. Proper configuration is technical and involves cryptographic key management; errors can lead to fake messages with valid DKIM signatures. Cyber attackers can remove the DKIM signature using sophisticated relay attacks.

Best: DMARC Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting,
and Conformance

DMARC authenticates email origin by aligning identifiers from SPF and DKIM, and instructs recipients to deliver, quarantine, or reject failed emails by policy. DKIM helps improve email deliverability. Is the best protection against email and domain impersonation attacks, whether they target your employees, vendors, or customers. Reporting enables you to see email sources and manage your policies.

Protect Your Business With Our Email Security Services

While you set up SPF and DKIM with DNS record entries, DMARC is best implemented as a service. Doing so provides you access to settings, reports, and analysis tools. For most small and midsize businesses, the level of protection DMARC provides is worth the minimal cost.

You can learn more with our eBook: Email Security: Good, Better, Best.

To discuss your email security configuration, make an appointment with one of our Cloud Advisors, send us an email, or fill out our contact form.

4 Pillars of Cloud Security: The Most Important Strategies to Know

/in

Learn about the four pillars of cloud security that can help you reduce risk, increase agility, and run more efficiently: (C/I/A), external threat protection, data loss protection, and compliance.

While Cyber Security month comes and goes, the four pillars of cloud security remain integral to long term business success.  In what seems like a never-ending process, we continue to face new and advancing cyber security threats to the integrity of our data, identities, and businesses.  For those of use with small and midsize businesses, we need to ensure our systems and information are secure. At the same time, we want to keep our IT systems simple and manage our budgets.

Four Strategies for Cloud Security

To strike the right balance, we need to assess our current security foundation, identify gaps, and fill in services where needed. Doing so creates a security foundation that covers your basic needs.  From there, with the four pillars of cloud security in place, you can add services and build the security footprint you need to meet industry expectations and regulatory requirements.

A sound cloud security foundation is built on four pillars of cloud security.

1. Basic C/I/A

Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C/I/A) of information you create, receive, maintain, or transmit.

This first pillar of cloud security establishes your basic security infrastructure that protects against attacks and prevents breaches across your IT systems.  It also creates your ability to respond to issues and recover, key to ensuring business continuity and resilience.

2. External Threat Protection

Identify and protect against reasonably anticipated threats.

This pillar of cloud security focuses on the attacks and threats from outside your business. From phishing, ransomware, and business email compromise, to DNS and advanced persistent threats, the focus is on protecting your data, applications, systems,  and people from harm.

3. Data Loss Protection

Identify and protect against reasonably anticipated uses and disclosures.

Data breaches and data loss result from configuration issues, application errors, and individual actions. Permission errors, inappropriate sharing, and other actions are often accidental, resulting from a lack of understanding of policies and/or how systems work. They can, however, result from intentional acts of misconduct. Proper data protection and security solutions will help protect against these internal risks and threats.

4. Compliance

Ensure workforce and business compliance.

Nearly all businesses must meet basic legal requirements to protect sensitive information. Most businesses must also adhere to industry and additional legal requirements.  This cornerstone encompasses the policies and procedures that ensure your team, and your business meet your compliance requirements. IT also includes the tools and methods to enforce policies and report on compliance.

Tactics for Implementing the Four Pillars of Cloud Security

To ensure your cornerstones are set and your cloud security foundation is place, conduct a security footprint assessment.  For each pillar of cloud security, identity the services you have in place and those that may be needed. The assessment should cover the “CPRs” of security:

  • Communication/Education
  • Protect / Prevent
  • Respond / Recover

For more information, send us an email or complete our contact form.

Dark Web Security Risks and Dangers

/in

Dark Web Risks: Threats to Be Aware of, and How to Protect Yourself and Your Business

We offer a monitoring service for dark web risks.  In August, we received alerts for more than 40% of the companies we monitor about dark web risks and danger.

Threats from information mining and third party breaches continue to pose a risk.  The level of risk varies based on the source, scope, and nature of the breach. Learn about the dark web threats to be aware of, and learn what strategies you can implement to protect yourself, as well as your business.

