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March 11, 2022 •
Governments around the world are waking up to the threat of cyber crime. According to an executive order from the White House in May of last year, small improvements to their protection won’t cut it and instead need to make a bold change and make significant investments in order to protect the government and its citizens from the dangers of cyber crimes. In Canada, it was reported that the Trudeau government realizes that Canada needs full form protection against everything from cyber crimes to espionage, and implemented a cybersecurity framework that protects the government and fellow Canadians. Both Governments, including others around the world, realize that cybersecurity is an investment that is crucial to the protection of their country.
Now that the government is aware, they’re warning private companies of the dangers and alarming them to do the same. However, there’s concerns that the investment in cybersecurity in Canadian companies is moving at a slow pace.
Why High Security Companies Need Stronger Security
High profile companies know they need stronger security, but the majority don’t know how or even where to start. As we know recently there has been a rise in cybercrime and as a result, many firms are ramping up their security measures. While cyber security protection is used by companies of all industries, companies in high security environments, like those in the energy, financial and telecommunications sectors are at most risk when it comes to cyber attacks. The consequences of breaches to companies in these industries is also higher, mainly because of the sensitive nature of information they store in their databases, and physical infrastructure they operate.
Hybrid Warfare
The 21st century has also seen the emergence of another kind of war: hybrid warfare. Alongside traditional warfare, there’s war that happens in the cybersphere. This is when countries attack each other not through physical attacks but through cyber attacks like DDoS and ransomware.
The ongoing war in Ukraine is also being fought along these lines. Ukrainian government officials have said they are “facing constant cyber-attacks against its government and infrastructure networks”. The cybersecurity community was watching closely as Ukraine was hit with three separate cyberattacks in the weeks before the invasion. This is what we call a ‘hybrid’ warfare, and it’s because of this that there are heightened security concerns online as well.
Ukraine isn’t the first country to have been targeted by another state actor in a cyber attack. In fact, according to CyberSecurityMag, they’re not even the most susceptible to cyber attacks, but ninth in their top-ten list below:
The reason why they’re on this list is likely owed to a variety of reasons, including a lack of cybersecurity preparedness and understanding, and minimal widespread adoption of preventative measures such as multi-factor authentication. Either because they don’t know about such measures, don’t know how to implement them, or haven’t flagged it as a priority.
Where to Begin
With the information presented, if you’re already protected then you’re probably thinking how you can protect yourself even more, and if you’re not protected you’re probably thinking where do you start?
Let’s break it down.
If you’re a reader of our blog, you would know that when it comes to MFA, there are multiple ways of storing the secure information needed to operate the solution. On the cloud, and on your own internal servers, or “on-premise”.
While both are safe and secure, it’s just a matter of how you want your data to be stored, and how much control you want to have over the storage. For a high security setting such as the government, or something that deals with confidential information, we always recommend an on-premise solution as it eliminates any external dependencies to the cloud.
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