75% of companies have experienced an increase in email-based threats according to Mimecast’s The State of Email Security report (2023)…
This is a huge percentage increase compared to 2022 and highlights the need to ensure that our cyber security solutions are taking into account these emerging trends and threats that appear on our horizon.
An email compromise attack, also known as a business email compromise (BEC) attack or email account compromise (EAC) attack, refers to a type of cyberattack where an individual gains unauthorised access to a person’s or organisation’s email account. The purpose of this type of attack is usually to deceive the account owner or others into taking fraudulent actions, such as transferring funds, sharing sensitive information, or performing other malicious activities.
Email compromise attacks often involve social engineering techniques to trick the account owner or others into believing that the attacker is a trusted individual or entity. The attacker may impersonate a high-ranking executive, a trusted colleague, a vendor, or a client to manipulate the recipient into divulging confidential information, initiating financial transactions, or clicking on malicious links or attachments.
The Challenge of Traditional Networks
“Flat Networks Inevitably FallFlat When Attacked” as stated by Fortinet, and this sentence sums up the issue with traditional networks and why they do indeed fall flat due to their limitations.
Imagine a flat network as a bustling town where everyone lives on the same street, and there are no fancy neighbourhoods or separate districts. In this town, all the devices, like computers, smartphones, and smart TVs, hang out together on a big playground called the network. It is a really easy setup as everyone can share things without much input with no overly complicated processes.
Flat networks are commonly found in small home networks or small office environments where the number of devices is limited. These types of networks were built with ease in mind, without the understanding of the apparent need to consider cyber security and the protection of key assets and data.
As these networks become larger, and more people join, it can push them to the limits, creating more and more vulnerabilities and allowing an attacker an easy entrance to conduct an attack.
The Concept of Zero Trust
Let’s talk about trust… Zero Trust is a security framework that places a strong emphasis on access controls and ongoing monitoring to bolster cybersecurity. It operates on the principle of not assuming trust in any user or device, regardless of their location or network connection.
Instead, Zero Trust adopts a “never trust, always verify” approach.
In the Zero Trust model, all users, whether they are internal or external to the organisation’s network, must go through authentication and authorisation processes before they can access applications and data. Typically, this authentication involves multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure the user’s identity.
The Zero Trust approach to data protection and governance is designed to optimise the business value of data while mitigating security and compliance risks. It provides a robust framework for safeguarding data and user identities by implementing stringent governance measures. This enables employees to securely share data with partners, vendors, and customers. By adopting a Zero Trust approach, organisations can ensure that data remains protected throughout its lifecycle, minimising the chances of unauthorised access or data breaches.
Illumio’s Innovative Solution
It is time to illuminate and shine a light on your networks by looking at how Illumio has created an innovative solution with Zero Trust principles at its core.
Illumio adopts a “assume breach” ensuring that they can tackle and give you insight into any imposing threat within your network. They have created a type of software that integrates into your current network giving you a full overview of the who, what and why aspects of what is going on within your network.
It is imperative that as an administrator of a network, you have control of who and the why of your network, the segments and micro-segments that this platform allows you to create certainty in your network and ensures that only those that should have access to your core data and network are the only ones who gain entry.
This solution also allows you to implement this level of segmentation, without having to overhaul and change your current network infrastructure, ensuring that it is a simple implementation that gives you amazing and positive outputs. This type of modern protection gives you the ability to see clearly what is happening within your network, giving you the power to secure and fortify your IT landscape.
Protection Against Email Compromise Attacks
One email compromise attack that is successful can decimate an entire network…
A scary thought, but one that you need to understand. It can easily cost you millions, destroy your brand and organisation’s reputation, and create a loss of IP that sets you apart from the rest of your sector.
Illumio not only ensures that you have a full overview of your cyber security landscape, but it can also stop an attack from progressing in its tracks. If a breach was to occur, this software can immediately restrict lateral movement proactively or during an active attack. It holds a proactive posture, as it is constantly looking for changes in behaviour within your network, so it can quickly highlight and engage with an active or anything that is out of the ordinary.
As well as giving you the confidence that an attack would be picked up and isolated within your network, the level of granular access controls it provides also ensure that the potential for such an attack is severely limited.
Illumio ensures that you have full network control, empowering you and your network administrators to have full control over your network. It is time to make network management and security easier, by ensuring that you have a process to manage policies, investigate anomalies and isolate attacks easily and simply with something that can enter into your current network infrastructure.
It is time to illuminate your network.
With no large implementation costs due to its ability to integrate within your current infrastructure and the amazing range of controls and alerts it can produce you can understand why we have this piece of software within our cyber security portfolio!
It is time to uncover and explore your network with us at Core to Cloud if you want us to help you illuminate your options regarding Zero Trust segmentation and your options then please get in touch with one of our team today!
