In essence, Cybersecurity refers to the processes and technologies designed to protect computer (digital) systems, networks, programs and data from security breaches, unauthorised access, attacks, and damage.
Cybersecurity is crucial, nowadays – given the evolving cyberthreat landscape – to secure information technology resources and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. The process starts with the identification/assessment/mitigation of the Cyber Risks as per Risk Management (Ref. Project Management framework)
Some key features of Cybersecurity:
1. Confidentiality:
Confidentiality implies the protection of sensitive data from unauthorised access; it is generally achieved through encryption and access control.
2. Integrity:
Integrity refers to the accuracy and reliability of data. Cybersecurity aims at preventing unauthorised alteration of data and protect against data corruption.
3. Availability:
Systems must be available and accessible when needed. Availability implies mitigating the risk of downtime; i.e., in the event of Denial-Of-Service attacks.
4. Authentication:
Authentication involves verifying the identity of users, devices, systems etc. In general, this includes the use of passwords, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and biometrics.
5. Authorisation:
The term authorisation implies granting relevant access permissions to application users based on their roles. The objective is to ensure that system users can only access the resources necessary for them to fulfil their respective duties.
6. Non-Repudiation
Non- repudiation ensures that individuals cannot challenge their actions/ transactions at later stage. As a matter of example, Digital signatures provide evidence of the origin of the data.
But how important is Cybersecurity for Companies?
Cybersecurity is of utmost importance for companies/SMEs. In the next section, we will be providing an outline of its importance (Ref. below).
1.Data Protection:
In general, companies handle loads of sensitive data, including customer data, financial records, and intellectual property. Cybersecurity measures will mitigate the risk for personal data to be exposed to theft and unauthorised access.
2. Reputation Management:
Establishing a climate of trust amongst partners and stakeholders is a must and security breaches can easily damage a company’s reputation/brand. So, the application of cybersecurity measures will help preserve trust and credibility between partners and stakeholders.
3. Compliance:
Regulations and compliance standards pertaining to data protection are increasingly being imposed onto industries. Cybersecurity ensures that companies comply with these regulations thereby avoiding legal consequences.
4. Financial Risk Management
Companies can incur huge financial losses due to theft, ransom payments, system restoration costs etc.as a result of cyberattacks. Cybersecurity measures will help prevent these financial risks or bring them under control.
5. Protection of Intellectual Property
In order to enjoy competitive advantage, modern companies invest heavily in Research & Development (R&D), and Cybersecurity ensures that Intellectual Property, trade secrets, and proprietary information are ‘carefully’ preserved from theft and other deceptive practices from bad actors.
6. Competitive Advantage
As mentioned, the main objective of any given business is to beat competitors over time; and demonstrating a commitment (and investment) in cybersecurity is one of the component of Competitive Advantage. Clients, partners and stakeholders will, no doubt, prefer to work with organisations that prioritise the security of digital assets.
How can we help you implement Cybersecurity within your organisation?
At this stage, you must be wondering how we could help you/your organisation to implement Cybersecurity processes in order to enjoy competitive advantage.
And to implement Cybersecurity processes within a given organisation, we will leverage a number of Cybersecurity tools. Please click HERE if you would like more details regarding Cybersecurity tools.
Scenario using Network Forensic Tools i.e., Wireshark to detect malware
As a matter of illustration, let’s consider the following scenario where an employee at a given company has reported unusual/suspicious behaviour on his laptop. The Incident Response Team of his company decided to investigate by analysing the network traffic associated with the “infected” laptop.
The investigation can be broken down into the following steps:-
1. Capture Network Traffic:
⦁ Use Wireshark to capture network traffic on the infected laptop.
⦁ Start a Wireshark capture and filter traffic based on the IP of the infected laptop.
2. Analyse Traffic Patterns:
⦁ Examine the captured traffic for any unusual patterns
⦁ Look for unexpected spikes in traffic, communication with suspicious IP addresses, or connections to non-standard ports.
3. Protocol Analysis:
⦁ Wireshark provides a detailed breakdown of protocols used in the captured traffic.
⦁ The Incident Response Team will look for abnormal protocol usage or unexpected protocols that may indicate malicious activity.
4. Check for Unusual Domains:
⦁ Analyze DNS traffic to identify any unusual domain names or frequent requests to known malicious domains.
⦁ Look for patterns that might suggest command and control (C2) communication.
5. Identify Unusual Ports:
⦁ Check for communications over non-standard ports, especially those commonly associated with malware or known vulnerabilities.
⦁ Identify any unusual (outbound) connections.
6. Inspect HTTP Traffic:
⦁ If the malware communicates over HTTP, inspect HTTP traffic for unusual User-Agent strings (Ref. Wireshark), POST requests with suspicious payloads, or connections to malicious domains.
⦁ Look for communication with a malicious server.
7. Analyze TLS/SSL Traffic:
⦁ Malware often uses encrypted communication to evade detection. Investigate TLS/SSL traffic for any anomalies or connections to suspicious domains.
⦁ Look for the use of self-signed certificates or certificates associated with known malicious entities.
8. Behavioural Analysis:
⦁ Identify patterns/unusual behaviour with regards to the infected machine.
⦁ Look for repeated failed login attempts, multiple connections to different IPs in a short period, or excessive data transfer.
9. Check for known Malware signatures:
⦁ Use VirusTotal or other Threat Intelligence tools to check if any IP addresses/domains in the traffic are associated with known malware.
⦁ Cross-reference indicators with known threat databases.
10. Risk Mitigation and Alerts:
⦁ Configure Wireshark to generate alerts for suspicious patterns or behaviors.
⦁ Based on the analysis, take necessary steps to isolate the infected machine, perform malware removal, and implement security measures to prevent future incidents.
To sum up; effective cybersecurity involves a combination of tools, analysis, and proactive measures. Wireshark, along with other cybersecurity tools can play a crucial role in identifying and mitigating potential risks by providing visibility into network traffic hence assisting the Incident Response Team to detect patterns that are typical of malicious activity.
The above is just one typical scenario; this is the very reason why we offer customised services depending on the clients’ infrastructure and requirements.
So please feel free to Contact us anytime so that we can discuss and figure out the most appropriate solution for you.
We wish to remind you, again, that we’re just ….a phone (skype) call away so please feel free to contact us !!!