Putting People First: Cloud Destinations' Culture of Well-Being and Balance

12 Min Read

How to Secure Email with an Email Security Policy

What is Email Security?

Good security balances accessibility and workflow optimization with restrictive access that protects the company’s assets. However, email security also remains a top concern as cybercriminals grow emboldened by previous successes. While email is a convenient tool that accelerates communication, organizations need an email security policy. During the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, researchers identified a 350 percent increase in phishing websites.

How to Secure Email

Use a Trusted Email Service: Most companies use an email service like Gmail or Outlook, the first one is easy. It’s a good first step, but saying “we use Gmail” doesn’t count as an email security policy with a SOC 2 auditor. Modern email services are essential to maintaining a safe email environment, which includes:

• Regular updates
• Improved phishing filters
• Multi-factor authentication

Educate Your Users on Spotting Phishing Emails: Phishing is getting harder to spot. A security awareness training program that focuses on spotting phishing emails can reduce the likelihood of successful Phishing. Make sure to talk about some of the latest innovations in phishing, such as the business email compromise attack.

Get Smart About Attachments and Links: Attachments are the biggest ways that malware infects a system. Make sure your email security policy addresses them. Links are also dangerous. They are easy to spoof and may send a user to a legitimate-looking login page that collects credentials.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

Secure Coding

What is Secure Coding?

When a software developer writes software code, they need to consider many things. This includes how to express the architecture and design requirements of the application, how to keep the code optimized and efficient, and also how to make sure the code is secure. Secure code will help to prevent many cyber-attacks from happening because it removes the vulnerabilities many exploits rely on.
Your software code is the core of your application systems; this makes it more vulnerable to malicious malware and unauthorized users. Therefore, you need to check for any vulnerability and apply the relevant security measures; else, the whole application may be endangered.

How to code securely?

Data input validation: This covers numerous aspects of data source and data validation. For example, the length and date range of a piece of data. Data validation checks help to secure web applications from cyber-attacks.

Authentication and password management: Coding also involves software architecture. This section has many advisories which sit at the cross-section of coding and architecture. Cryptographic Practices: The guide suggests that any cryptographic modules used, be FIPS 140-2 or an equivalent standard compliant.

Error Handling and Logging: This is a crucial area and one that if not coded securely can leak data. Data Protection: The guidelines for the protection of data include advice on storing passwords securely and how to avoid data leaks via HTTP GET.

Communication Security: Advisories on how to protect data during transit, for example, using TLS connections.

Back Blogs

12 Min Read

How Your Company Can Recover from a Data Breach

Four of those organizations won't recuperate from the information breach and might be closed permanently within the next six months. Hackers will also release more than 1,000 new malware programs onto the web. The Internet is a minefield for organizations and you may one day get yourself the victim of a data breach. If that happens, you'll need to act quickly to mitigate disaster. Here are the seven steps you should take promptly following a data breach.

Data Breach Response: 7 Steps to Take After a Data Breach

According to a study, the average total cost of an information breach floats around $3.86 million. A lot of that expense happens due to the fact that many breaches are not caught or acted upon quickly. Make these steps quickly to recover from an information breach.

1. Confirm the Breach

According to a survey of SOC experts, as many as 50 percent of breach reports are false positives – which means, no breach occurred at all. Investigating false positives can eat away a security team’s time and budget. Therefore, always have your security team affirm that a breach occurred prior to amassing a task force.

2. Assemble a Task Force to Handle the Situation

Assemble a team to deal with the breach. This keeps all response and recovery efforts centralized. If you already have an incident response plan that incorporates defined roles for each member, that will help speed up your response. (For our clients, that could include reaching our team to assist your response.)

