In the ever-evolving digital landscape, businesses face a barrage of digital threats that can jeopardize their operations, reputation, and data security. From DNS hijacking to domain spoofing to counterfeiting and SSL key compromise, each threat poses a unique set of challenges that demand proactive mitigation strategies.
In this comprehensive guide, we explore 7 key cybersecurity threats that businesses encounter and provide high-level context and off-ramps into the mechanisms, risks, and preventive measures associated with each.
Domain Name Infringements & Squatting
Understanding the threat: Impersonation of a domain name through direct domain squatting on less frequently used domain extensions, use of misspellings or lookalike special characters and deploying these for abuse.
Domain name infringements encompass a range of threats, including copycat products, sale of counterfeits, or even stealing credentials, payment information and other sensitive customer data by impersonating a website or application.
An abusive actor with access to an infringing domain name can severely harm brand reputation by associating the brand with any of the above fraudulent tactics.
Mitigation Strategies:
Proactive mitigation: Use brand protection tactics such as Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) registration and domain blocking to prevent unauthorized actors from gaining access to potentially infringing domain names at the time of registration.
Reactive mitigation: Employ domain name monitoring services to detect and take action against infringements.
DNS Hijacking or DNS poisoning
Understanding the threat: DNS (domain name system) is the address book that keeps the internet operational and DNS hijacking is a threat where a bad actor acquires the ability to redirect visitors to a target domain to a destination of their choice for nefarious purposes. This threat is also known as DNS Cache poisoning and the end result is DNS spoofing, where visitors are redirected to a spoofed destination.
DNS hijacking occurs when malicious actors reroute a company’s web visitors to counterfeit websites, with the intent of stealing login credentials and confidential data. This deceptive practice can lead to severe security breaches and reputation damage. While this attack may share similarities with domain infringements in how it causes reputational and/or revenue loss, the key difference is that in DNS hijacking, visitors are visiting the correct domain name, whereas in impersonation scenario, it is usually a lookalike domain name.
DNS hijacking is one of the trickiest cybersecurity threats to detect and mitigate because of the unpredictability of DNS propagation delays, which could give false negative results even while a domain is compromised for several hours.
Mitigation Strategies:
Proactive mitigation:
Employ Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) to authenticate DNS data and implement robust domain registrar account security protocols. Regularly update and patch DNS servers to close vulnerabilities and consider implementing DNS monitoring systems
Reactive mitigation:
Set up alerts for unnaturally substantial changes in server and website traffic, which will warn you in the event of a sudden drop in traffic, which would occur if a domain name is spoofed. You can also set up notifications for large changes to your DNS which can detect a major compromise in routing behaviour.
Expired or Abandoned Domain Names
Understanding the threat: Expired or Abandoned Domain Names are a result of insufficiently robust processes for monitoring and maintaining vital digital assets.
While the premise of a missed domain renewal can appear trivial, it is vital to understand how trust works on the internet to truly recognize the scope of this threat. Trust on the internet typically relies on 2 factors: history and network effects. To elaborate, if a customer or an entity such as an SSL TLS certificate authority has previously verified that a domain name is associated with an organization, they are likely to believe that it belongs to the same organization today as well. Similarly, if several web directories, and news articles use a particular domain name in conjunction with an organization, the network effects imply that the domain is still used by that organization, even though all the news may be several years old.
Abandoned corporate domain names can carry a “footprint” of previous activity, making them an attractive attack vector. Cybercriminals can exploit these domains for malicious purposes to hoodwink customers, to issue SSL certificates and add a layer of credibility to their attempts to commit fraud.
Mitigation Strategies:
Proactive mitigation: Implement a robust domain name renewal process, and a clearly defined process for domain audits and sunsetting domain assets that are no longer required for the business. These and other measures such as quadruple secured domain transfers are some of the reasons why large Canadian corporations choose Webnames Corporate Domain Management for their domain portfolios.
