Modern cyber attacks are increasing and are becoming more sophisticated. In addition to existing malware, security experts are seeing an increase in never-seen-before malware. For the average SonicWall customer, malware has increased 44% from 2017 levels, and ransomware threats have increased 117% from 2017 levels. We are fighting a cyber arms race, and we need to be vigilant about protecting our data. You might be thinking that you are covered—but for example, did you know that non-standard ports are being used more and more as attack points? If you are not a step ahead of the bad guys, you could be putting your network and data at risk.
Email still remains the number one way breaches can occur—through Office docs, PDF files, and side-channel attacks (SCA) that are becoming increasingly common. In fact, security professionals have been stating that those side-channel attacks will dramatically increase in 2019 and can be very dangerous. A side-channel attack is a form of reverse engineering that measures tendencies and frequencies of a computer to establish patterns that can extract private information from the machine. SCA monitors power use and electromagnetic emissions during cryptographic operations. Attackers can then use the information gathered to extract the encryption key and other secret information from the device as another way in.
In addition to the attack vectors mentioned above, what about security when you are away from the office and not behind all of those security layers that your organization has put in place? We are in a mobile world, and more applications are becoming cloud-based. SonicWall Web Application Firewall is another layer of security that protects your Web infrastructure, architecture, and applications.
You might ask, if we are connecting via SSL VPN, aren’t we safe? The answer is—not always. Free Wi-Fi is everywhere, and multiple users are connecting to those free networks every day, whether at the airport or at your local café hot spot. SonicWall Capture Client will analyze what applications are being run to help ensure the security of your data. It is a powerful application that is needed to protect users when they are away from the office.
It is more important than ever to implement sound defenses to survive in an ever-changing cyber war— that’s why layered security matters. The SonicWall vision is automated real-time breach detection and prevention technology. “Platform is everything” with SonicWall.
Get more cyber security insights from two industry icons. In this video, SonicWall CEO Bill Conner and CTO John Gmuender walk you through the current cyber threat landscape, explore the importance of automated real-time breach detection and prevention, and address how to mitigate today’s most advanced cyber attacks.
Katie Springs
Katie Springs is a Product Manager for Networking at Connection with more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, and dancing/performing ballet.
