Resolving cyberthreats takes one week, study says

Organizations in the Philippines and the rest of the world take about nearly a week before they address cybersecurity alerts, according to Palo Alto Networks, warning against the increasing digital threats amid the great adoption of cloud-based platforms.

The cybersecurity company, in a report, noted that security teams usually spend 145 hours or about six days to resolve security issues.

The threat actors, Palto Alto noted, were taking advantage of the increasing usage of cloud applications as this gives them a wider attack surface.

“As cloud usage increases in the Philippines and around the world, threat actors take advantage of undiscovered weaknesses and vulnerabilities in this technology to attack organizations,” it noted.

https://business.inquirer.net/314554/stronger-cybersecurity-urged-to-protect-personal-data

Such vulnerabilities include weak credentials and lack of authentication.

Palto Alto, for example, noted that 76 percent of the organizations do not employ multi-factor authentication protection in their systems.

“With an average of 145 hours for teams to resolve a security alert, these malicious attackers have enough time to compromise the shared software supply chain and ambush large numbers of victims simultaneously,” the company stressed.

“Therefore, it’s significant to contain these threats from the very start by eliminating implicit trust and continuously verifying access at every stage to mitigate the impact of threats,” it explained.

In a recent report, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported that online attacks had increased by 29 percent in the country last year. A 45-percent uptick in web threats was observed in the entire Southeast Asia for the period.

https://business.inquirer.net/391346/nearly-50-of-filipinos-battled-web-threats-in-2022

“Last year was a period of reopening for most businesses in Southeast Asia and, unfortunately, so as for cybercriminals,” Kaspersky general manager for Southeast Asia Yeo Siang Tiong said.

“As 2023 will be the first year of fully reopened borders and markets, we encourage companies here to allocate budget and resources to strengthen their defenses against the increasing attacks against their networks,” he added.

Phishing is among the most popular forms of cyberattacks. It is launched via email and text messages, among others, to trick users into giving out their personal information.