What Do You Need to Know and How Can You Remain Protected

What Do You Need to Know and How Can You Remain Protected

Contributed By Check Point Software Technologies.

On the week of December 13th , US government offices exposed they were targeted by a series of mega cyber attacks, allegedly related to state-sponsored threat organisations. Those attacks targeted government, technology and enterprise organisations worldwide. This series of attacks was made possible when hackers were able to embed a backdoor into SolarWinds software updates. Over 18,000 companies and government offices downloaded what seemed to be a regular software update on their computers, but was actually a Trojan horse.

By leveraging a common IT practice of software updates, the attackers utilised the backdoor to compromise the organisation’s network when they then went on to spy, impersonate employees and access data. This recent high profile attack represents additional evidence of the emergence of Generation V of sophisticated cyberattacks.

Researchers, who have named the hack Sunburst, say it could take years to fully comprehend the severity of this large scale cyber-attack. It could take months for security professionals in the affected organisations to discover which emails were read, what documents were stolen and which passwords are compromised because of the hack.

In the wake of this attack, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced a new set of rules that all financial services and e-payment firms in Singapore must follow. These new guidelines are designed to improve the processes of testing and validating third-party vendors and technology used within the financial sector.