In today’s modern and distributed enterprise, it’s more difficult than ever to proactively combat internal and external threats due to a lack of server visibility in the context of user behaviour, application updates and system configuration changes. 

This lack of visibility into data access, usage, modification, movement, upgrades and IP connections creates gaps in ‘intent’ awareness and fails to identify abnormalities that signal increasing risk, such as application deployments, administrative changes and new users.

Business leaders need to rethink server visibility, detection and protection, especially considering the recent attacks on both businesses and the technology platforms they run. In virtually every successful attack there were obvious abnormal superuser account activities, anomalous file downloads and changes in packaged software processes. These attacks all offered ‘indicators of intent’ that should have triggered elevated risk scores and immediate investigative action.

As part of its global expansion strategy, cyber security firm J2 has appointed Roy Alves as its national sales manager.  He will be instrumental in building a cyber security skillset that will enable African businesses to identify and address their cyber capacity needs.  

Having recently worked for Mimecast, Alves has a wealth of experience in the IT security space. He spent more than 12 years educating and building a channel in South Africa and the rest of Africa to support this shift moving from an analogue CCTV to a digital IP surveillance world.

Cybercriminals have shifted their focus to vulnerable employees who now work from home and use personal Internet connections. Business leaders need to educate remote workers on cybersecurity and better computer safety practices or risk having their data compromised.

Malware remains the biggest threat to corporate networks, more costly than any other threat including ransomware and Trojans. A research study conducted by Deep Instinct reports on the hundreds of millions of attempted cyber-attacks that occurred every day throughout 2020 showing malware increased by 358% overall.

Emotet maintained its number one position in the Global Threat Index, highlighting the global impact of this malware. The highly destructive banking Trojan remains the top malware as it has already impacted six percent of organisations globally. This malicious spam campaign uses various delivery techniques to spread the malware, this includes phishing emails, embedded links, attachments and password protected Zip files.