The Biggest Data Risks and Cybersecurity Trends for Law Firms

In the digital age, law firms are operating within a high-risk environment. The number of cyber-attacks continues to rise, as do the associated costs. Recent studies suggest that, on average, small and medium-sized businesses spend more than $200 million annually on cyber security breaches.

These statistics show just how important it is for companies of all sizes to take cybersecurity seriously as well as highlight the risks involved in working with sensitive data. After all, no company wants their clients’ personal information to fall into the wrong hands.

We are excited to launch our 2022 Law Firm Data Breach Trend Report white paper. This report will be a compilation of data analysis from hundreds of law firms across the globe, as well as interviews with more than 100 partners and senior-level executives from the largest law firms in the US. We have learned a lot from these conversations and are excited to share our findings with you.

Download the white paper for free today!

Protecting Client Data:

The Biggest Challenge for Law Firms

Protecting client data is a top concern for law firms of all sizes. While most firms are diligent in protecting sensitive data and complying with local, state, and federal regulations, some are not.

After being asked to identify their most significant challenges when it comes to safeguarding client data, 58% of law firms cited, “managing the sheer volume of data,” and, “ensuring data is secure,” as their primary concern. These findings make sense if we consider that, on average, law firms store more than 5,000 gigabytes of data. The large volumes of data makes it difficult for law firms to constantly comply with the most up-to-date security protocols.

Top Threats

Your client’s data is constantly in danger from simple breaches, such as those resulting from a stolen laptop to even more extensive hacking schemes.

Here are a few actions you’re probably doing now that can endanger your clients most sensitive information.

• 

  Skipping Assessments – To help prevent a data breach, an annual inventory should be taken to understand what devices and data you have, where they are located, and who has access to them. It’s also essential to conduct a security and risk assessment. How vulnerable is your information? What would the ramifications be if it was stolen?

• Understaffed and Underfunded IT Departments – A majority of IT departments are usually very understaffed and overburdened with day-to-day work. This leaves little time for them to improve their security infrastructure, as they always react rather than improve.
• Lack of Employee Security Training – Analysts claim that non-malicious attacks are the most common security breach that law organizations face. Unfortunately, many legal companies have failed to adequately train their employees on IT security basics.
• Cloud Migration & Apps – Your business needs to make sure it has a good strategy when it comes time to migrate, including fundamentals like access control and governance, API integrations, and continuous monitoring.

Recent Law Firm Breaches

New York City’s Law Department (July 2021)

Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks (May 2020)

Vierra Magen Marcus (May 2020)

Mossack Fonseca (April 2016)

Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2022

Use Password Authenticator – Password authentication is a method in which a user enters a unique ID and key compared to previously stored credentials. It is one of the quickest forms of security; you can set up your device to require some identification before letting someone access it. This can be done using a passcode, PIN, password, fingerprint, or a 2-factor authentication (2FA).

Use Effective EDR – Using effective EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) tools can help you improve the security of your network by aggregating data on endpoints, including process execution, endpoint communication, and user logins.

Move to a Virtual Server – Moving to a virtual server is essential as it has many benefits that address the security concerns law firms face. These benefits include getting the ability to prioritize critical traffic and improving network agility while reducing the burden from the IT department.

Isolated Backups – A remote or isolated backup is stored separately from other backups and is inaccessible from the end-user layer. Creating a remote backup helps to reduce security breaches, especially ransomware attacks.

Know Your Network Map – Understanding the network map is critical to complying with data privacy regulations as it provides an overview of devices and data on your network. This overview is crucial in identifying and minimizing the attack surface of a system. It will also uncover devices that IT staff may not know are there—for instance, an old, decommissioned server.

Timely Software Updates – It sounds simple, but vulnerabilities caused by outdated software are a significant problem. Keeping all the software up to date is essential for better performance. It also helps discourage potential cybercriminals who like to take advantage of previously-found weaknesses in software.

Data Encryption – In 2022, law firms must use encryption methods for systems, data in the cloud, data at rest, and data in transit to protect their files. Hard drives, USB devices, and phones should also use encryption if they are holding sensitive data

To read the cybersecurity trends for 2022 in detail, download our free white paper today.

Conclusion

By 2023, 80% of law firms will have experienced a data breach, according to research from LexisNexis. Given the rising number of cyber-attacks law firms face, it is necessary to take cybersecurity seriously. Law firms can better protect their sensitive data against these cyber threats by investing in the latest security technologies.

Protecting sensitive client data is essential for all law firms.

Stay on top of the latest trends and best practices for data security by downloading our white paper today! We highlight what law firms should be doing to protect their data and prevent a breach from ever happening. Protected Harbor also has other resources to prevent a law firm data breach, which you can access free from our digital library.

Keep in touch for more tips on how to keep your company safe from cybercriminals.

These Cloud Vulnerabilities Will Cause Your Next Data Breach

Cyber security is a constant race between businesses and hackers in the digital world. Every new technology has potential risks that must be understood and addressed before implementation. New threats are emerging all the time and cloud computing is no different. Many types of cloud services are being used by businesses more than ever before.

In fact, according to Gartner, private cloud services will continue to grow faster than public cloud services in the next few years. However, some types of clouds are riskier than others regarding cyber security. Several vulnerabilities can expose your company’s data when using any cloud service or Software as a Service (SaaS) application.

This article lists common vulnerabilities you should know about before using any cloud-based system or software.

Understanding Cloud Vulnerabilities: Protecting Sensitive Customer Information

As businesses increasingly turn to the cloud for their computing needs, it’s important to consider the potential vulnerabilities of storing sensitive customer information in a shared infrastructure. Cyber attacks are a constant threat, and unauthorized access to personal data such as social security numbers, financial information, and other sensitive information can lead to identity theft and other serious consequences.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are two popular cloud computing services businesses use to store and access their data. While the cloud offers many benefits, knowing the potential risks is important. Cloud providers are responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure and providing secure cloud access. Still, businesses are responsible for securing their own data and applications that run on top of the cloud infrastructure.

