The Threat Landscape is Changing

It has become very apparent that Cyberattacks can affect virtually anyone, anywhere, at any time. The threat landscape for cyberattacks has changed drastically over the year. A strong example of this is A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping company with a fleet of more than 600 container vessels and a market share of around 16%. Maersk was hit by a ransomware cyberattack earlier this year, the breakdown affected all business units at Maersk, including container shipping, port and tug boat operations, oil and gas production, drilling services, and oil tankers. Even more alarming is the entry point of an attack. Simply by accessing through one employee’s computer, This cyberattack, Petya, was able to enter and attack the entire network at Maersk. This cyberattack virtually paralyzed Maersk from any operations and severely threatened the company’s success. Petya, spread from Europe to the U.S., and then to Asia. Banks, government systems, airports, metro transports, and even the Chernobyl power plant were all affected. Hackers were instructed to pay a certain amount (ransom) to unlock their systems, but eventually the channels hackers chose for ransom money were shut down by governments.
Petya was the second large-scale attack in the last few months, after WannaCry hit earlier this year. It illustrates how the threat landscape for cyberattacks have changed and how damaging the outcomes can be for businesses.–no matter how large or small your company. As in the case of Maersk, cyberattacks can negatively impact your daily operations, affect your revenue and even result in closing your company’s doors. At IT360, we are staying on top of this changing threat landscape for our clients. We will always try to be proactive and diligent about threat notifications. However, we feel the most powerful prevention is knowledge. We encourage you to learn more about Security Awareness Training offered by IT360 which provides baseline testing and training to your staff regarding urgent IT security problems of social engineering, spear phishing and ransomware attacks. If you would like to know more about Security Awareness Testing, please contact us today.