Since the inception of digital technology, industries have been growing around the world at a rapid pace to keep up with rising customer demands. Numerous companies have entered the market to be a part of this startup race. With this, we have witnessed many of them have become unicorns. In fact, India is 3rd biggest country for startups with more than 60 unicorns after USA and China. Amidst these developments, eScan research team has observed a remarkable change in workflow management across industries following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Increased dependency on digital platforms, cloud computing, and interconnected corporate devices creates potential exposure of the organization’s key data to plenty of cyber threats. In 2024, cybercrime is expected to cost the world around $9.5 trillion each year according to the report published by Cybersecurity Ventures. To achieve firm’s success and keep it sustained for a long time, the management needs to tick certain crucial checkmarks in their key business fundamentals.
Considering the rising fear of digital threats and the unimaginable consequences they can cause, spreading cybersecurity awareness globally is imperative. eScan, a globally esteemed player in the industry, actively supports this cause. As part of our efforts, we welcome you to this blog discussing one of the key components of corporate risk management: Cybersecurity.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is a combination of technologies and processes designed to protect networks and connected endpoints from unauthorized access or attacks. eScan, India’s leading cybersecurity provider with its wide range of cybersecurity products helps businesses and enterprises safeguard their corporate devices, networks, and connected endpoints. This is securely achieved with the help of exceptional technologies clubbed with uncompromised research and development.
Businesses can be run on various scales like small, medium, and large scale. To facilitate the operations, multiple departments are required to be established which depends upon the business nature and number of required employees. Hence, different businesses require different levels of cybersecurity solutions. Keeping this common fact in mind, eScan has designed multiple security solutions to cater to all types of client organizations including small businesses, medium businesses, and corporates/enterprises.
Evolving Threats And Potential Harms
As businesses continue to integrate technology into their operations, cybersecurity threats have grown to be complex and sophisticated. For cybercriminals, corporates are particularly attractive targets due to the huge amounts of confidential data they manage, the critical nature of their operations, and the potential for big financial gain they can release. We have a small piece of data for you about recent cyber-attacks, but first, let’s explore some of the evolving cyber threats that corporate firms face today.
Zero-day Exploits
Zero-day exploits are cyber-attacks that leverage software vulnerabilities that are unknown to the software vendor, and hence there is no patch available to fix them. These threats bring significant concern because of their ability to escape traditional security measures. The term Zero-day indicates the fact that the software vendor had no knowledge of vulnerability (or in simpler word, a bug) affecting the involved software and hence the same could not be addressed and patched.
Ransomware Attacks
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts data from an endpoint, denying access to the victim. The attacker demands a ransom from the user in exchange for the decryption key. Nowadays, ransomware attacks have become more sophisticated and commonly target high-value organizations. These attacks can lead to significant financial losses and severe damage to the company’s reputation, hence, advanced ransomware protection has become a necessity.
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)
APTs are cyber threats that involve prolonged attacks on a network where the intruder gains unauthorized access and remains undetected for a significant amount of time. Typically, criminals use APTs to steal or leak sensitive data without causing any immediate and noticeable harm, keeping the threat concealed. APTs often cause data loss, intellectual property theft, and significant financial loss for organizations.
Attacks by Insider Threats
Employees of the organizations are usually granted specific authorizations and privileged access within the system. An insider threat occurs when an employee or group of employees misuse their access to cause a data breach or harm the organization’s equipment, networks, and information.
Rise of LLMs
A Large Language Model (LLM) is a machine learning model based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can recognize input queries by users and generate text-based responses in human language. Some popular LLMs are ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
LLMs themselves cannot be direct threats to anyone. However, their easy availability, user-friendliness, and capabilities such as generating logical and simplified text, coding, answering complicated queries, and problem-solving, make these models particularly lethal. Modern-day LLMs provide hackers with effective and cost-efficient tools, reducing the need for expert knowledge, time, and resources. In short, the major security concern is the potential misuse of these AI-driven programs for large-scale exploitation.
