Almost 170000 Irish firms are reportedly coming under cyber attack by North Korea on daily basis. And there is news that more such attacks( mostly ransomware related) with increased severity will be launched on Irish Businesses in next couple of years.
Irish Independent reported the above said news as a fact and added that Irish law enforcement authorities have succeeded in gathering evidence that a notorious North Korean group of cyber crooks are said to be the main suspect behind the €4.3 million attack on Meath County Council last year.
The readers of Cybersecurity Insiders are requested to notify a fact over here that a Hong Kong Bank account obstructed the transfer of money to hackers from the Council’s Irish Bank in Oct’16 after a fake instruction in the name of the company CEO was circulated to the bank authorities.
And going with the lines on what is being said above, a survey conducted by The Magnet Networks says that only 13% of businesses are confident that their data is secure. Furthermore, the study conducted by more than 205 companies across all sectors and regions adds that smaller businesses are having very limited cybersecurity controls in place as they lack awareness on what was happening in the cyber world when it comes to security aspect. Thus, the consequence of this is that the companies and their networks are becoming extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks from nations such as North Korea.
Security experts from across the world say that the company heads of Irish companies should start focusing on strategies like “Defense in Depth”, where multiple layers of security controls are put in place including personnel, procedures, technology and physical security. Here employee training also plays a vital role in keeping cybersecurity vulnerabilities at bay.
Also, CTOs and CIOs of Irish companies are requested to let go the attitude of “ this will never happen to us” and think that at some point of time their businesses assets will surely experience a ransomware or cybersecurity threat. This attitude will help them take proactive measures in advance which will help in dramatically reducing the potential impacts of cyber attacks.