One way to protect sensitive customer information is by using a hybrid cloud model, which allows businesses to keep some of their data in a private data center while still taking advantage of cloud computing resources. This approach can provide additional security and control over customer data.

Another important consideration is the use of virtual machines in the cloud. Virtual machines can help isolate applications and data, limiting the impact of a potential cyber attack. It’s also important to implement access controls and encryption to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Public Exposure

The oldest blunder in the book is setting up a new cloud resource but leaving it entirely insecure and publicly visible. Your unprotected public assets will almost certainly be found because hackers today frequently use automated tools to scan target networks for any exposed assets.

By 2022, nearly 50% of businesses would unknowingly or accidentally have some IaaS storage devices, networks, apps, or APIs directly exposed to the public internet. This number is up from 25% in 2018.

Excessive Permissions

Fast company operations are one of the main advantages of switching to the cloud. However, access credentials are routinely distributed hurriedly and needlessly in the interest of expediency, resulting in many individuals having excessive permissions for which they have no business need for. If any of those credentials end up in the wrong hands, attackers would have unrestricted access to private information.

By 2023 (up from 50% in 2020) 25% of security breaches will be due to improper handling of login credentials, identities, and privileges, predicts Gartner.

Lack of Multi-factor Authentication for Privileged Users

One of the most typical cloud vulnerabilities is the absence of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for users assigned to privileged administrative positions in control. Access for privileged users must be as secure and feasible in any cloud environment. A company may suffer severe repercussions if a fundamental security measure like MFA is not enabled.

It is straightforward for malicious actors to exploit privileged accounts without MFA being enabled. These accounts are vulnerable to brute force assaults due to lacking MFA. Hackers can use these accounts to entirely disrupt an organization’s operations and steal its data because they often have high administrator permissions.

Insecure APIs

APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are frequently used to simplify cloud computing. APIs make it very simple to share data between other apps, improving convenience and efficiency. However, if they are not secured, this can lead to multiple cloud vulnerabilities and become an easy entry point for malicious attackers.

Threat actors can launch DDoS assaults and obtain access to sensitive company data by taking advantage of unsecured APIs while remaining unnoticed. In fact, by 2022, API abuses are anticipated to overtake other attack methods as the most popular, according to Gartner data.

Final Thoughts

If companies using the cloud do not consider limiting the dangers that accompany it, they are taking a preventable yet significant risk. The IT processes teams use to develop and deploy applications in the cloud infrastructure must be well integrated into a company’s strict cloud security rules.

The use of cloud computing has changed how businesses and hackers operate. Both new opportunities and threats related to cloud security have been introduced. Enterprises must continuously address the dangers and difficulties associated with cloud security while implementing the appropriate security technologies to facilitate operational work.

It’s essential to understand the potential vulnerabilities so that you can mitigate them. Suppose you have any concerns about your current cloud environment. In that case, you can consult with a cloud consulting company like Protected Harbor to help you assess the risks and implement practices to avoid data breaches.

Protected Harbor‘s cloud security solution integrates the latest security technologies with your cloud infrastructure. Businesses can take advantage of cloud computing’s capabilities with the right technology and the help of cloud security specialists.

We have researched and created an e-book for companies looking to migrate to the cloud. This e-book helps them to understand better the benefits as well as the risks that come with cloud migration so that they can plan. Get your free copy of the e-book today!

Keeping Your SaaS Secure: 6 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare

Security is one of the top concerns among Security as a Service (SaaS) customers. It’s a problem that many SaaS vendors struggle with, and for a good reason.

As more businesses move their processes to the cloud, hackers see this as an opportunity to exploit security vulnerabilities and steal sensitive data. For this reason, keeping your SaaS secure is no longer just about staying compliant with regulations like the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). It’s now about protecting your customers and your business from cyber-attacks. With so much on the line, it’s important now more than ever to take the steps needed to protect your SaaS from potential threats in the future.

How secure is your SaaS? How prepared are you for a cybersecurity attack? You can find out with our free whitepaper! Inside, you’ll learn all about the major cyber threats of 2022, such as the evolution of ransomware, the rise of cloud apps, and more. You’ll also find out the biggest challenges facing today’s SaaS businesses and how to overcome these issues. Finally, you’ll get actionable insights and tips you can use today to keep your SaaS secure.

This blog post in particular will outline the six simple ways to keep your SaaS secure while reducing operational risks and liability.

So, what exactly is SaaS Security?

When we talk about SaaS security, we’re referring to the various ways you can protect your software against threats. This can include software and hardware solutions that help prevent and identify cyber-attacks. When it comes to SaaS security, there are three main components you need to think about: data, infrastructure, and people.

Data security refers to the privacy and security controls that prevent unauthorized parties from accessing sensitive data. Infrastructure security refers to the resilience of the hardware and networks that power your SaaS. People security refers to the policies and procedures that prevent employees from unintentionally introducing vulnerabilities into your software. Essentially, SaaS security is all about keeping your customers’ data safe and your own.

6 SaaS Security Best Practices

Whether you’re testing a new tool or releasing a new feature, it’s crucial to consider your SaaS security. To maintain the security and privacy of your data, keep the following best practices in mind.

1. Encrypt your Data

Your technological stack’s top priority should be encryption at all layers. In the event of a breach, effective encryption makes sure that consumer data isn’t quickly publicly disclosed.

Customers’ concerns about their data protection are growing as high-profile leaks like the Cambridge Analytica incident occur more frequently. By discussing your encryption policies, reassure your clients that your solution always protects their sensitive billing information.

Use one of the many popular encryption techniques to ensure that the information you rely on isn’t kept in plain text.

2. Give Priority to Privacy

Most compliance and regulatory processes demand privacy and security declarations, but that isn’t their only use. It teaches your team and customers how to handle important data by developing a strong statement for your product.

