21 Cybersecurity Tips for 2021 (Part 2)

In the previous installment of this blog series, we shared seven cybersecurity tips to prepare your organization for 2021. This blog post includes seven more tips to help protect your organization from cyber-attacks.

Organizations today have a multi-cloud presence. By that, I mean that on-premises data centers are no longer the standard in IT. Businesses require application mobility to meet the ever-increasing demand for data and information at light speeds, and thus it is very typical for an organization to have several deployments of multi-cloud data centers to fit these demands and needs. Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Unified Communications as a Service, Edge, and IoT Computing are just a few of the potential multi-cloud deployments, on top of the on-premises and co-located data centers in different regions and geo-locations. 

2020 has been a groundbreaking year on many fronts. Unfortunately, the majority of them have not been good ones. On October 28, 2020, the FBI, HHS, and CISA jointly reported on an imminent threat to healthcare organizations (the Health and Public Health Sector) surrounding the Ryuk variant of ransomware and other malware most recently seen accompanying it. “We are experiencing the most significant cybersecurity threat we’ve ever seen in the United States,” said Charles Carmakal, Chief Technical Officer of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, in a statement.

Campus Security

We ask our educators to do a lot. The threat of school violence on campus and from remote sources has district decision-makers needing answers. Risks need to be identified, with consideration given to protecting the student wherever they are. Security needs to be conducted in a way that doesn’t feel like a prison. What’s more, innovation with physical security provide new feature sets only possible on IP networks ⏤ meaning that IT teams now have partial or new responsibility for physical security. ConvergeOne coordinates a mix of digital applications to shield against/respond to threats and other hazards. Key areas of focus include:

With Avaya ENGAGE quickly approaching, we decided to check in with ConvergeOne thought leaders—who will be presenting at 27 sessions during the event—to get a sense of what we can expect. These are the primary themes that emerged.

The enforcement period for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) began on May 25, 2018, bringing significant changes to organizations in the European Union and beyond. Though a piece of European legislation, the GDPR impacts any organization that processes the personal data of those who reside in the Union, regardless of geographic location.

VPNFilter Infects 500K Networking Devices + Growing

Over the course of the last several months, researchers have investigated an advanced persistent threat known as VPNFilter, which has already infected 500,000 devices across 50+ countries, specifically targeting home office networks (or places utilizing small office and home office devices) as well as network-access storage (NAS) devices. The threat is believed to be sponsored by or affiliated with a nation state, which generally leads to well-funded, well-executed persistent threats that are properly managed with a defined end-game.

Based on research recently released by Cisco Talos, the US Department of Justice is urging anyone who owns small office home office (SOHO) and NAS devices to reboot their devices immediately. 

The VPNFilter malware operates via three unique stages, which are described below at a high level.

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."

—Albert Einstein

We’ve all heard the old saying, “Be careful of the company you keep.” This is true for both people and technology. Consider blockchain. For many Americans, the immediate word association is “Bitcoin.” In fact, I would venture to guess that quite a few people think that they are one and the same. While this connection might be favorable for Bitcoin, it has become a bit of a boat anchor for blockchain. 

It has been a tough couple of weeks for the retail and restaurant industries. Under Armour, Panera, and Hudson Bay all came forward to announce major breaches of data entrusted to them. 

What can we learn from this continuing cavalcade of data breaches that we are becoming more and more inured to as time goes on? Let's take a closer look.