3. Isolate Affected Machines and Accounts

• If a virus has affected a particular machine, disconnect it from the network. You may also need to temporarily disable affected accounts or limit their permissions.
• If you’ve unplugged the computer from the network (think ethernet, Wi-Fi, even Bluetooth), don’t shut down the power to the device unless you’re directed to do so.
• Investigators may want to check out the machine first, while they try to figure out how the attack happened and how extensive the damage is. Once you’ve contained the breach, you should also enact your business continuity plan to begin resuming normal operations.

4. Examine the Evidence

Once the breach is contained, preserve and examine the evidence. Take notes and create a timeline of events. At this point, you may need to contact law enforcement or the appropriate authorities. By keeping the evidence intact, you will have a much better chance of tracing the malicious actor.

5. Fix the Vulnerabilities

If the breach exploited a vulnerability in your system, then it’s the time to correct that and look for other possible vulnerabilities that a future attack may exploit. This may include starting a cybersecurity awareness program or improving on the one you already have by conducting simulated phishing exercises.

6. Notify Affected Parties

Security breaches, in which data loss took place, often mean that companies are required by law to notify affected parties, usually within a given period. Don’t neglect this step. Failing to provide the proper notifications can threaten to further damage the consumer’s trust or your company’s reputation and lead to costly fines.

7. Prevent Future Breaches

• Your customers’ perception of your company must be one of stability and security. If you have suffered a breach you must take the steps to reassure them that you are taking corrective steps.
• Consider conducting a penetration test to identify additional parts of your application that need improvement.
• This reassurance will help build their confidence in your business and help you regain their trust.

Get the Tools You Need to Recover from a Data Breach

To recover from a data breach, you must act quickly when it happens. Having an incident response plan and a business continuity plan in place can help with that. Strong security policies and procedures can also make prompt action easier. Give your company the tools it needs to respond to and emerge from the breach even stronger.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

How Hackers Target Printers Best Practices for Office or Home Printer Security

Printers aren’t always considered in a company’s cybersecurity strategy, despite their presence in every office (and often home offices for all of us who are working remotely). Yet, all manner of sensitive information passes across them every day. That creates a weak point in your cybersecurity strategy. If you want to know how to secure the printers on your network, and keep them from being hacked or the entry point for a virus, this post is for you. Read on to learn about protecting your printers to protect your devices and data.

Printers: The Overlooked Backdoor to Your Network

• Did you think about how your printer is effectively a computer? Most people don’t – except hackers. You might be skeptical about fancy new IoT devices, but printers are a ubiquitous internet-connected device. Modern digital printers contain firmware, processors, hard drives, and an internet connection. That’s everything they need to become a security risk in your organization.
• In 2017, a teen hacker wrote a program that hit 150,000 internet-connected printers around the world, including restaurant point-of-sale receipt printers. That same year, printers at several universities, including Stanford, Vanderbilt, and the University of California Berkeley were targeted in a similar exploit.
• We often overlook printers as a potential entry to our networks because we don’t interact with them directly. Instead, our computers do when we hit “print” at our workstations. In most cases, users don’t think twice about printing invoices, proprietary product designs, customer data, or other sensitive materials.
• However, what many don’t realize is that network connection between our printer and computer runs both ways. In addition to malware that can steal jobs that pass through the printer, hackers also frequently use printers for lateral attacks. In other words, they hack the printer to access your computer, because it’s less likely to have as robust defenses as your computer does.

5 Best Practices to Avoid Printer Security Breach

1. Deploy Stricter User Access Controls

Not every employee needs access to printers. Likewise, printers don’t need access to the network 24/7. You can adjust both employee permissions and printing preferences to limit exposure. You can also set your printer to shut down during off-hours, reducing the amount of time it is online.

2. Keep Your Printer’s Software Updated

Printers often have firmware that helps them function, but they might also have an antivirus or malware software built into them as well. Consult your device’s manual to get a sense of what your printer possesses and what needs upkeep. You also want to know if your printer has security patches or regular updates that should get installed, since outdated software is often a top cause leading to data breaches.