Develop your privacy policy by defining the specific details that need to be included in it with the help of your development and legal teams.

3. Educate Your Clients

By 2020, 95% of cloud security problems will be the clients’ fault, predicts a Gartner study. Make sure you actively reach out to individuals whenever you are onboarding new clients or send critical updates to existing ones to explain how this may affect their security.

Most customers are unaware of the implications of this shift toward a totally cloud-based architecture, which is being made by an increasing number of SaaS providers. Ensure your consumers understand how to protect their information to reduce security concerns and limit risks.

4. Backup User Data in Several Locations and Isolated Backups

Effective client data management is crucial because many firms aren’t prepared for impending data breaches. By creating multiple copies of your data, you can assure that no one system failure will compromise your security.

Many cloud platforms on which SaaS businesses rely on as a part of their product will offer this functionality. Still, you must be vigilant about backups to prevent potentially catastrophic losses of customer data.

5. Use More Robust Passwords

Many people still use the same password for each login, even though they know the risks involved. By requesting stronger passwords from users when they create accounts, you can stop them from exposing your data to possible cyber criminals. Consider establishing case-sensitivity rules and authentication mechanisms.

An emphasis on security will only become more crucial as the subscription economy develops. As your business expands, always re-evaluate your present procedures to ensure that you are maintaining compliance.

6. Speak With a Cyber-security Company

Third-party security organizations can provide essential industry knowledge about what you need to do to keep your platform secure. Their testing procedures ensure that your infrastructure, network, and software are always safe. These third-party suppliers can assist you in developing plans for if and when a breach occurs while you are building your product.

Conclusion

Making sure the user data in your SaaS product is secure requires more than a one-time effort; it must become integrated into your company’s culture. The first step is to select the best SaaS cloud security solution for you. Implementing new security measures is the second phase, an ongoing activity you must regularly perform to keep up with the always-changing threat landscape.

Download our white paper, “Cybersecurity Risks of 3rd Party Cloud-Apps in 2022” to understand the SaaS and cloud cyber-threat landscape in 2022 and how you can mitigate those risks. Also, keep reading our blogs for more information on cybersecurity.

Malware Hits Millions of Android Users:

The Top 5 Apps You Need to Uninstall Right Now

There’s nothing scarier than malware. When it comes to Android apps, users always have to look for possible threats. However, things are not as simple as they may seem. Researchers at Check Point discovered a new strain of malware called a, “false positive,” that targets users through Google Play by uploading malicious apps under user-friendly names.

This is how it works:

The malware tricks you into installing a seemingly harmless app onto your phone. But once you install it, the app will download other malicious apps and start reading your sensitive data without your permission or knowledge. You might be wondering about which apps are putting you at risk, but don’t worry, we have you covered.

Here’s a brief list of the top 5 offenders, which you need to uninstall immediately if you haven’t done so yet.

So, What Happened?

Another group of seemingly innocent Android apps that are meant to spread malware to endpoints and charge unsuspecting users for services has been discovered by researchers.

The Dr. Web antivirus team found the most recent batch, including wallpaper programs, keyboards, picture editors, video editors, and an occasional cache cleaner or system maintenance app. They have altogether received more than 10 million downloads overall.

After escaping Google’s stringent security measures, twenty-eight apps in total were discovered in the Google Play Store. You can see the complete list of infected android apps here.

Android Apps Hacked

Regarding the damages, the method is mainly unchanged.

Once the malware or “app,” is downloaded, most applications will try to hide, appearing as regular system apps in the app drawer. They do this with the hope that people won’t uninstall them. Then, to generate more revenue, the applications constantly push advertisements and try to sign the victim up for various premium services.

If users hadn’t granted the necessary permissions to the apps, none of this would have been possible. Even though the apps have a straightforward design and do what they claim to, they frequently request advanced permissions from users, such as the right to be exempt from battery-saving features, to run in the background even after the user closes the app, which is a big warning sign in and of itself.

Three of the apps are still available on the Play Store, though most have already been removed. Even if all of the apps were removed, they have still been downloaded millions of times. Thus, they will continue to pose a threat until they are completely deleted from the smartphones of all victims.

Below is a short list of the 5 malicious apps researchers have found that you should remove immediately:

FastCleaner: Cache Cleaner

Before Google discovered the true intentions of the app, Fast Cleaner had amassed over 50,000 installs. Using a time-tested technique, a brand-new banking trojan was introduced into the Android handsets of unsuspecting users across the country designed to steal login information as well as to intercept text messages and notifications without anybody noticing anything strange.

ES File Explorer

The most well-known file explorer app was probably ES File Explorer. That’s because five years ago, it was actually a really good app.

So, why is bad?  Bloatware and adware were prevalent within the free edition, and users were constantly nagged to download more apps via pop-up notifications that you couldn’t turn off. However, things worsened when the once-popular app was removed from the Play Store for engaging in click fraud through its advertisements.

For those unaware, click fraud is the practice of secretly clicking background advertisements on consumers’ devices.

You can still download dozens more imitators from the Play Store in addition to the ES File Explorer APK nowadays. However, the program should not be used in any of its iterations.

Virus Cleaner

Virus Cleaner – Antivirus Free and Phone Cleaner by Super Cleaner Studio, an app with over 14 million downloads, illustrates everything wrong with the Android ecosystem. It includes many advertisements, many of which are for products and services with a dubious reputation. Additionally, it “claims” to be an efficient security master, phone trash cleaner, WIFI security, super speed booster, battery saver, CPU cooler, and notification cleaner. None of which can at all be accomplished to any real degree by any software install.

Really, you should be ignoring any application that claims to be a “CPU cooler.”

SuperVPN Free

SuperVPN is one of the most popular VPN apps for Android, with over 100 million downloads. But earlier this year, cybersecurity experts alleged that the app has some serious flaws that might let hackers launch Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks and steal user data like credit card numbers, photographs, and private chats.