Reactive mitigation: Continuously monitor and reclaim expired or abandoned domains to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.
Subdomain Hijacking
Understanding the threat: Subdomain Hijacking as the name suggests is a threat whereby a malicious actor takes control of a subdomain of a legitimate website. This can be used for various malicious activities, including phishing and malware distribution. This can occur as a consequence of a compromised server or node where the subdomain was hosted or as the subtle beginning of a DNS attack, since a redirected subdomain may be harder to detect than the root domain.
Subdomains make for attractive targets for fraudsters because they can often be verified by wildcard SSL certificates, and bypass most sophisticated automated checks for impersonation and scams since they are a legitimate node under a verified domain name. Imagine a scenario where a subdomain was pointed to a server for a short-term marketing campaign, and then abandoned. If not decommissioned with care, a nefarious actor who manages to gain access to the server can wreak havoc and potentially sell counterfeit goods, steal customer data and credentials or even mount corporate espionage campaigns.
Mitigation Strategy: Regularly review and secure subdomains, and implement strong access controls, with periodic audits and clearly defined accountable teams or owners for each subdomain.
Expired Digital Certificates
Understanding the threat: Digital Certificates are a critical component of ensuring secure data transfer between websites and their visitors in an encrypted communication channel. It is highly recommended that all data transfer via a network, whether on the internet or on the intranet is encrypted with an SSL certificate. Learn more about risks of expired digital certificates.
Organizations often require a large volume of digital certificates for secure communications. When these certificates are not renewed before expiration, businesses become susceptible to cyber threats. Expired certificates can lead to security breaches and disruption of services including the risk of compromised passwords, financial information, intellectual property and more.
Mitigation Strategies:
Implement an enterprise SSL certificate management system to track and renew certificates before they expire.
DDoS Attacks
Understanding the threat: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming it with a deluge of internet traffic. These attacks can lead to downtime that could lead to severe disruption of online services that could then lead to revenue losses and reputational harm.
Mitigation Strategy:
Invest in robust DDoS mitigation services and deploy load balancing to distribute traffic effectively. DDoS protection can also be implemented at the DNS level, for a multi-layered approach to protection.
Phishing
Understanding the threat: Phishing is a deceptive practice wherein cybercriminals use creative methods to obtain sensitive data, often leading to corporate data breaches, credit card fraud, and identity theft. The potential for reputational damage, legal action, and data privacy fines is immense.
Phishing relies on human psychology and uses emotions such as fear, anxiety, FOMO to induce individuals to click on links, or fill out web forms in a hurry, thereby missing signs that may suggest that a website is not legitimate or an email is not from who it claims to be. Phishing when executed in a targeted fashion against specific individuals, typically in a leadership role is known as ‘Whaling’. This can be deployed to devastating effect since these individuals often have privileged access and may not face the usual level of security scrutiny.
Mitigation Strategy:
Regularly train employees to recognize phishing attempts, run mock attacks to evaluate organizational preparedness, deploy email filtering systems, and regularly update security policies. Also implement DMARC, SPF and DKIM on your email domains so that your staff and customers get alerted by email clients if a bad actor attempts a phishing campaign impersonating your brands.
Vigilance, preparedness, and resilience – the holy grail of enterprise cybersecurity
The digital landscape is fraught with an array of threats that can undermine the security, reputation, and operations of businesses. To safeguard against these perils, businesses must both adopt a proactive approach to cybersecurity and devise playbooks to respond in the event of a compromise. It is vital that staff are educated about risks and are aware of back-up channels for secure business communications, so that operations are not paralyzed by shock and to help implement business continuity protocols.
By staying informed about the diverse range of digital threats and implementing robust mitigation strategies, organizations can navigate the digital realm with confidence, ensuring their continued success and resilience in an ever-evolving digital ecosystem.
Remember, the battle against digital threats is ongoing, and a vigilant, proactive stance is the key to safeguarding your business against these ever-evolving challenges.