The pandemic increases dependence on technology and cybercriminals sophisticate their attacks with the use of Artificial Intelligence
- S2 Grupo has highlighted that one of the main challenges of cybersecurity is to adapt cyber defense strategies to the new teleworking scenario.
Valencia, November 30, 2020.- TODAY, Monday, November 30, the International Day of Information Security is commemorated and S2 Grupo has emphasized the importance of understanding the current context in order to stop the action of cybercrime.
In this sense, experts from the cybersecurity company have highlighted that the pandemic has increased dependence on technology, for example with teleworking, and in turn cybercriminals have sophisticated attacks using, among other methods, Artificial Intelligence. And these facts make cyber protection tasks extremely difficult.
In 2020, complex cyber-attacks have been accompanied by simpler malware distribution methods. Among the main cyber-threats of this year ransomware cases standout, which have evolved and become more targeted to obtain the greatest possible impact: disinformation campaigns about COVID-19 and social engineering cyberattacks, such as the well-known “CEO fraud” using Artificial Intelligence.
"Offensive systems are increasingly sophisticated and criminal organizations enter the networks they want to attack, study the behaviors and even the way people in the organization talk to impersonate and it is becoming easier to fall into their trap", explained José Rosell, managing partner of S2 Grupo.
“The so-called “deep fake” videos, which use the image of a known person and exactly reproduce their voice saying things that they never said are being used to carry out fraud attacks on the CEO. It is no longer about falling into the trap of responding to an email that we believe comes from a secure environment, but that we can receive a call with our boss’ voice asking us, for example, to make a money transfer to a bank account, and it's not really him. We have to know that this is possible in order to be able to doubt these situations and act with caution”, said Miguel A. Juan, managing partner of S2 Grupo.
Increase in cyber espionage
Along with this, the growth of cyber espionage has been highlighted and how cybercriminals are creating new tactics, techniques and procedures to try to steal the intellectual property from their targets, for example. Due to the emergence of new techniques used by cybercriminals such as "Living off the Land" or "fileless malware", which make it difficult to detect threats, S2 Grupo has emphasized that it is key to expand the monitoring of organizations and be able to model their behavior to detect possible anomalies. In this sense, S2 Grupo carries out extensive work in R&D+i to create new solutions that help combat these incidents, such as its CLAUDIA software, which allows this type of situation to be detected.
Cybersecurity and teleworking issues
"This year many companies have had a hard time because they suddenly had to take their systems and move to work from home. This has meant that they have had to do it very quickly and lower all their defenses. So the process of migrating to a completely digital environment has been very hard. However, we have been able to cope with it thanks to the infrastructure we already had in Spain and the technologies we were using", said José Rosell.
The company explained that this situation could cause problems that we had not even imagined, because until now, the challenge of cyber security was the convergence of IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operation Technology), and this has become more complicated to become a total convergence of IT - OT - CT (Control Technology).
"A new environment is introduced into the equation that is our home, the user technology that was previously not taken into account and now we find it as a completely unprotected environment and from which important operations are performed for companies. With teleworking, the boundaries of the company are extended to the workers' homes", assured Miguel A. Juan.
"The new situation has created a greater dependence on technology. Before we already depended on technology for the organization's processes, but now we depend on it for the daily work of each one of the people", continued Miguel A. Juan.
S2 Grupo highlighted that teleworking has complicated cybersecurity in several ways. On the one hand, it means opening up to environments over which there is no control, such as homes. And, on the other hand, these environments are different in each case. In a home, in addition to the work computer, there are usually other connected devices such as televisions or smart alarms, for example, that are vulnerable points and can be subject to cyberattacks. They can also be used as entry points for cyber-criminals to reach companies.
This new context means that in the coming years numerous changes are expected in the technological infrastructure of all companies and organizations worldwide and in the way they provide their services. For this reason, from a cybersecurity point of view, the challenge is to adapt cyber defense and surveillance to this new model that entails new risks and threats.
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