When Every Server, Every Computer, and Every Cell Phone Is Hacked

 24 de octubre de 2023|ciberseguridad, Data Protection, hacked, ransomware 

https://s4-sa.com/english/f/when-every-server-every-computer-and-every-cell-phone-is-hacked

In today’s digital age, the security of your data is paramount. For medium to large-sized company owners, the threat of data breaches and ransomware attacks can be devastating. In this blog post, we’ll explore the concept of Point-Data-Defense, an approach to data security, which focuses on safeguarding what must stay secure – your most critical data itself – and not the system hardware components. For your company: Is it your research and development data? Is it your CRM data? Is it a combination? What must survive intact when everything else fails. 

Protecting Data, Not Just Devices: The traditional approach to data security, which places the emphasis primarily on securing the physical infrastructure – servers, routers, PCs, cell and phones – has long been the prevailing strategy. The logic is straightforward: If you can fortify the device, you can inherently protect the data residing on it. However, history and a crowd of cyberattacks have shown that this concept is fundamentally flawed. 

Let’s delve into the reasons why relying solely on device security is a failure: 

Devices ARE Vulnerable: No device is entirely invulnerable. Hardware, servers, and even advanced routers all have their vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals are continually looking for weaknesses in these physical components and exploiting them to gain access to the data they are meant to protect. The failure lies in the assumption that securing the device guarantees the safety of the data, an assumption that history has repeatedly disproved. 

The True Value is in the Data: Data is the lifeblood of any business. It’s what drives operations, decision-making, and competitiveness. Protecting the device is a means to an end; the end being the safeguarding of this invaluable data. The flaw in focusing solely on the device is that it misses the core asset – the data itself. 

Attacks Evolve, Devices Remain Constant: Cyber threats evolve at a breathtaking pace. New attack vectors emerge daily, and attackers are relentless in exploiting the latest vulnerabilities. Devices, on the other hand, remain relatively constant, and they are not equipped to adapt to the ever-changing threat landscape. Relying on device security to counter these dynamic threats is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. 

Data Exists Beyond Devices: In today’s interconnected world, data is not confined to a single device or server. It’s stored in databases, transmitted across networks, processed in memory, and even resides on the cloud. An exclusive focus on device security neglects these various data states and leaves them exposed to threats. 

A Paradigm Shift: To combat these limitations and to fortify data security comprehensively, Point-Data-Defense fundamentally shifts the approach to cybersecurity to focusing on data, which is the crown jewel of every business, and prioritizing its protection above all else. 

Data-Centric Security:  In a data-centric security approach, the primary focus is on safeguarding the data, regardless of where it resides or how it’s being utilized. This means applying security measures directly to the data itself, ensuring it always remains protected. 

Starting at the Top: The approach to Point-Data-Defense starts at the top layers of the system where your data is actively used and interacts with all users, including administrators. This approach is securing data first, ensuring its protection even if the device is compromised. By focusing on web browsers, databases, applications, and connections between devices, you build a strong defense around the heart of your operations and your data. 

Seamless Protection: Point-Data-Defense becomes seamless protection for your data at every stage, whether it’s in transit, at rest (including databases), in memory, or even against interception by operating systems. This creates no gaps for cyber attackers to exploit, reducing the risk from a wide range of security threats, including malicious insiders, careless insiders, intrusion and improper access, impersonation, spoofing, phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, ransomware, and zero-day vulnerabilities. 

Transitioning from Detection to Prevention: By allowing only authenticated application endpoints to interact with your data, you create a barrier against attacks and improper access. This is further enhanced by rules that define which users can access the data and what they can do with it.  

Policy-Driven Security: Configuration of critical communication and security parameters can be done centrally and adjusted on the fly. This is the flexibility that security policies align with corporate standards and provide added protection as needed.  

Not just can they copy protected data – Yes or No? Or, can they print it – Yes or No? But, the ability to define a complete list of parameters, such as do you automatically rotate encryption keys every hour or every five minutes? These types of parameters further assist to enhance the preventive capabilities of the Point-Data-Defense approach.  

The technology prevents intrusion, improper access, and tampering with data, offering precise controls over data usage, even enabling remote retraction and destruction of data connected to the internet. This means that even in the event of a compromised or stolen device, your data remains secure. 

Protective Closed Systems Enhanced Security: virtual closed systems ensure that only authorized users and application endpoints can participate. This barrier is a powerful tool in safeguarding your data against both external and internal threats. 

Rapid Integration and Flexibility: Because Point-Data-Defense is API driven it provides the flexibility to integrate rapidly into new or existing applications. Not only to expedite the process but also to save time and cost. It works across various technical platforms, ensuring compatibility with your existing systems without requiring specialized cybersecurity expertise. 

In this sense, Point-Data-Defense Security can be analogized as a set of versatile API building blocks, much like a box of blocks we played with as children. Each API and function represents a unique block piece, with its own purpose and capability. They can be stacked and connected to create custom applications tailored to your specific needs. 

Just as you can assemble play blocks to construct various shapes and structures, these API’s enable you to snap into your applications with different functionalities that can Control Data Usage or Enforce Your Data Policies and more. You can also dictate what happens when someone attempts to violate one of those controls and define the consequences of such actions, further expanding data security. 

This modular approach simplifies the process of enhancing existing application functionality or building something entirely new. 

The beauty of this is that this added level of security doesn’t require extensive development time or complexity. Just by plugging in the appropriate API, internal or external developers can fortify your application against advanced threats, saving both time and financial resources.  

Cloud Security: While many cloud providers offer some security measures, Point-Data-Defense can be extended into cloud environment providing an additional layer of security that exceeds significantly what’s currently available.  

Protection for BYOD: Allowing employees to use their personal devices to work can be a security risk. However, this approach separates corporate data from personal data, ensuring the security of your data without invading user privacy. 

Enhanced Backup and Recovery: Backups are encrypted, and during recovery, encryption keys are used to unlock the data securely. This simplifies the recovery process, making it more efficient and less vulnerable to threats. 

Balancing Compression and Encryption: The approach combines compression and encryption without compromising performance. This innovative method ensures that data can be securely transferred without sacrificing speed or security. 

A Trustworthy Barrier Defense Against Ransomware and Threats: The Point-Data-Defense approach keeps ransomware threats at bay by creating a virtual, protective barrier that allows applications to trust each other and securely communicate. This extends even to external elements embedded within applications, such as cameras or media viewers, preventing access to data. Even in the event of a compromised device, your data remains safe reducing the risk of data and financial damage.  

Fault-Tolerance Solutions: For businesses looking to ensure high availability, full roll-over load balancing enhances fault tolerance. 

Scalability and Seamlessness: Point-Data-Defense can scale from a single application to a complete security foundation that allows legacy, Commercial Off-The-Shelf, and modern applications to protect their data with common credentials, policies, and security administration procedures.  

This approach seamlessly protects the entire lifecycle of your data. It enables security officers to set and dynamically reconfigure policies governing information communication and cybersecurity automatically and transparently, without requiring the development or redistribution of applications, or even reboots. 

Conclusion: It’s important to remember that in the end, what we’re all trying to protect is the data. That is literally the foundation of our entire job. It’s not important to get caught up in the noise of the latest device security trends or the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. While these aspects have their place, they are merely a means to an end, and that end is the security and integrity of your most valuable asset – your data. That is what Point-Data-Defense focuses on.