According to reports, hackers can also take advantage of the flaws to redirect a user’s connection to harmful websites, thus jeopardizing the security and privacy of the user.

Notes – Reminders & Lists

It is recommended not to download this app from its official website as there are concerns regarding its security and safety. It was detected by many anti-virus software systems as malicious. This app may be a scam as it doesn’t seem to work properly and asks for inappropriate permissions. So far, Notes – Reminders & Lists are not available in Google’s Play Store. It can only be downloaded from its official website. Either way, we recommend you staying far away from this app, as it might be a scam and may have malware hidden inside.

Conclusion

It can be challenging to differentiate between trustworthy and malicious apps. The number of pointless permissions an app requests is the one clear sign that should always cause alarm. Does a flashlight app really need access to your location? Does a cleaning app really need access to the camera or microphone?

Richard Luna, CEO of Protected Harbor, stated: “This attack is not a surprise; it should be expected.  As more work is performed on mobile devices, those devices, like desktops, will be the main point of attack.  Application development platforms must be better hardened to defend against this malware.

What can an end user do? Enable security and Two-Factor Authentication on as many platforms and applications as available on any platform.  If you are concerned, use a desktop over a mobile device, desktops have been dealing with this type of attack for decades.”

Nick Solimando, Director of Technology at Protected Harbor, has 3 tips for businesses that operate through a lot of mobile apps:

1. Only install mobile apps from providers you trust. Since harmful programs are getting better at hiding in plain sight, downloading from reputable sites is no longer the only recommendation.
2. Always check the app store ratings and reviews before downloading. Users should check the reviews because they offer a reliable indication of the apps’ reliability. Additionally, be sure to verify, as threat actors have been known to spoof some of them. It’s better to avoid an app if there are few reviews for it.
3. Periodically go through your mobile device and uninstall extra apps you no longer use. This will not only make you safe, but you’ll also ease memory space.

Despite Google’s constant efforts, thousands of risky apps, including malware, adware, spyware, and bloatware, may be found on the Play Store. The ones above have made it onto our list since they are some of the most frequently utilized risky Android apps.

These apps are very common and can be found on every device. However, they have been infected by malware, so they will likely try and more than likely, successfully steal your data. It’s best to uninstall them and proceed with extreme caution if you can. Always keep your device as well as apps up-to-date and avoid using third-party app stores. Android users can stay safe from potential threats by installing and keeping the latest version of their mobile operating system and using security software for mobile devices.

Protected Harbor uses the latest threat detection and prevention technology to keep your network safe and secure. Our devices are also updated regularly, keeping them secure and up to date with the latest security patches. Our software is installed in your systems to monitor suspicious activity – it can be installed on desktops, laptops, or in the cloud.

We secure your endpoints so that you can be assured your network is protected from malware and cyber threats. We protect your network by monitoring critical network assets, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive information, blacklisting malicious software, and providing real-time threat detection and response.

We are giving a free IT Audit and penetration testing for a limited time, contact us today and get one.

Cloud Application Migration Fear

Many organizations fear of migrating applications to cloud because it can be an extremely challenging and complex task. This process will require proper planning, effort, and time to succeed.

The security measures and practices that organizations have built for their on-premise infrastructure do not coincide with what they require in the cloud, where everything is deeply integrated.

Before streamlining your workflow with cloud computing, you must know the most challenging security risks and how to avoid them. Let’s explore how organizations should approach the security aspects of cloud migration, from API integration to access control and continuous monitoring.

This article will highlight some of the organizations’ most common cloud migration fear while moving from on-premise infrastructure to a cloud environment.

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving data, programs, and other business components into a cloud computing environment.

A business can carry out a variety of cloud migrations.

One typical model for cloud migration involves moving data and applications from an on-premises data center to the cloud. Still, it is also possible to move data and applications across different cloud platforms or providers. Cloud-to-cloud migration is the term for this second situation.

Another kind of migration is reverse cloud migration, commonly called cloud repatriation. From one cloud platform to another, data or applications are transferred in this case.

Cloud migration, however, might not be suitable for everyone.

Scalable, reliable, and highly available cloud environments are feasible. These, however, are not the only considerations that will influence your choice.

Why is Security in the Cloud the Biggest Fear for Organizations?

Security is the biggest challenge organizations face because public clouds offer shared resources among different users and use virtualization. The ease of data sharing in the cloud creates serious security concerns regarding data leakage and loss.

The major risk in any infrastructure is neglecting security vulnerabilities due to a lack of expertise, resources, and visibility. Most providers contain various processing and cloud storage services. Therefore, it’s easy for hackers to expose data via poorly configured access controls, data protection measures, and encryption.

Most Common Exposure Points for Cloud-based Applications

Overcoming cloud migration anxiety and challenges before they arise can help any organization to migrate smoothly and save them from potential cyber threats. But first, we need to understand the weak links and exposure points that can put security at risk.

Let’s discuss the weakest links that cause cloud application migration fears:

1. Data Theft Causes Unauthorized Access

Providing administrative access to cloud vendors poses serious threats to the organization. Criminals are gaining access to programs like Office 365 through installations that give them administrative rights. In fact, very recently a phishing campaign leveraging a legitimate organization’s Office 365 infrastructure for email management has surfaced on the cyber scam scene.

Hackers are always evolving their phishing tactics; everything they do is considered smarter and more sophisticated.

If criminals get access to users’ cloud credentials, they can access the CSP’s (Cloud Solution Provider’s) services to gain additional resources. They could even leverage those cloud resources to target the company’s administrative users and other organizations using the same service provider.

Basically, an intruder who obtains CSP admin cloud credentials can use them to access the organization’s systems and data.

