If you are a cybersecurity researcher, you have probably heard of increasing cybercrime collaborations and partnerships to fast-track skills development, increase reach and capabilities to target deep pocket prospects and advanced governments. The power is in partnerships. Different ransomware developers have partnered up to share hacking techniques, malware codes, tech infrastructure and target lists. Different hackers are trying to specialise at each phase of the hacking process. Others are focusing on footprinting and reconnaissance. They then pass on the information to another cartel to scan, and another to gain access etc which deepens their capabilities and fast tracks success. The…
Free webinar on cybersecurity hygiene to improve your security
“Our systems are very secure. We cannot be hacked. We lose 0% of our annual revenue to fraud and cybersecurity annually.” These are some of the common assurances many leaders get. However, without ongoing cybersecurity awareness efforts, and independent cybersecurity tests (both black box and white box penetration testing), such assurances may be misleading and could land the organization into disaster. If you are not yet hacked, it is because no one is interested in hacking you yet. But that does not mean that you are secure. As part of our corporate social investment, Summit Consulting in partnership with the…
Case Name 01/2021: Intellectual Property Crimes
The increasing uptake of virtual working and service delivery has created opportunities and challenges for all. For the cybercriminals, more doors and attack vectors have been opened. At Summit Consulting Ltd and the Institute of Forensics & ICT Security, we shall be highlighting some of the common cybercrime cases to watch out for. Due to client confidentiality, we shall use pseudo names and make references to international cases, where possible. In the following cybercrime series, we shall highlight actual cases with real victims. In this first case, we highlight how cybercriminals steal intellectual property and monetize it. According to the…
Unmasking the daily lies: VPN has security holes, be aware
The lie: A virtual private network (VPN) connection is very secure. Why it is a lie: VPN encrypts your traffic. But someone could hack into your VPN username and password and access it, and therefore your traffic and all personally indefinable information. Also, your VPN service provider has access to your internet protocol address, URLs you visit, the amount of time you spend connected online, your browsing patterns, data, etc are visible to your provider. A VPN may protect you against your ISP from seeing your traffic, but not from the VPN owner. That is why many governments now use…
Practical application of the Internet of Things
A lot has been said and written about the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data (BD), but what is the practical application of these new concepts? So many gadgets and equipment we use daily now have sensors and trackers installed. From the smart television to radios, cars, beds, houses, tables, and heck, everything in between. Millions of cameras installed in so many streets and homes generate lots of data and these are increasingly becoming interlinked. Businesses can apply IoT in many ways: Tracking behavior Decision making powered by sensors Enhanced visibility and situational analysis Optimized resources deployment And processes…
The drivers of cybercrime, excerpts from project frontline
Practical cybersecurity springs from the little decisions we make every day. While almost all data breaches are inspired by malicious intent, their successful execution (almost always) involves seemingly harmless and unintentional actions of insiders within organizations. The drivers of cybercrime include some of the following: i). The well-meaning system administrators who fail to promptly apply patches from application vendors or for some reason just run new scripts on the production environment without the first sandbox testing them. ii). Employees who unsuspectingly yield to social engineering ploys specifically spear-phishing resulting in loss of credentials, money, and corporate data to their adversaries…