3. Don’t Allow the Printer to Store Its Print History

Many printers like MFPs come helpfully equipped with settings that allow users to store print histories or other sensitive information. While that improves speed and performance, it also makes it easy for hackers to swipe if they access the printer.

4. Require User Passcodes for Shared Printers

In an office setting, you will need to think about physical security too. You don’t want someone to print sensitive documents from across the office, which they forget about or the wrong person grabs from the printer. Printers that hold documents and require users to enter unique passcodes to “release” their documents to the printer can help prevent sensitive documents from getting forgotten, taken by the wrong user, or thrown out.

5. Use Printer Tracking and Monitoring

Print tracking software lets you monitor all of the printing activity that occurs in your organization. By seeing who is printing what, when, and where, you’ll be able to better monitor the movement of sensitive information in your organization and spot suspicious activity before it has the chance to harm your business.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

Five Cybersecurity Trends of 2021

And while that shift has allowed society to continue during a pandemic, it has opened up new opportunities for cyberattacks and security breaks. Information security has made considerable progress, yet how might this abrupt weakness affect organizations in 2021 and beyond?
To begin with, we will take a look back. For the past few years, these trends in information security for new companies have focused around being as secure as you can, as early as possible:

• Create and implement compliance plans.
• Get your team prepared on the roles they play in guarding information.
• Guarantee that you adhere to the frameworks of your B2B accomplices

Your organization's endurance in 2021 and beyond will depend on the decisions you make about security now. More enterprise companies are requiring their vendors to invest in security and become compliant with industry standards, as they pass risk downstream.

1. Remote Work and Its Security Risks is the New Normal

• Remote work isn't new, as numerous organizations have been doing it for quite a long time or steadily adopting it into their culture. But the sudden large-scale shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic changed how we work permanently.
• Employees may never completely return to the workplace, which means organizations have new challenges in protecting their systems since their workforce is signing in from unsecured hardware through unsecured connections.
• Fixing the uncovered leaks from the shift to remote work needs to become a priority, which may also require system updates or cloud migration. Preparing for crisis response becomes a priority as well, as the attacks may not look equivalent to the one when employees were under the similar roof.

2. Trends from 2019 are Still Here

• The Internet of Things has been a trend for a couple of years now, with no signs of stopping, as our world turns out to be more interconnected through brilliant gadgets that also have information security contemplations.
• Meanwhile, cybercriminals keep on getting more intelligent as they discover new ways around new systems.
• And finally, we have seen an increase in the use of multi-factor authentication on everything from internal enterprise networks to phone apps.
• These trends from 2019 are only adding to the security considerations that startup founders need to be aware of.

3. Early 2020 Trends are Still in Play

• Despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic definitely changed life as we know it in the spring, trends were developing earlier in 2020 that are still in play.
• We began seeing that one of the ways in which hackers are focusing on SMBs is through the supply chain, explicitly meddling with the trust relationship between enterprise company and the vendor.
• Malicious actors are finding ways to hack whole workplaces or buildings through the smart technology in it. Ref: www.testingxperts.com
• Finally, we are anticipating that hacktivism is going to focus on a new target: companies contributing to climate change or social injustice.

4. Mandated Privacy Laws Everywhere

In 2021, we may also see the advancement of state, province, and country specific data privacy standards, similar to when the GDPR carried out in the EU a few years ago, particularly since the pandemic has provoked more awareness around protecting citizens and economies.This implies that organizations need to watch out for regional and industry-explicit frameworks and standards around gathering and storing information. And in the near future, it might even be unlawful for an organization not to have a compliance plan in place.