2. Third-party Products Comes With Security Risks

Organizations outsource information security management to third-party vendors. It reduces the internal cybersecurity burden but generates its own set of security risks. In other words, the cybersecurity burden shifts from an organization’s internal operations onto its third-party vendors. However, leveraging third-party services or products may come with compliance, business continuity, mobile device risks, etc.

Last year, the Russian Intelligence Service compromised SolarWinds, a famous monitoring tool based on open-source software. They had created a backdoor within the coding and submitted it into the base product. Hackers used a regular software update to inject malicious coding into Orion’s software for cyberattacks.

Vulnerable applications are entry points for cybercriminals, creating fear of migrating applications to cloud. They are always in search of weak spots to infiltrate the system. Applications are used in every industry for better workflow and management. However, there is a need to protect these applications by limiting their access and implementing available patches for better security. Frequent updating of applications and systems helps to protect your IT infrastructure from potential attacks.

3. Hackers Can Compromise Vulnerable VPN Devices

VPNs (Virtual Private Network’s) provide an encrypted connection that hides your online data from attackers and allows businesses to protect their private cloud resources. Many cloud applications need a VPN to transfer data from on-premises infrastructures to the cloud. VPNs are configured to operate one way, but they are often bidirectional. This often opens your organization up to an attack occurring in the cloud service provider.

One such attack has been observed where cybercriminals exploit VPN servers’ vulnerabilities to encrypt the network with a new ransomware variant. By exploiting unpatched VPN applications, hackers can remotely access critical information, such as usernames or passwords, and allows them to log in to the network manually.

Reconfiguring a VPN to access a newly relocated app in the cloud can be disruptive and complicated for its users. Most people don’t use VPNs for cloud application migration because they don’t trust them.

It’s better to install on-site hardware, build VPNs’ deployment on that hardware, migrate them into the on-site deployment, and then move the VMs (Virtual Machines) into a data center. This can be achieved by enabling transparent, unfiltered connectivity between environments. Enterprise cloud VPN can achieve this configuration between a cloud and on-premises networks.

4. Accidental Exposure of User Credentials

Cybercriminals generally leverage cloud applications as a pretext in their phishing attacks. With the rapid use of cloud-based emails and document-sharing services, employees have become habitual of receiving emails with links asking them to confirm their credentials before accessing a particular site or document.

This type of confirmation makes it easy for intruders to get employees’ credentials for their cloud services. Therefore, accidental cloud credentials exposure is a major concern for organizations because it can compromise the security and privacy of cloud-based data and resources.

5. Lack of Secure API

Using API (Application User Interface) in the cloud allows organizations to implement better controls for their applications and systems. However, using insecure APIs can come with grave security risks. The vulnerabilities that exist within these APIs can provide an entry point for intruders to steal critical data, manipulate services, and do reputational harm.

Insecure APIs can cause security misconfigurations, broken authentications, exposed data, broken function-level authorization, and asset mismanagement. The most common example of an insecure API is the Facebook-Cambridge Analytical Scandal which allowed for Cambridge Analytica to access Facebook user data.

How to Reduce Cloud Migration Security Risks?

Organizations can take various steps to mitigate cloud migration anxiety. Here are some recommendations on how to migrate your applications to the cloud.

1. Develop a Plan

Outline the expertise, resources, and tooling you need to get started. Use automated tools supporting optimization and data discovery analysis to define the right migration method for your company.

2. Start Small

To reduce the fear and accelerate cloud adoption, start with an automatic workload lift and shift over in small portions. It helps to introduce cloud benefits and security risks. Moreover, this approach reduces uncertainty and lets organizations benefit from infrastructure savings.

3. Leverage Business Units to Drive Cloud Adoption

Utilize your business units to promote cloud adoption by investing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This does not require any rewriting of your applications. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) already exists and is running in the cloud which lets you decommission on-premises CRM and is easier than full on-board migration.

4. Make a Set of Security Standards

Develop baseline security standards by collaborating with your governance team. The list must include cloud workload vulnerability posture, control plane configuration, and cloud infrastructure privilege assignment.

5. Invest in Cloud Security Management

Organizations should monitor their cloud security posture from the control plane to asset configuration. When your cloud deployments increase in complexity and numbers, a service tracking all configuration settings becomes valuable to detect any misconfigurations causing security vulnerabilities.

Ready to Migrate Your Applications to the Cloud?

Most organizations lack the experience and confidence for cloud migration fear risks associated with it. The reason is that they don’t have the right time and resources in place to facilitate the move.

Leveraging partners and service providers can help to overcome those fears and make the cloud application migration smoother for your organization. With the support of Protected Harbor

Cloud Migration Services, our clients can transform their existing apps and achieve “future-ready” business outcomes. These services range from planning to execution. Our comprehensive strategy is supported by the understanding that successful modernization uptake requires a diverse blend of suitable solutions with a range of risk and reward profiles.

Our enterprise application migration services offer thorough, extensive, reliable procedures for transferring sizable application portfolios to cloud platforms, and they are easily scalable from one to many apps. We can assist you with application inventory, assessment, code analysis, migration planning, and execution using our tried-and-true tools.

We provide deep industry expertise and a robust set of advanced tools. Experts at Protected Harbor migrate your applications to the cloud and help you increase and optimize the productivity and flexibility of your workforce. Visit here to get more information about Protected Harbor’s cloud services.

Understanding the Risks of Cloud Migration and Security Measures to Mitigate Them

Thanks to our experts at Protected Harbor, we’ve released a new infographic that can help your organization or business to reduce your cloud migration security risks. This cloud migration risk assessment checklist = includes key security tips and advice to help you make the right cloud migration decisions. Download it now to learn more! And don’t forget to visit our blog for more tips and advice.

As your organization evaluates cloud migration, it’s critical to understand the security challenges in cloud computing. Security is a top concern for many businesses, so before you move your company’s data and services to the cloud, you must understand how to mitigate any potential risk. Understanding data protection during cloud migration is essential for an effective migration strategy. The first step in this process is understanding the potential risks of migrating your organization to the cloud.

