Good practice last year isn’t good enough anymore.
Even cyber-insurance providers are getting more selective before accepting cover, or worse, before paying claims.
With the number of claims skyrocketing insurers are increasingly asking, “What did you do to protect yourself from the obvious and known risk from cyberhackers?”
The levels of protection you put in place 1 or 2 years ago probably aren’t adequate for the threats today. They are evolving so rapidly.
So what can you do?
Hackers aren’t waiting for you to make a decision to put protections in place.
They are spending every waking moment trying to find new ways of stealing your data. They have set themselves up as businesses to do evil. They hire the best and brightest talent, and have the latest tech – simply because it’s worth it. Its organised crime and these guys are the mafia of the modern age.
We see continuous hacks on most of our clients. These are attempts to penetrate their firewalls, or guess their passwords on Office 365. We see fake webpages through phishing attempts, and we see techniques to harvest password reset questions by asking for favourite teachers, or first cars, or favourite band on platforms like FaceBook.
That’s why your cyber-insurance and business continuity insurance providers will be starting to ask more demanding questions when you renew your cover. They are well aware of the risk and they want to know that you have taken all reasonable steps.
You need to be able to reassure them that you have:
- deep endpoint protection
- a penetration and vulnerability assessment
- data governance that is fit for purpose
- awareness programmes for all users and verification
- dark web monitoring
- multi-factor authentication and complex passwords
and so much more – the very items we have included in our KARE for Security services.
The question for you, and your insurer, is what level of protection is appropriate for your organisation so your insurer will cover you if you need to claim? That is why we have two levels of cyber-protection, and, because this isn’t static, it is why we keep investing and researching additional tools to help defend you from harm.
The Hackers are turning up their attacks on you – are you turning up your defences to match?
One quote we saw recently that rang true was:
“A cybercriminal only has to be lucky once, while a defender has to be lucky every minute of every day.”
What’s your next step? We’ve created a simple 9-point checklist to help you navigate the cyber-risk landscape and find the right solution for you.
Beware of “Pig-Butchering” – a new trend in Social Engineering
Where do these names come from? The latest trend is referred to as Pig-Butchering. The name comes from the Chinese underworld (shāzhūpán). The term refers to fattening up a pig, taking a longer-term view. They develop their target slowly, looking to get maximum...
Top Tech Predictions for 2023
As always, we know we will be wrong, but it doesn’t stop us speculating! There might be fears of global recessions and doom and gloom, but the tech sector will keep innovating! Here are our top 5 guesses for 20231. Artificial Intelligence – What will we see this year?...
What does the LastPass breach mean for you?
There have recently been a couple of well-publicised breaches of LastPass. Most people will be familiar with LastPass but in case you are not, it’s a well-known and popular password vault/manager.Does this mean you shouldn’t use a password vault? Absolutely not. YOU...
Are you making the most of your password manager?
Passwords are the basic protection for our various online accounts. It amazes me how basic some people’s passwords are. Passwords like, well ‘password’ or ‘123456’ are still commonly in use! In case that sounds unbelievable, here’s a list of the top 200 for...
Kinetics KARE clients – we’ve just added a layer of security
With the latest news of yet another local New Zealand high-profile cyber attack, it must be obvious that cyber-threats are real. EVERYONE is at risk of cyber attack! This latest incident is particularly close to home for me, because I chair the board of one of the...
Christmas Hours 2022 (and a timely warning)
Thank you! Thanks to our wonderful clients, staff and partners for your support through 2022 It has been another challenging 12 months as we emerge from the pandemic and find a new normal. We know many of our clients, partners, suppliers, friends and family have had...
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) gets even more secure!
Microsoft are making their authenticator even safer! Most of us will have experienced random pop-ups on authenticator asking us to approve access to our systems. We will have wondered what triggered it. Is it a hacker? Now we'll be able to get more information. Your...
IT Industry Trends
Conferences are back. Learning is back in-person! We’re taking the opportunity to reconnect with the thought leaders in our industry, with key partners, and with peers. Last week a couple of us attended “IT Nation Connect” in Florida, and this week we also have...
In case you missed it.. 5 new features in Office / Microsoft 365 to look forward to :
1. Cloud Signatures Coming Soon to Outlook for Windows Launching soon: Your email signature will now be shared across all the Windows (Microsoft 365) or Web Outlook screens that you use. You will no longer need to reconfigure your signatures when getting a new...
Will your email etc. still work when you travel?
There's nothing worse than having to muck around with your 365 access, especially when different time zones are involved. Currently, the majority of companies have their Microsoft 365 login restricted to NZ and Australian IP addresses. That's working well to...