5. The Rise of AI in Security

• AI automation is already being utilized across a wide range of industries, from fulfillment centers to publicizing to recruiting, so having security audits performed through automation will most likely become the norm in 2021.
• As more business resources become advanced or digitized, and as more systems move to the cloud, recruiting an individual to filter through information rather than automating the process appears archaic and leaves space for blunder.
• However, ensuring that you are holding fast to a thorough compliance plan, that your team knows the value of information security, and that you are keeping aware of data security trends will enable you to stay aware of the game, or even stay ahead of it in 2021.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

How to Protect Your Company from a Ransomware Attack

1. Educate Your Employees on the Dangers of Links

Even if you pay for ransom, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get your data back – at least 17 percent of companies pay and get nothing back.
You can help them out by doing the following:

• Establish an email security policy that is clear on which link you can click and you should NOT.
• Disallow downloading or software installation on company devices (via user permissions).
• Train employees on ransomware and phishing. Be sure to provide examples.
• Have your employees do phishing simulations.
• You can start with a planned exercise using a free tool like Google’s phishing quiz, but phishing simulation software designed for ongoing training and education (like you can get from Symbol Security) gives you data so you know where your employees are most vulnerable.

2. Keep Your Systems and Antivirus Up to Date

Updated antivirus and anti-malware software represent your front line of defense against threats like Ransomware. Both types of software have access to large libraries of known threats that are being constantly updated. By keeping things up to date on your end, you’ll not just keep your systems safe but also help contribute to the library.

3. Have Procedures in Place for Suspicious Emails or Network Activity

Did you know that around 1 in 99 emails is a phishing attack? Spam filters catch some of those, but what will your employees do when a phishing email lands in their inbox? Your ultra-efficient, multitasking workers are a target because hackers expect them to be distracted, busy, and stressed.
Create a way for your employees to quickly and easily report suspicious emails or network activity that they might spot. Not only this will allow you to compile your own database of threats, but it will also help you spot threats much quicker.

4. Backup Your Data

• Keeping your data backed up is one of the best ways to protect data from Ransomware threats.
• Services such as cloud storage are secure and convenient. But the best security practice is to always have more than a backup and not just in the cloud.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

5 Ways to Improve Your SaaS Company’s Security

From password management to secure coding to lining up with administrative guidelines, SaaS organizations miss what is significant toward the start, and are frequently compelled to address security only when it becomes too late.
Interestingly, SaaS companies can make quick moves to start assembling a security plan. Furthermore, more mature companies can generally find ways to fortify and grow their strategies as well. Here are a few ways to start.

Start with a Security Meeting

Hold a security meeting to get everybody pointed in a similar way with regards to having a security-minded focus — not just senior leadership, but every department. Invite key team members, and create a plan:

• What systems need to be protected, and how much protection do they have already?
• What are the known security risks?
• Have you tested for unknown security risks?
• What kind of encryption do you use?
• What is your policy when it comes to employee passwords or two-step verification?
• Is there a response plan in case an incident occurs?

Before you think about outsourcing, start with your team and your resources to build your security plan. And do not just have one meeting — you need to meet regularly to discuss ongoing concerns or new issues as they arise.

Know Which Frameworks and Regulations You Need

Are you in compliance with the right frameworks and regulations? As you start setting up your security plan and begin thoroughly considering how to deal with client information and protection guidelines, you will need to ensure your compliance is up to date.

• SaaS companies frequently hope to line up with SOC 2 requirements, which assess how organizations handle and process client information.
• You may likewise have to consent to industry-explicit guidelines, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, or regional privacy laws.
• Also, find out what standards your clients are compliant with, because as their vendor you may have contractual obligations to be compliant with those requirements as well.

Review the Strategy Around Policies and Procedures

Does your company already have a set of policies and procedures to follow when it comes to security? Your policies should be actionable and should be unique to your company.
For instance, how should your developers be implementing security into the source code? How should different departments who work with customer data, like support, sales, or marketing be handling it? Who has access to customer data? If there is a data breach, who responds?
If there are no policies and procedures, make creating them a priority. You do not have to do this from scratch, find a tool that can automatically generate custom security policies for you. And if your policies exist only on one person’s computer or are passed around as oral institutional knowledge, get them thoroughly documented and accessible to everybody ASAP.