Eight Most Famous And High-Profile Cyber Attacks
| Period | Victim | Victim nation | Attack type | Threat actor / Attackers group |
| April, 2024 | Omni Hotels | USA | Ransomware | Daixin Ransomware |
| May, 2021 | Colonial Pipeline | USA | Ransomware | DarkSide RaaS Ransomware |
| April, 2024 | D.C. (DISB) | USA | Ransomware | LockBit Ransomware |
| April, 2024 | PandaBuy | China | Data Breach | Threat actors: Sanggiero and IntelBoker. |
| November, 2023 | Cambodian Govt. Organizations | Cambodia | APTs | Unknown Chinese APT group |
| February, 2020 | AWS | USA | DDoS Attack | Unknown hacking group |
| August, 2021 | AT&T | USA | Data Breach | ShinyHunters hacking group |
| February, 2023 | Fortra GoAnywhere | USA | Zero-day Attack | Unknown hacking group |
These cyber-attacks highlight the need for strong cybersecurity solutions. To be more precise, organizations must adopt a multi-layered security approach, including regular updates and patches, strong access controls, continuous monitoring, and comprehensive incident response plans. Staying informed about emerging threats and learning from past incidents are crucial steps in protecting against future cyber-attacks.
Below are two key findings from IBM’s threat intelligence report (2024):
- 71% year-on-year rise in cyberattacks involving stolen or compromised credentials.
- 32% part of cyber incidents that included data theft and leakage suggests that a greater number of attackers prefer to steal and sell data instead of encrypting it for extortion.
At eScan, we prioritize simplicity. We offer cybersecurity products tailored to multiple organization sizes and needs. Through the below section, let’s explore the most in-demand and essential technologies, features, and techniques that eScan provides in its range of products.
How eScan Counters Cyber Threats?
With the help of cutting-edge technologies, features, and threat detection techniques, eScan effectively blocks most of the advanced cyber threats without allowing them to initiate their malicious activities. All the threats we discussed above can be effectively restricted by employing appropriate eScan cybersecurity solutions. Let’s explore some of eScan’s prominent capabilities one by one:
Proactive Behavior Analysis Engine (PBAE)
eScan introduces Proactive Behavior Analysis Engine, which monitors all the processes running on eScan-protected endpoints. When PBAE detects activity or behavior indicative of ransomware, it raises an alert and terminates the process to prevent further damage. Since ransomware can encrypt files on a network share, if an infected system tries to modify files on a protected system’s network share, PBAE will immediately abort the network session.
Terminal Services Protection Module (TSPM)
eScan Anti-virus solutions feature a Terminal Services Protection Module that detects brute force attacks, identifies suspicious IP addresses and hosts, and blocks their access attempts to prevent future network attacks.
TSPM plays a critical role in maintaining the integrity and security of terminal services within an organization’s IT infrastructure.
Data Leak Prevention (DLP)
eScan’s DLP is equipped with a comprehensive suite of advanced features and technologies to protect both circulating data within the network and stored data. Additionally, DLP provides email gateway protection to prevent the leakage of sensitive data through emails.
eScan Enterprise DLP helps organizations restrict cyber intrusions like APTs, insider threats, and data breach incidents.
Behavioral Scan
Behavioral scan is a threat monitoring technique employed in eScan’s malware scanning engine to detect suspicious objects or unknown infections in endpoints. It is similar to signature scanning, but instead of searching for specific signatures, it looks for certain instructions or commands within a program, application, and files stored on computers to detect potentially malicious functions.
Behavioral scan effectively prevents severe threats such as Ransomware, Zero-day exploits, Trojans, and several other malware types. It can also counter the attacks involving malicious codes obtained from LLMs.
2FA/MFA
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) aka Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a type of system login authentication. eScan 2FA provides an extra layer of protection to the system log-in processes (local system logon, Safe Mode logon, RDP logon, and more) that effectively prevents criminals and unauthorized users from accessing the computer and personal data. This offers an additional step of security as the intruders require more than just a username and password for authentication. eScan 2FA can significantly restrict cyber-attacks through Insider threats.
Threat Analysis
Threat Analysis is a feature available in eScan’s corporate-grade flagship product, eScan Enterprise EDR. As part of EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) functionality, it stores all generated event logs on a secured server and analyzes threats based on malware type and corruption. Threats are evaluated against rule-based policies, then eventually identified and categorized according to their nature and severity.
Quick Wrap-up
Corporate cybersecurity is an essential aspect of modern business operations, providing the foundation for protecting virtual assets, ensuring continuity, and maintaining customer trust in an increasingly digital world. eScan with its comprehensive range of cybersecurity solutions, addresses the security needs of businesses and enterprises of all sizes, making it an integral part of their Cyber Risk Management strategy.
