I feel like there should be a warning content on the video we‘re sharing with you this week. What you will hear from the cyber crook is chilling. Sobering. Down right scary, for some.

But first, how did we come to have this video?

In addition to being cloud experts and providers of IT advice and managed services to large enterprises, we are security specialists. As you’d expect, it’s critical we stay on top of all trends and the latest developments in security-related challenges and technology solutions. That way, we can ensure we are truly well-equipped to protect our clients’ clouds, edges, networks and endpoints. In addition to all the courses that all professionals in our industry take, we also need to stay on top of what’s going on with cybercriminals.

So… we went out and conducted research on actual cyber criminals. We even got to talk to a few. We created a script from our compiled notes, ran it past our friendly felon, then arranged for the exposé to be recorded. Although what you hear may surprise you, we have been told that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I urge you to listen to the video because 2020 saw double-digit breach increases – and that the pattern is repeating itself in 2021. Hacking and ransomware are big business. Billion dollar businesses. The quintessential hacker in the hoodie has been replaced by enterprise-level organisations with sophisticated processes to target vulnerable accounts.

Professional cyber criminals are taking advantage of how the pandemic forced everyone to live and work online for hours each day. With hybrid work becoming our “new normal”, and the cloud, edge and endpoints needing to be protected to secure your network – a network that is, and will remain, highly-distributed – it’s especially critical to look at your security, because the crooks certainly are.

Some of the comments from the cyber crooks:

“I don’t think twice about it. I figured these big companies have deep pockets or good insurance. Besides, it’s easy, more fun than Sudoku and the hourly rate is great once you get the hang of it.”
~ from a young woman who works out of a coffee shop, treats like any 9 to 5 job.

This one was a little hard to hear because it drove home the reality that seemingly “normal” people are being hired by enterprise-level hackers and trained to carry a breach attacks on all types of organisations and businesses.

“The real money’s in deep phishing, you know, spearphishing. I log in, get my brief – it has the code in it – and go. That’s a little harder. Sometimes a lot harder if the company trains its people. But most of them don’t. Or their people forget, or they just get lazy after a while.”

“You know, the pandemic’s actually been pretty good for me. Well, it was until I got caught, anyhow. There was something about people working from home that made it easier. Some didn’t seem to have security anymore. Or maybe they just weren’t being as careful.” ~ a cybercriminal who targets schools, hospitals and municipalities

“My job tells me to target people’s clouds ‘cuz not all get protected. Or not much. Makes it easier, and I’m in more, so I make more because a piece of the action is for me.”  ~ a hacker

We offer KnowBe4 to clients and receive their Cyberheist newsletter.  In this week’s edition, there were two corroborating and disturbing comment:

1. “There was an 87% increase in social engineering scams during the first quarter of 2021 compared to Q1 2020, according to Ayelet Biger-Levin from BioCatch.”

2. “…cyber criminals are acting like venture capital investors, funding startup cyber criminal organizations, such as Darkside Ransomware… the cybercrime ecosystem that is continuing to grow.

Now, it just makes sense that because some of these groups have made literally tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, they are doing what any other successful businessperson would do with a lot of capital – invest it.

… the ransomware ecosystem is creating its own venture capital model with ransomware gangs backing new cybercriminal startups in exchange for a percentage of future earnings.

This has serious ramifications; the next generation of malware now has money backing it. That means more organized development teams, faster time to market, and more effective ransomware.”

From the above comments, and what you’ll hear in the video, it’ clear that from spearphishing to social engineering, cyber crooks, system hackers and all-round bad actors are wreaking IT havoc. It’s the stuff of IT professionals’ nightmares. We can help you stop them in their tracks – or at least make it a lot harder for them to truly hurt impact you, your network and team. We can also make it harder for internal breaches to occur.

In short, we can help ensure there is less likelihood of your organisation getting hit and that if – or should I say, “When”? – you get breached, that you will be back up and running very, very quickly, with virtually no downtime, data loss or reputation destruction.

Please give us a call – we’d love to help you sleep better at night.

Contact us at [email protected] or (416) 429-0796 or 1.877.238.9944 (Toll Free).