Cybersecurity: Phishing Season is in

The world is becoming more and more dependent on technology. Corporations worldwide use technology to store information about individuals and companies. Technology undeniably provides numerous advantages; however, unintended access to private information becomes a constant concern as corporations increase the technology in their IT stacks and store more and more sensitive information. The threat environment will likely become more complex with increased technical exploitation, social engineering, and data leaks.

Hackers have evolved and now include sophisticated organizations that frequently compromise customer data. To remain effective, attackers continuously discover new attack vectors. Technical exploitation increases as technology becomes more integrated and powerful. Hackers gain knowledge through learning how technology works. While policies and regulations help reduce the attack surface, they only protect against specific attacks. Hackers adapt by finding new attack vectors to get around government and company regulations and policies. Social engineering allows hackers to exploit individuals to gain unintended access to private information. Hackers often use this information to gain access to systems and cause damage in more significant ways. The increasing frequency and severity of cyber threats pose substantial financial and reputational damage to businesses and individuals. All citizens are frequently susceptible to harmful data leaks that jeopardize their safety and often include humiliating content that could damage their careers. With more data contained in corporate servers, the attack surface increases with every new data leak.

To anticipate security risks, companies must develop strong security teams at the foundational levels of their technology stacks. Security first principles allow companies to build software with the goal of security at the foundation, making their entire IT stack more resilient. Educating all employees proves to be an essential foundational improvement because it only takes one employee clicking on one compromised link to enable a data breach that affects an entire organization. Well-meaning employees have the potential to unintentionally leak information or increase susceptibility to attackers accessing corporate networks. EasyDmarc (2023) states that social engineering is the number one cause of data breaches for companies and organizations worldwide. Companies must train all employees to operate and communicate with intent because the average person may be unaware that revealing a small business detail in conversation could cause a significant security breach. In the world of cybersecurity, knowledge truly is power.


References

Begin the conversation: Understand the threat environment - CISA. (n.d.). https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/c3vp/smb/Understanding_the_Threat_Landscape.pdf

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. (2022, October 28). An introduction to the cyber threat environment. Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/guidance/introduction-cyber-threat-environment

EasyDmarc. (2023, May 3). 8 most common causes of a data breach. EasyDMARC. https://easydmarc.com/blog/8-most-common-causes-of-a-data-breach/ 


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