Over the weekend, the latest and most serious ransomware attack on critical U.S. infrastructure made news headlines. The cyberextortion attempt has temporarily shut down operations at the Colonial Pipeline Company in Linden, New Jersey, which supplies fuel along the east coast.
This should serve as an alarming wake-up call to companies everywhere to update their security practices and tools or risk possible catastrophe. The time is now to make a shift in our thinking and evolve cybersecurity capabilities with next-generation tools.
KnectIQ protective technology thwarts “silent front-door entry” breaches. Those breaches are silent because hackers used valid credentials to gain access. Four of every five breaches (80%) are directly related to compromised credentials. This means KnectIQ can stop 80% of all breaches from occurring. Learn more about Our Solution.
Our CEO Ken Morris posted some thoughts to LinkedIn in response to the Colonial Pipeline breach.
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“The last few years have been incredibly busy because the proliferation of vulnerabilities in firewalls and virtual private networks have allowed ransomware criminals to gain access to networks at an unprecedented scale”, said Robert M. Lee of Dragos, Inc.
“Access vulnerabilities are inherent in today’s systems. A bad actor can make a “silent entry” simply by using valid credentials. This particular threat vector can be eliminated with the deployment of Zero Trust based access and data protection technologies”, said Ken Morris.
“KnectIQ provides this defense solution today. Pre-breach intervention is a wiser and less costly approach.”
Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/08/cyber-attack-colonial-pipeline/
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“Time to look beyond convention when applying defense in depth technologies, particularly for critical national infrastructure. Once these systems are purged, Zero Trust based authentication, access, command and control, and data protection digital modernization tools must become part of the playbook”, said Ken Morris.
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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Sunday that ransomware attacks are “what businesses now have to worry about,” and that she will work “very vigorously” with the Department of Homeland Security to address the problem, calling it a top priority for the administration.”
“Public and private partnerships are vital. Equally important is a willingness of these partners to pursue and deploy cyber solutions that go beyond today’s considered best practices. Constraining our cyber defenses to yesterday’s TTP’s has proven to be a suboptimal approach”, said Ken Morris.
Article: https://apnews.com/article/333e47df702f755f8922274389b7e920
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“Our security model is broken. We collectively know this is true. Yet we continue to use standard security tools and techniques proven to be ineffective. Attacks on critical public and private infrastructure and the resulting negative impacts will continue.
We can change course before another breach makes headlines. We must collectively challenge status quo standards and be willing to take a risk to try a new standard. True agile cybersecurity innovation can break the mold and bring next generation enterprise security forward”, said Ken Morris.
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Operational Technology (OT) needs deep and focused cyber and operational risk reviews. We at KnectIQ Inc. agree with the National Security Agency.
Further, we developed a Zero Trust based device and network access technology along with a state of the art, data-centric data protection solution to assure integrity, confidentiality and availabilty across OT and related IT environments.
https://breakingdefense.com/2021/05/nsa-advises-risk-based-review-of-op-tech-security/