Many of you woke up to the news that Russia has invaded Ukraine. I am not a political commentator so I will save that for the experts; however, this will have a real effect on our Cyber Security world moving forward. Let’s face it Russia and China have been equally involved in the drastic rise of cyber hacking in western countries over recent years. However, with this ground invasion and the inevitable tough sanctions that will be announced today at noon, everyone in the cyber community believes that it's about to get worse. CISA, DoD, InfraGard, and many other sources are warning to be on a high state of alert especially for small businesses that are seen as softer targets. https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up
Why would Russia escalate hacking?
This is my take and my opinion only: If the West cuts Russia out of the *SWIFT banking program, it could lead to a catastrophic failure of the Russian economy. Which will mean that not only does Putin become enraged at the gall of the West, but he now needs to raise more capital to support his economy. If we put tight restrictions on where he can sell his oil, then his second biggest GDP revenue generating product is Cyber Crime. Thus, be prepared.
F1 Solutions will continue its monitoring of your network to best practices. We do have security measures in place to try and protect against or recognize these threats and our vendors like Microsoft and Huntress are on elevated alert right now. We have alerted our staff to be cognizant of the new environment we are faced with today. However, if the country of Russia wants into your network, they will get in. So, let’s try to be as hard of a target as possible to get into. I have validated that the links on this page are legitimate and clean.
What you can do:
This morning talk to your staff and tell them to be hypervigilant with not clicking on emails with links or attachments unless from a VERIFIED and Trusted source! Not just emails that look like it's from Bob in HR. Verify before clicking. If you have even a hint that a virus might be on your system, disconnect from the internet (wireless and wired) immediately and contact F1.
If you have had a laptop offline in a corner somewhere that has been there for a week, turn it on so it can get patched.
- *SWIFT is The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication was founded in 1973 to replace the telex and is now used by over 11,000 financial institutions to send secure messages and payment orders. With no globally accepted alternative, it is essential plumbing for global finance.
- Here is a good article to explain what I am talking about https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/investing/swift-russia-ukraine/index.html