Do a Hardware and Software Asset Inventory

• You will not know what you need to secure if you do not know what are the resources you have, so take an inventory of your hardware and your software.
• Are there any outdated systems that need patching, or were just forgotten about? They can be easy targets for hackers looking for an open gateway inside.
• Furthermore, inventory who has access to your hardware, and what kind of controls you have around who gets access.
• Is your software updated? Do you have to uninstall any software that your organization does not utilize anymore? By laying out the perimeter of your property, so to speak, you will be better able to defend it.

Ask for Advice

Finally, no one needs to figure out information security in a vacuum, and your team will be facing a lot of unknown unknowns. Ask colleagues for advice or recommendations, seek out security experts to help, or investigate outsourcing security tasks to those who have the training. Ask questions and be honest with what you do not know.
Where to start when it comes to security for SaaS companies? Make sure your team has a security mindset and sees the value in keeping your company and your clients safe. If you do not yet have a security program in place, the important thing is to start. But security is never a fix-it-and-forget-it thing, it takes continuous vigilance and commitment.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

What are the HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules?

HIPAA Security Rule

The HIPAA Security Rule comprises three pillars of safeguards that encompass the necessary controls and procedures prescribed in HIPAA.
These pillars are:

• Technical Safeguards
• Physical Safeguards
• Administrative Safeguards

Technical Safeguards are the technical security configurations, controls, and infrastructure in place that identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from incidents that could affect the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of ePHI (electronic PHI). An example of a Technical Safeguard is end-to-end encryption of ePHI in transit.

Physical Safeguards are the physical security controls, infrastructure, and measures in place to protect and detect unauthorized physical access of PHI or ePHI. One example of a Physical Safeguard is Role-Based Access Control or “RBAC”, which you must enforce in the data centers that store ePHI. You must implement RBAC for systems and employees accessing ePHI. The role must include ePHI access as a requirement for the role.

Administrative Safeguards are the administrative security policies, procedures, and workflows that are compulsory for the assurance of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI. An example of an administrative safeguard is a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan.

HIPAA Privacy Rule

The HIPAA Privacy Rule lays out the rules related to the use, disclosure, and procedural or operational safeguards of PHI. The Privacy Rule also defines the patient’s or PHI subject’s rights under HIPAA.
Some of the requirements laid out in the Privacy Rule include the following:

• Having a privacy policy that covers the use, disclosure, rights of the PHI data subjects, access to PHI, and denial of access to PHI.
• You need a publicly available “Notice of Privacy Practices” that clearly describes topics like what your company does with PHI and how you protect it.
• Business associates must also appoint a compliance or privacy officer that will be responsible for HIPAA compliance in the organization and any complaints received.
• Of course, there is much more to both the Security and Privacy rules in the details and fine print, but this overview gives you a sense of what you’ll need to do.

Who needs to be compliant under HIPAA regulations?

HIPAA compliance primarily applies to organizations that fall under the term “covered entity.” Organizations that fall under the category of a covered entity by HIPAA standards include the healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses.

So how does this apply to your business then, if it isn’t actually in the healthcare industry?

HIPAA also requires “business associates” to meet the requirements of the Security Rule and Privacy Rule of HIPAA. A business associate may also have additional contractual obligations relating to HIPAA Compliance as laid out in a Business Associate Agreement or “BAA.” Healthcare Providers consist of doctors, clinics, hospitals, continuing care facilities (nursing homes), and any specialists practicing medicine that an insurer would cover the cost.

Health Plans consist of health insurance companies, HMOs, private-sector group health plans, and public sector group health plans.

Healthcare Clearinghouses are service providers that process insurance claims and check for errors, acting as an intermediary between an insurer and a provider. These entities handle ePHI in many forms; therefore, they belong to the category of covered entities. Business Associates are a third-party to a covered entity that provides some service, but is not a part of the core workforce of the covered entity. This can include vendors, software providers, or other services that a covered entity might need to obtain.

