Tackling the Increasing Threat of Cyberattacks

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘cyberattacks?’ Maybe a time when you got a phone call from a prince needing your help with your social security number? While annoying and suspicious, that technically does not qualify as a cyberattack. A cyberattack is actually much more expansive and dangerous, especially when it comes to your devices, data, and people.

Data is now the world’s most valuable resource. Your data is essentially your digital footprint. Your banking information, passwords, emails, search history, and more are all data that may be vulnerable. Cyberattacks from either domestic or foreign bad actors are focused on stealing, destroying, or exposing as much data as possible. These types of attacks are drastically increasing and becoming more dangerous. Check Point research reported a 30% increase in global cyberattacks in 2024. Your personal information is on the line, so let’s explore how we got here and what you and your organizations can do to protect data.

Why and how?

Throughout history, the most successful groups of people have access to the most valuable resources. Times have changed, so now instead of water or minerals, that resource is data. It can reveal things about us that we may not even know ourselves (which is something we may not want to find out anyway). It exposes habits and, by analyzing it further, predict what may happen going forward.

Every time you access financial information, shop on retailer websites, or share personal details on social media, you are increasing your digital footprint. 85% of Americans say they go online every single day. The more data you have online, the easier it is to understand and the more vulnerable your information may be. The people that look to steal your data cast a wide net not knowing what they’re going to catch until they reel in that data. So, it could be anything from your finances to your Instagram password.

Once your data is stolen, the goal is no longer just about getting it back. You also want to make sure the bad actors don’t share it with anyone else. And when people steal and sit on a lot of this precious resource, they start to think of ways to profit from the theft. This may include selling the data of millions of Americans to foreign groups or demanding money from the organization from which the data was stolen in exchange for deleting the data.

However, it’s not just money that these terrible people may be after. Will Crittenden, a cybersecurity evangelist who appeared on the DALY Technology Pulse podcast, said: “Police departments are becoming the attack vector of choice… once that evidentiary data is found and encrypted, court cases need to be thrown out.” There are so many ways in which people attack data and the different objectives they may have. Data has become such a valuable commodity because, in a digital age where all of our information is online, you can learn and understand groups of people easier. From that understanding will come more effective scams, propaganda, or hacking of important services that could drastically impact our lives.

Creating an Impenetrable Defense

The SLED space is particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Attacks against state and local governments and education spaces that hold such crucial data for millions of people can cripple critical infrastructure and stonewall initiatives. Public safety services, electrical grids, student data can all be compromised with a bad cybersecurity defense and, unfortunately, are increasingly common. Incidents such as the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack that targeted equipment are important examples.

When we talk about cybersecurity defense, it is much like sports. You need a strong defense to stop the attacking team from scoring points (stealing data). And that only works with teamwork. In this case, the public and private sectors need to work together to achieve success. The public sector needs the private sector’s talent and knowledge, while the private sector needs the public sector’s institutions and infrastructure. When the teamwork between these sectors works, a good defense looks like this:

1. Consolidation: Consolidating your data into a single source of your computing infrastructure allows everything to be in one place. This prevents organizations from mounting a broader defense and focusing on one single defensive avenue. Consolidation can be used via a cloud system where all the data from employees within your organization is stored or a physical data center that houses your organizations servers.
2. Education: More than 90% of attacks start from a simple phishing email. These emails are cost-effective for threat actors but can lead to incredible results. Educating everyone within your organization about the threats of phishing, other scams, and what to look out for is one of the simplest steps to making sure everyone is on the same page on your defense.
3. Implementation: Implementing a system that helps detect cyber risks can allow your organization to stop an attack before it even happens. Will said on the Technology Pulse that organizations need to be proactive looking for danger and what could happen instead of reacting to attacks that have already happened. Edwin Kohler from Extreme Networks also joined the Technology Pulse to discuss how Extreme is using their Fabric Network to isolate network services and protect against network breaches.

Data is power. The most powerful groups have the most access to the world’s most intelligible resource. Data is critical towards understanding organizations human and financial habits. The more data and knowledge you have, the more you can exploit and take advantage of others. That is why it is so important data does not get in the wrong hands.

Learn More about Protecting SLED Data

Listen to “Defending Your Data in the SLED Space” and “The Devolution of Cyber Attacks” on the Technology Pulse podcast today: Podcasts – DALY

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Author: Aaron Oman