After all, not every business can trust third parties with its data. But with the proper security measures in place, moving to a cloud platform can benefit almost any business.

Download our infographic to understand how to reduce cloud migration security risks in a quick overview, and continue reading the blog for more information.

What Is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving an organization’s data, applications, and other business elements from on-premises data centers to cloud computing services. Several types of cloud computing are available, including public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud, each with its own benefits and challenges. Cloud migration requires careful planning and execution to ensure that sensitive information remains secure and protected from data breaches.

Moving apps, data, and other digital assets from an on-premises data center to the cloud is also cloud migration. These may be programs that have been specially created for the organizations or ones that they have licensed from a different vendor. There are various methods for moving to the cloud, including:

• “Lift and shift” refer to moving apps as-is.
• Modifying applications slightly to facilitate their cloud migration
• Application rebuilding or remodeling to make them more suitable for a cloud environment
• Changing from legacy applications that don’t support the cloud to new ones that cloud vendors offer.
• “Cloud-native development” refers to the process of creating new cloud-based apps.

What is CSPM?

What are the Key Benefits of Cloud Migration?

The advantages of the cloud, which include hosting applications and data in a highly effective IT environment that can increase factors like cost, performance, and security, are the overarching goal of most cloud migrations.

Elastic scalability, a need to reduce costs or convert from a capital expenditure to an operating expenses model, and a requirement for new technologies, services, or features only available in a cloud environment are essential drivers for cloud migration.

The flexibility of corporate IT teams to deliver new services and expand the company to meet changing business requirements is enhanced by cloud computing, which is maybe even more significant.

Security Risks of Cloud Migration

Because cloud migration is susceptible to several attacks, careful planning is required. Sensitive data is exchanged during migration, leaving it open to attack. Additionally, attackers may obtain access to unsecured development, test, or production environments at different points in a migration project.

Plan your cloud migration efforts in advance of the following dangers:

Application Programming Interface (API) vulnerabilities: APIs serve as communication routes between environments. At every step of the cloud migration process, APIs must be protected.

Blind spots: Using the cloud requires giving up some operational control. Before migrating, check the security your cloud provider offers and how to enhance it with supplemental third-party security solutions.

Compliance requirements: Verify that your intended cloud environment complies with the necessary standards. This comprises the organization’s protocols for ensuring the security of cloud workloads, data, and access, as well as compliance certifications issued by the cloud provider. As part of the standards for compliance, all of these may be audited and will be.

Unchecked Growth: Moving to the cloud is a continuous process. The company will probably add more resources, use new cloud services, and add more apps after moving applications to the cloud. Once SaaS apps are up and operating in the cloud, it is normal to begin employing more SaaS applications. A significant operational problem exists in securing these new services and applications effectively.

Data loss: Moving to the cloud requires the transfer of data. If there are issues with the migration process, it is crucial to ensure that data is backed up. With rigorous key management, all data is transferred across encrypted channels.

5 Ways to Mitigate Cloud Migration Security Risks

Here are a few cloud security best practices that can help improve security during and after cloud migrations:

1. Develop a Plan– Planning before migration and executing successfully is essential. Use automated tools and optimization to outline the expertise, resources, and tooling you need to start.
2. Start Small- To reduce the fear and accelerate cloud adoption, start with an automatic workload lift and shift over in small portions.
3. Leverage SaaS Adoption– Utilize your business units to promote cloud adoption by investing in Software-as-a-Service.
4. Set Security Standards– Develop baseline security standards by collaborating with your governance team.
5. Use Managed Services- Organizations should monitor their cloud security posture from the control plan to asset configuration. They can partner with a Managed Services Provider for efficient migration.

Conclusion

Migrating to the cloud can be a great way to boost your company’s productivity and scalability. But it’s essential to understand the security risks first. The best way to mitigate these risks is to work with a reputable cloud provider committed to data security.

Having the right security practices in place for your team is also important. With the proper security measures, you can enjoy all the benefits of migrating to the cloud. That’s why we have created an infographic to help you out. Download today and get started with your cloud migration.

Microsoft Teams Blows Up: Thousands Of Users Unable to Access Microsoft Teams App

On Thursday morning, Microsoft Teams went down, making the Teams app unavailable to thousands of users. Moreover, most business users were unable to log in with their organizational accounts and access their private chat messages and files. In a statement confirming the outage, Microsoft said it was looking into a problem where users could not access Microsoft Teams or use any of the app’s functions.

Update

July 21 – After an hours-long outage affecting tens of thousands of clients worldwide, Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT.O) MS Teams was back up for most users, the corporation said on Thursday.

A recent software upgrade that “included a faulty connection to an internal storage service” was blamed for the issue by the corporation.

“We’re addressing any residual impact related to this event. Additionally, we are monitoring for any signs of failure until we’re confident that all functions of the service are fully recovered,” the company said on its website.

What Happened?

According to the outage monitoring website Downdetector.com, Microsoft’s Teams app was inaccessible to more than 3,000 users.

Microsoft’s official account tweeted that it has received from users who were unable to use any features or access Microsoft Teams. The IT giant added that it is looking into the matter.

We’ve received reports of users being unable to access Microsoft Teams or leverage any features. We’re investigating the issue and further updates can be found in your Service Health Dashboard via TM402718.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 21, 2022

The Redmond, Washington-based company traced the outage to “a recent deployment that featured a failed link to an internal storage service.” However, it did not specify how many people were impacted.

Businesses use MS Teams extensively because it allows employees to organize their workflow, communicate internally, and send messages to one another.

According to Downdetector.com, which analyzes outages by collecting status updates from sources, including user-submitted faults on its platform, more than 4,800 customers reported problems with Microsoft Teams on Wednesday.