What are some examples of a business associate?

• A third-party accounting firm that provides its services to a healthcare provider and accesses PHI (claims) to perform their role.
• A third-party SaaS vendor that a healthcare provider uses its software to process ePHI. This could be in any way, such as a CRM that has personal contact information (even if it does not contain medical records).
• A consultant requiring access to PHI during their engagement, for any purpose.

What are the consequences of non-compliance under HIPAA?

• For covered entities, HIPAA violations depend on the degree of malintent or negligence. Penalties can range from fines to incarceration for extreme cases like identity theft or fraud.
• For business associates, depending on the circumstances, they can be liable for any violations that they are responsible for under HIPAA.

Back Blogs

8 Min Read

5 Reasons Why Your Organizations Need Penetration Testing

As cyberattacks are filling in refinement and intricacy, the odds of online organizations falling into the snares of cyber attackers are additionally expanding rapidly.
For a solid and secure environment of an association, it is essential to have perpetrated experts who can safeguard the security framework against cybercrimes.

Uncover vulnerabilities before cybercriminals exploit them

A pen-test is the most ideal approach to see how weak a business is and how it very well may be abused. In a pen-test, experts expect and emulate the means of cybercriminals before they can discover any framework/network shortcomings. Associations for the most part lead penetration testing just after the organization of a new security framework or a huge change in safety efforts/controls.

Reduce network downtime

With regular penetration testing, business continuity is effectively reasonable. Leading it more than once per year will guarantee that the association faces a helpfully recoverable framework/network downtime. No business is for sure insusceptible to the destructive impacts of IT personal time. To handle them, hire skilled professionals who can advise you on the frequency of penetration testing that your business requires.

Initiate a highly efficient security measure

Penetration testing helps with improving the current status of an organization’s security framework. Its evaluation comprehends the security hole and the likely effect of cyberattacks on existing security draws near. Experienced penetration analysers organize with network security designers to make a dependable security framework. They ought to likewise know out from tough spots with the utilization of world-driving techniques – OWASP, PTES, NIST SP 800-115, and numerous others.

Empower consistent compliance

Aside from shielding a business from cyber attackers, another worry is to keep security procedures in consistency with security guidelines. These guidelines are defined by significant security norms, including HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, ISO 27001, and other pertinent ones. A rebellious association can be fined on occasion of critical security/information penetrate.

Ensure the organization's reputation and client trust

Each security occurrence, particularly the compromise of client information, prompts a negative effect on product/services sales, a discoloured association picture, and loss of client trust. Penetration testing assists an association with keeping its image worth and client trust flawless. All associations need better client obtaining systems to keep their business afloat. Otherwise, the consequences will be a decreased customer retention rate.
The above-expressed reasons are why organizations need penetration testing.

Solutions we are providing for Pentest

Our organization gives you the best penetration testing measure with best practices according to the principles that we have referenced in the above steps. We do all the fundamental strides for the penetration test like SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, HTML Injection, DOM Manipulation, and so on. Web Application - Coverage of OWASP top 10, ASVS and application logic.

Types of attacks include but not limited to:

• Injection flaws
• Authentication weaknesses
• Poor session management
• Broken access controls
• Security misconfigurations
• Database interaction errors
• Input validation problems
• Flaws in application logic

Network - OSINT, Coverage of OSSTMM and SANS top 20 security controls.
Types of attacks include but not limited to:

• Firewall Misconfiguration and Firewall Bypass
• IPS/IDS Evasion Attacks
• Router Attacks
• DNS Level Attacks
• SSH Attacks
• Proxy Server Attacks
• Unnecessary Open Ports Attacks
• Database Attacks
• Man In The Middle (MITM) Attacks
• FTP/SMTP Based Attacks

We avoid exploiting Denial of service attacks (DOS) and Brute Forcing as it may cause service disruption to critical services.

Back Blogs