Page 27 - Cyber Warnings

Cyber Attack Preparation Tips & Tricks

The World Wide Web is the new frontier, but unlike unexplored territory on the ocean floor or
distant moons, there’s already a massive crowd of people exposing themselves to its unknown
risks.

This October a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on backbone service
provider Dyn affected nearly every American with internet access in some way. The strain on
backbone internet providers crippled websites as well equipped as Twitter and Netflix, and we
can only expect to see more of this behavior in the future.

Large-scale attacks like this — while frightening — are infrequent occurrences, but the people
behind them don’t just take time off when they’re not exploiting major network entities. Over half
of small businesses reported being affected by a cyber attack in 2015, and that only includes
the ones who noticed it.

So if you’re a business owner, how can you defend against what seems to be an unavoidable
evil?

Get Prepared

There are steps you can take to reduce your exposure. Cyber threats are primarily effective
because many businesses don’t understand how to prepare for them. Here are some
suggestions:

• Know Your Network. Make sure you understand how all the machines in your network
communicate. Identify bottlenecks and single points of failure.

• Have a Disaster Response Plan. Create regular backups of your data and store them
offsite on a machine that does not communicate with your primary network. Understand
how to restore your system from these backups quickly in the case of an emergency.

• Educate Your Team. Human ignorance is the vulnerability that most cyber threats take
advantage. Make sure your team knows how to spot phishing attacks and avoid
suspicious emails and attachments.

• Have Security Software. Proactive threat detection that uses heuristics allows modern
security vendors to identify threats even when they are brand new. Many security suites
offer a number of additional features to help protect your network’s integrity or report a
detected threat.

Keep your team informed about how to identify possible threats, and keep your system under
tight surveillance — the combination of these actions is an effective way to protect your
company’s data. But what if you are attacked anyway?
27 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine November 2016 Edition
Copyright © Cyber Defense Magazine, All rights reserved worldwide