According to Downdetector, there were more than 1,457 affected users. Additionally, the site monitoring company revealed that more than 150 instances of users claiming problems with Microsoft Office 365 occurred.

Microsoft tweeted that it had determined the downstream effects of Teams integration on several Microsoft 365 services, including Microsoft Word, Office Online, and SharePoint Online.

“We’ve taken action to reroute a portion of traffic to provide some relief within the environment,” it said.

As the demand for remote business-oriented teleconferencing and messaging tools surged and became a crucial component for organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic as people worked from homes, Microsoft stated in its earnings call in January that Teams had surpassed 270 million monthly active users.

A nearly six-hour long outage at Meta Platforms in October prevented millions of users from accessing WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, among other major digital companies that have also had outages in the past year.

Final Thoughts

It is unlikely that Microsoft will bring significant changes to Teams in the immediate future. It’s an excellent opportunity for you to take a closer look at the product to see if it’s a good fit for your organization.

Protected Harbor enables your company to securely collaborate and share information with employees, customers, partners, and suppliers with enterprise-grade security, compliance, and reliability. You will get a secure environment where your information is protected, and your team can communicate with each other without worrying about data security. You can now manage all your files, documents, and data securely.

With advanced compliance settings and auditable record keeping, you can control who has access to what information and meet regulatory requirements. You can also retain control of your data through encrypted backups and the ability to export information when necessary. With a single sign-on, you can access files from anywhere and invite others to collaborate with you. So what are you waiting for? Contact us today for a free demo.

A Quick Guide to Proactive Cybersecurity Measures: How to Keep Yourself Safe From Hackers

Cybersecurity has become an important topic in today’s society. In the digital age, cybersecurity is critical to protecting data and intellectual property from unauthorized access, modification, disclosure, or destruction. However, cyber threats continue to grow in number and sophistication. A recent study by Intel Security found that 66% of businesses experienced at least one cyberattack during the year 2021. Cybersecurity for small businesses is important because they are often easy targets for cybercriminals who seek to steal sensitive data or disrupt operations, leading to significant financial losses and reputational damage. As more organizations are confronted with this reality, many have also begun to realize their current security measures aren’t enough.

In this blog post, we will unpack some proactive cybersecurity measures you can take to protect your organization’s data and reduce your risk of being a victim of cybercrime.

What is Proactive Cybersecurity?

Proactive cybersecurity is an organization’s effort to protect its data and software systems from threats before they happen. A proactive approach to cybersecurity can help organizations to stay ahead of emerging threats by using data-driven insights, continuous monitoring, and risk assessments. There are many ways to implement proactive cybersecurity measures.

Focusing on cybersecurity policies and procedures is a great place to start. You can also consider implementing tools that automate security tasks, such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR).

Cyber-Threat Analysis

When adopting proactive cybersecurity measures, there are various risks your company can face. To determine your top cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, you must do a thorough threat analysis. You’ll want to know how many cyber attacks happen daily based on your sector, geography, and relevant exposure. You must be aware of your defenses’ weak and strong points. Additionally, you must have a specific cybersecurity attack and defensive strategy.

Cybersecurity threats can come from various sources, including human error, natural disasters, hardware failures, malicious software, unsecured networks, and more. Before implementing proactive cybersecurity measures, you should analyze your organization’s cyber threats. You can use cyber threat modeling to identify the most significant risks to your organization. This process maps the threats to your organization and involves breaking down the organization’s infrastructure into components and mapping the threats against them.

What You Can Learn from Cyber Threat Analysis Are:

Assets: System administrators and cybersecurity experts should identify and safeguard the most critical assets in your organization. This includes sensitive data, intellectual property, and critical systems.

Attack vectors: Attacks can come from a variety of sources. The most common attack vectors include infected websites, malicious code, unsecured networks, and social engineering tactics.

Controls: You can use threat modeling to identify the controls and protect your assets. This will help you determine where additional controls might be needed.

Educate Your Team

One important proactive cybersecurity measure is to ensure that your team understands the potential threats facing your organization and how they can reduce their risk of being attacked. This can be done through regular cybersecurity training that educates employees on best practices and how they can contribute to better cybersecurity. It can also help them learn how to protect themselves and their colleagues.

Threat Hunting

Cyber threat hunting continuously monitors networks and systems to identify malicious activity and threats in real-time. During threat hunting, you should also look for information that could be useful in tracking down and identifying potential attackers. This will allow you to respond to threats and attacks quickly. It could be an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a sophisticated cyber-attack, or even an insider threat. Regardless of the potential attack, the threat-hunting process can help you identify the nature of the threat and take the appropriate action to mitigate it before any real impacts on your business.

Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is testing your cybersecurity measures by breaking into your own systems. You can also refer to this as ethical hacking or red teaming. Once you have identified a potential threat, you can use penetration testing to simulate the attack and determine the outcome of this threat. This will help you understand the threat’s risk and choose the best way to respond to it. A vulnerability assessment is also an essential tool to use during a penetration test. It will help you to identify areas of your network where you are at risk of being attacked. It is important to remember that penetration testing is only a simulation and will help your business down the road.

Get Help

The cyber threats facing organizations today are constantly growing. Proactive cybersecurity measures must be implemented to protect your organization’s data and intellectual property. This includes cyber threat analysis, educating your team, threat hunting, and penetration testing.

Now, one final proactive cybersecurity measure we recommend is to get help. Even well-resourced organizations often struggle to fully protect themselves from cyber threats. Therefore, engaging with cybersecurity experts who can help your organization improve its cybersecurity posture is important. Working with our team at Protected Harbor is also essential as it provides an unbiased third-party perspective that can help you to identify vulnerabilities you may be unaware of.

Calling in the experts is the most straightforward preventative cybersecurity strategy for if this all sounds a bit overwhelming. You and your IT team may feel less pressure if you enlist a group of professionals to assist at each stage, and your organization may be better protected.

