- Mariola Tylek
How do hackers attack polish companies?
How to protect against it?
The accelerated pace of the digital revolution forces us to take another step toward increasing awareness of digital threats. Especially when this transformation concerns Polish companies, which in the last two years, following the trend of moving business to the online environment, place greater emphasis on rapid change rather than security. The lack of broadly understood IT infrastructure is a feast for hackers, who rely on disinformation and unawareness of the threat.
Social engineering – how not to pass your business ‘on a plate’?
There are many different techniques of hacking attacks. Since 2020 Polish companies have transitioned to the new reality of remote work had not managed to fully train their employees in the field of internal data protection against socio-technical attacks. According to the Threat Landscape 2022 report, prepared annually by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), one of the most common threats is the exploitation of human error. Potential cybercriminals manipulate employees into opening malicious messages, documents or website addresses. This type of attack, called phishing, uses the human factor to allow unauthorized access to sensitive enterprise data. At first glance, it may seem ineffective, right? But it’s not. Cybercriminals take advantage of user inattention, which manifests itself in the automation of simple tasks or acting in haste – something most of us know very well. The credibility of phishing messages is raised by well-conducted reconnaissance, which provides properly prepared, personalized messages sent when recipients expect this type of communication.
Prevention or remediation?
Methods of minimizing the risk for this type of threat can be divided into two areas that are worth analyzing in the context of your company: securing IT infrastructure and promoting good employee habits. Using strong passwords seems obvious, but it is worth reminding employees of this constantly. Education and a set of best practices, such as two-factor authentication or periodic password changes, are an essential element of protection against a real attack. Proper training and informing the staff increases awareness of the threat and has a direct impact on vigilance towards suspicious behavior within the organization.
The pandemic period in Poland has popularized many solutions available on the market, which work preventively and reduce the number of incidents. One of the proposals to minimize the risk of remote work is to use a virtual private network (VPN) that encrypts network traffic. This is aimed at providing protection for public hotspots and preventing internet service providers from monitoring user activity. Another solution is antivirus programs that protect data processing from ransomware attacks, which demand ransom for decrypting data, or malware. Prevention involves constant updating of software and operating systems.
In the rapidly developing e-commerce industry, DoS/DDoS attacks have become a very popular phenomenon. This is a distributed denial of service, in which the perpetrators generate increased traffic to overload resources or network connections. E-commerce then becomes unavailable, which can result in a loss of customer trust. In the case of these types of threats, it is worth using highly advanced anti-DoS/DDoS security measures that effectively identify and isolate suspicious traffic, securing the company against a paralyzing attack.
These are just some of the existing threats that can significantly affect the continuity of a company’s operations, and therefore – not only financial losses but also reputational ones. Looking at the upward trend in the number of attacks since 2020 – according to the latest report published by Polcom and Intel “IT investments in times of crisis”, 15% of companies have experienced an attack on their IT systems, and 19% of enterprises are aware of an attack on a business partner’s systems – prevention may prove to be a more attractive investment direction for companies.
Outsourcing – towards the security of companies
The increasing and real cyber threats should motivate entrepreneurs to continuously take care of issues related to security. Entrusting the management of IT infrastructure to external entities is the perfect solution for companies that still need time to safely adapt their business to the online space. What is important is that digital tools allow for an unprecedented start on the path of company development, however, the number of cyber-attacks is growing and we are collectively struggling with an increasing scale of this phenomenon. Outsourcing IT infrastructure strengthens the speed of response to market opportunities and changes, optimizes costs, increases the competitive advantage, but above all, it can contribute to faster development of key goals for entrepreneurs.