An Industry Bucking Global Trends: R-a-a-S

The difficulty in realising what is at stake has always been a challenging one for enterprises to fully rationalise when it comes to cyber security threats.

When we first started to properly explore the risks of cybersecurity in the turn of the 21st century, it was still considered a nichè space. As the typical storytelling went it was made up of bored undergraduates and semi-sophisticated groups who were attempting to annoy more than extort.

However as we have observed the reality is that all organisations are at risk of extortion. As much as the technology industry has been driving this agenda into the boardroom, there is still a little bit of trepidation by the industry about the true extent for which they could fall victim, and more importantly, if they can even prevent it.

R-a-a-S:

Software-as-a-service has revolutionised IT procurement. Like all good ideas it too has revolutionised the way criminals extort. Enter Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS).

This has been uncovered at a large scale as of late. Last week The Register’s Connor Jones, reported that Lockbit – one of the world’s most high profile Ransomware-as-a-Service groups – may have extorted over US$1b from organisations since its inception in 2020. The amount of organisations that have been affected appears to also exceed 2000.

Lockbit typically takes a 20% fee for its services and has been connected with over 30,000 cryptocurrency accounts, in the context of IT, it has one of the strongest partner networks on the planet.

What Does this Mean for the CXO?

Operation Cronos has thankfully taken control of Lockbit’s Blog which has stemmed the tide of extortion exposures for the current cycle. However this is not a time to breathe-out, as what it really exposes is the true sophistication and burgeoning growth that this criminal market has undergone in recent years.

It Starts with People:

A vast majority of extortions start with people. MGM’s recent attack was caused by threat actors using social engineering techniques over-the-phone for 10 minutes. That 10 minutes resulted in a 10 day outage.

The culture of security is an important tool in responding to this challenge, identifying your weakest links and educating the business on why security is important is a critical step.

This however is difficult in many industries where competitions and margins are rife. However it is important to link this culture shift with the long-term sustainability and prosperity of the organisation.

Building the Muscle:

The big question is prevention. How can you prevent being caught up in a cyber extortion?

The reality is that questions are unanswerable, innovation in this space is moving at a rapid speed so focusing on this as a north star is unlikely to yield lasting results.. You can however look to equip your business with the best chance at success, and that is through building out your cyber threat muscle.

Simulation extortion attacks and table-top-exercises are a great way to understand your organisation neural-pathways when it comes to a response. Being able to uncover blind spots, invest in the areas required, and educate employees on areas of concern is all uncovered during a simulation.

Most importantly, practicing for the “inevitable” makes it real for everyone and builds a sense of purpose around the response.