Direct and Indirect Security Threats from the Dark Web

Third party breaches from the dark web pose direct and indirect security threats. A direct threat, as the name implies, represented a compromised identity with direct access to your system.  Indirect threats are breaches with information that enables more advanced attacks against your systems and user identities.

Direct threats, while less common, represent a breach of usernames and passwords for your system.  The source of direct threats may not be your systems. Hackers with access to valid email addresses and similar passwords will try permutations and patterns to gain access.  While they may then use the compromised credentials themselves, they may also put them up for sale or lease on the Dark Web.

Indirect Threats take many forms, and are a big risk on the dark web.  Identities with similar passwords are sold to hackers that will use them to gain access.  Personal identifying information is valuable to hackers looking to create effective spoofing and phishing attacks.  Repetitive breaches identify targets more easily compromised and/or more likely to respond to a phishing attack with personal information.

Dark Web Dangers and Threat Sources

Sources for Dark Web security threats vary.  Most common is a third party breach, for example the LinkedIn breach in 2018.  Given that many people use their work email address as an identity for LinkedIn, along with identical or similar passwords, the breach gave hackers a means to test access to core businesses services.  Simple testing of leaked passwords, permutations, and common patterns provides access to core businesses systems, including accounts on Microsoft, Google cloud, Salesforce, and others.

Growing in frequency, hackers grab personally identifying information matched to known email addresses.  While first and last names may not appear to create much risk, cyber criminals can use PII to create sophisticated spoofing and phishing attacks.  Your zip code, home address, job title, role in your company, and who you work with and for can all be used to create more effective attacks.  When matched to data from social media accounts — where you shop, foods you like, answers to “survey” questions that mirror security prompts — criminals can refine their attacks and sell your data for more on the dark web. This is why data protection services are highly recommended in todays environment.

Protecting Yourself and Your Business from the Dark Web

More than 70% of people use the same or similar passwords across systems, which is a huge dark web danger. When employees use work email addresses for other services, the nature of their passwords creates risks when any of these third party systems experiences a breach. Compromised third-party passwords reduce the effort required for cyber criminals to compromise other accounts. LinkedIn, Egnyte, Dropbox and other reputable services have all experienced breaches over the past few years.

An additional risk from third-party systems is the risk of personally identifying information, or PII.  With a valid email address and leaked or breach PII, cyber attackers have access to information that allows them to personalize phishing emails and other attacks.

Monitoring the Dark Web for these third party breaches, and responding appropriately, helps protect your employees and your business.

 

library

Understanding Third Party Breach Alerts

/in

eBook | Source: Cumulus Global —
Third party breach alerts inform you of third party data breaches that may pose risks to your business. This eBook looks at the information provided in third party breach alerts
and, using examples, discusses how to interpret and use the information provided.

Read more

A Cyber Insurance Primer (Slide Deck)

/in

Slide Deck | Source: Cumulus Global —
Cyber Insurance is a tool, not a solution. This deck is from our June 2022 3T@3 Webcast: A Cyber Insurance Primer and discusses the what and why of cyber insurance and how it fits into your cyber security and incident response plans.

Read more

15 Best Practices for Cyber Protection

/in

eBook | Source: Cumulus Global 

Read more

Webcasts

Get IT Ready for Recession

/in

(7/19/2022) – Cutting IT costs can help your bottom line in the near-term, but may do more harm than good. Smart IT planning helps your business survive and thrive through a recession and beyond.

Read more

A Cyber Insurance Primer

/in

(6/21/2022) – With the increase in cyber attacks, cyber insurance is a necessity. All too often, however, businesses learn that the process is significantly more complicated. Cyber Insurance is a tool, not a solution.

Read more

Next Normal: IT Efficiency

/in

(02/23/2021) – COVID-19 and the events of the past 10 months have, and continue, to change the way we run our businesses. Are the IT choices made during the crisis the best for your business in the long term?

Read more