Let our staff of cybersecurity professionals start taking preventative steps to secure your company. Get in touch with Protected Harbor today to learn more about our Threat Monitoring, Detection, & Response services.

Load Balancing: What is it and How Can it Help You?

With the rise of cloud computing, IT departments must shift their focus to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. To meet these new demands, many IT departments are looking to virtualization to reduce operating costs while increasing uptime and flexibility. In this post, we will learn more about load balancing and how it can help optimize your systems.

What is Load Balancing?

Load balancing is the process of distributing a workload across multiple servers or resources. The goal behind load balancing is to optimize resource usage while improving performance. This is commonly used to distribute network traffic and database or application requests across multiple servers. In the business world, load balancing can be extremely helpful in managing peak traffic as well as ensuring that systems remain responsive regardless of the number of users.

For example, suppose you have a database that receives an extremely high number of requests, more than it can typically handle. In this case, load balancing can distribute that load onto other databases in order to spread the work across a larger group of sources.

By using load balancing, it helps to prevent overworking servers. It also avoids:

• Slowdowns
• Dropped requests
• Server failures

How does Load Balancing work?

Load balancing can be performed:

• By physical servers: hardware load balancers
• By virtualized servers: software load balancers
• As a cloud service: Load Balancer as a Service (LBaaS), such as AWS Elastic

An Application Delivery Controller (ADC) with load balancing capabilities can also perform load balancing, as can specialized load balancers.

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model’s Layer 4 or Layer 7 are where load balancers direct traffic. They promote their address as the service or website’s destination IP address. Incoming client requests are received by balancers, who then choose which servers will handle each request:

• Balancers at Layer 4 (L4 OSI Transport layer) do not examine the contents of individual packets. They employ Network Address Translation (NAT) to route requests and responses between the chosen server and the client. They rely their routing decisions on the port and IP addresses of the incoming packets.
• Traffic is routed by Layer 7 (L7 OSI Application layer) balancers at the application level. They go through each bundle of incoming content and inspect it. In contrast to an L4 balancer, L7 balancers use diverse criteria to direct client requests to particular servers, including HTTP headers, SSL session IDs, and content categories (text, graphics, video, etc.).

An L4 server requires less processing power than an L7 balancer. Because they determine their route on context-based characteristics, they may be more effective.

• Additionally offered is Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB). GSLBs can direct traffic between servers spread out geographically and housed in on-premise data centers, public clouds, or private clouds. GSLBs are typically set up to route client requests to the geographical server that is nearest to them or to the servers with the fastest response times.

What are the Benefits of Load Balancing?

There are numerous benefits to load balancing, including:

• Efficiency: To avoid a server overload, load balancers spread requests across the WAN (Wide Area Network) and the internet. By having multiple servers to handle numerous requests concurrently, they also lengthen the response time.
• Flexibility: As needed, servers can be added to and withdrawn from server groups. Processing can be interrupted for maintenance or upgrades on a single server.
• High Availability: Only active servers are sent traffic via load balancers. Other servers can still process requests even if one fails. Numerous massive commercial sites like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have thousands of load balancing and related app servers deployed across the globe. Small businesses can also use load balancers to guide traffic to backup servers.
• Redundancy: Processing will continue even in the event of a server failure, thanks to many servers.
• Scalability: When demand rises, additional servers can be deployed automatically to a server group without interrupting services. Servers can also be removed from the group without impacting service after high-volume traffic events are over.

GSLB offers several further advantages over conventional load balancing configurations, including:

• Disaster Recovery: Other load balancers at various centers worldwide can pick up the traffic.
• Compliance: If a local data center outage occurs. Configuring a load balancer to comply with local legal standards is possible.
• Performance: Network latency can be reduced by closest server routing.

Common Load Balancing Algorithms

Load balancers use algorithms to choose where to send client requests. Several of the more popular load-balancing algorithms are as follows:

Least Connection Method: The servers with the fewest active connections are sent to clients.

Less Bandwidth Approach: According to which server is handling the least amount of bandwidth-intensive traffic, clients are directed to that server.

Least Time for Response: Server routing takes place based on each server’s generated quickest response time. The least response time is occasionally combined with the least connection method to establish a two-tiered balancing system.

Hashing Techniques: Establishing connections between particular clients and servers using client network packets’ data, such as the user’s IP address or another form of identification.

Round Robin: A rotation list is used to connect clients to the servers in a server group. The first client connects to server 1, the second to server 2, and so forth before returning to server 1 when the list is complete.

Load Balancing Scenarios

The methods described here can implement load balancing in various situations. Several of the most typical use cases for load balancing include:

• App servicing: Enhancing general web, mobile, and on-premises performance.
• Network Load Balancing: Evenly distributing requests too frequently accessed internal resources, like email servers, file servers, video servers, and for business continuity, which are not cloud-based.
• Network Adapters:Using separate network adapters to service the same servers using load balancing techniques.
• Database Balancing:Distributing data requests among servers to improve responsiveness, integrity, and reliability.

A fundamental networking linear function of load balancing can be applied everywhere to evenly distribute workloads among various computing resources. It is an essential part of every network.

Key Takeaway

Load Balancing is a crucial component of distributed and scalable deployments on either public or private cloud. Each cloud vendor offers a variety of load balancing solutions that combine the rules above. Some of the most well-known: Azure, AWS, and GCP, offer load balancing services.

High-traffic websites choose Protected Harbor’s load-balancing services because they are the finest in their field. Our software-based load balancing is far less expensive compared to the hardware-based solutions with comparable features.

Thanks to comprehensive load balancing capabilities, you may create a network for delivering well-efficient applications.

Your website’s effectiveness, performance, and dependability are all improved when our technology is used as a load balancer in front of your farm of applications and web servers. You can enhance client happiness and the return on your IT investments with the support of Protected Harbor.

We are currently offering free IT audits for a limited time, so contact us today.