Proactive Cybersecurity – Watch Out For Compromised Credentials

Many IT security teams these days are under pressure. With the decrease in human resources, the have to deal with a rising number and range of complicated threats and support the ground breaking digital transformation projects that could either make or break their organization’s fortunes. Given this uphill task, most cannot do anything but react to cyber threats as they come up, fighting so desperately in a cycle that seems to never end.

However, there is a much better way. By investing in a managed IT services and making it a part of a multi-layered cybersecurity approach, IT leaders could regain their control back. Keeping track of the deep, surface, and dark web for these compromised credentials can help them protect the company from the outside in; getting rid of the breach risk before it actually has time to take root and harvesting insight to create a more resilient and stronger cyber defense.

A New Cybersecurity Focus

Many organizations have a reactive security stance because of the pressures the IT security team faces during these modern times. Apart from that burden are the heterogenous and complex systems; IT skills shortages are expected to reach 350,000 roles in 2022.

The industry of cybersecurity has over time created a notion that you could block the threats at the perimeter, that with the appropriate tools set in place, cyberattacks can be prevented. This as provide several firms a false sense of identity.

Therefore, the key is not to totally depend on reactive cybersecurity. Once you admit that your business can be a target of cyberattacks, the focus must be shifted to preventing these attacks even before the hackers have had the chance to make money out of the customer and corporate credentials that were stolen.

Anatomy of a Security Breach

Knowing the lifecycle of the credential theft is the first step to mitigating the risk effectively. There are four stages that you need to know.

1. Gathering of the credentials through phishing, malware, DNS hijacking, and more.
2. Filtering and extracting the credentials are done through emails, FTP, IRC and other channels.
3. Stolen credentials are validated through bots and automated online account checkers.
4. The credentials are monetized by selling them via the cybercrime underground or utilizing them directly to hack corporate social network accounts, mass identity fraud, defacing websites, and more.

With the appropriate threat intelligence, IT security teams could mitigate the risks while the cybercriminals are still validating the credentials that have been stolen or even before they have extracted them fully.

Getting Rid Of The Blind Spots

Companies should already be using multifactor authentication. However, only a few businesses do and many are still using password based systems. If you are one of the latter, you should find ways to minimize the risk of credential theft.

That’s why it’s crucial for you to find ways to detect compromised credentials effectively. The appropriate kind of threat intelligence fees would search the deep, open, and dark web for stolen passwords proactively through the use of crawlers, sensors, honeypots, sinkholes, or a combination of any of them.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now and let our team of IT expert help set up the most effective cybersecurity strategy to protect minimize the risk of your business facing a cyberattack.

 

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/