September 29, 2020
Keeping your business safe from cybercrime – what you need to know
By Byron Gibson, Product Manager at SEACOM
Garmin and Twitter were the most recent casualties of a string of global organisations who have fallen victim to crippling cyberattacks. A little closer to home, the City of Johannesburg’s network was also hacked and held ransom for a hefty four bitcoins (worth around R520 000 at the time).
While the nature of these attacks may be different, it’s clear that cybercrime is on the rise and companies of all sizes and across all sectors need to be vigilant.
An ideal environment for cybercrime
It's no surprise that these attacks are becoming more common in today’s increasingly connected society. The rise of online applications and services means unprotected users are more exposed than ever before. On top of this, the current pandemic has pushed many organisations to implement remote-work policies to ensure business continuity.
As a result, the corporate network perimeter has been extended beyond the physical bounds of a business and into the homes of all its employees. This further complicates the process of securing these endpoints and, consequently, the corporate network itself.
Effectively defending against cyberthreats
Threat actors employ a variety of attack vectors in order to compromise your network; as such it is important that organisations implement layered security policies and systems that decrease the attack surface and defend against multiple attack vectors.
SEACOM, for instance, deploys leading-edge solutions that ensure secure and safe end-to-end security for your business and staff. Having partnered with industry-leading technology vendors, we ensure our customers are well protected against a wide variety of threats.
- Sophos’ XG Firewall includes an intrusion prevention system that identifies the latest network exploits that threat actors are utilising. Sandstorm sandboxing and machine learning analyse files entering the network to help ensure that even previously unseen ransomware variants, exploits, and malware don’t spread via spam, phishing, or web downloads.
- Ensuring the safety of your network while staff continue to perform their functions remotely is currently top of mind for many IT managers. Thankfully, XG Firewall’s extensive but simple VPN options enable you to close all the holes in your network and remove your reliance on vulnerable RDP connections, while still providing full access to your network for authorised users.
- Sophos’ Intercept X endpoint protection with CryptoGuard can detect a ransomware attack in progress, stop it, and roll it back automatically. XG Firewall also includes CryptoGuard technology in the sandboxing environment to catch ransomware before it gets onto your network.
- Attacks are becoming more co-ordinated than ever, so having a co-ordinated defence system is key to ensuring your business’s ability to seamlessly deal with these attacks. Sophos’ Synchronized Security integrates XG Firewall with their Intercept X endpoint protection to automatically respond to attacks by detecting the first signs of compromise, automatically isolating and remediating infected endpoints and notifying you.
- SEACOM's Online Backup, powered by Redstor, is a service that delivers backup, archiving, search and insight, disaster recovery, and cross-cloud data migration from the cloud. Instant Data provides on-demand access to your data, ensuring it is always available instantly, and on any device.
From secure Internet connections and email, hosted security, endpoint protection, and firewalls to anti-virus and anti-spyware, let us show you how our skills and expertise can ensure the safety of your network and data. Learn more about our security solutions here.