A couple of weeks ago, Western Digital suffered a major cyber incident.
Threat actors hacked into the company’s system. Many of their services, including the cloud, went offline for two weeks.
Who was behind the attack?
The ransomware group known as BlackCat (and sometimes ALPHV) claims they are responsible for the incident.
To show they have access to Western Digital’s network (a month after the breach), the group shared a screenshot of a videoconference showing the team meeting formed to respond to the breach.
This stunt was the threat actor’s way of putting even more pressure on the company that hadn’t responded to their demands.
The group is currently threatening to leak sensitive user data, code-signing keys, firmware, and other intellectual information they obtained in the initial attack.
Whether you use or offer cloud-based services, your infrastructure is prone to compromised access to the network and possible data breaches that follow.
How can businesses protect themselves from such attacks?
One solution that is designed to safeguard both the network and the cloud is Secure Access Service Edge (or SASE).
Here, we break down SASE into its components and explore their role in the protection of cloud environments.
Major Capabilities of SASE Solutions
SASE is a network protection and cloud security powerhouse that consists of:
- Zero Trust Security (ZTNA)
- Cloud-Based Next-Generation Firewall (Next-Gen Firewall)
- Advanced Threat Prevention
- Data Loss Prevention Technology (DLP)
This is not an extensive list of all the SASE capabilities. For instance, it also has SD-WAN. Software Defined Wide Area Network is necessary for improved connectivity and a more optimized internet connection.
Speed is important for businesses that use the cloud in any form and want to keep the hackers away.
Companies that deploy SASE within their systems work remotely and use cloud environments to either build their services or optimize work.
Let’s break down mentioned SASE components even further.
ZTNA
ZTAN enforces the zero trust principle across the entire network— from the software used in headquarters to the remote worker’s home devices.
It assumes that even users who have the right credentials might be malicious hackers with stolen passwords and usernames — attempting to gain illicit access to the infrastructure.
Next-Gen Firewall
Basic Firewall capabilities or blocking the threats incoming from the web (such as malware and viruses) are essential for the network connected to the internet at all times.
The Next Gen Firewall offers a more nuanced approach to detecting and blocking malicious sites and connections. As a bonus, it’s based on the cloud, making the security scalable at all times.
Advanced Threat Prevention
New hacking methods are emerging every day.
Advanced prevention is capable of detecting such zero-day threats that basic security solutions can’t recognize.
DLP
Protecting sensitive data is the priority of any company. Data loss prevention identifies versatile types of data and categorizes them. After that, it can deduct who has access to certain documents.
If it concludes whether the malicious insider is attempting to exfiltrate the information that is marked as private and confidential and blocks such attempts.
Guarding Public and Private Clouds With SASE
Businesses rely on both private and public clouds in their day-to-day operations. Some of the challenges to protecting the cloud including:
- Working within a fast-paced environment — the cloud is used at all times by users and employees alike
- The rapid adoption of cloud components from versatile vendors — increases the complexity of the infrastructure while decreasing the visibility of the attack surface
- Protecting the ever-growing and changing data stored within the cloud
SASE covers the complete attack surface, including applications that are placed within public or private clouds, any SaaS app that a company uses to share files, and email.
Attack surfaces are changing all the time, making it challenging for teams to keep up with any possible signs of potential incidents. SASE unites multiple tools within a single solution to facilitate the threat hunt and mitigation of the issues early.
Security teams use the capabilities of these solutions, all the while receiving the reports from a single dashboard.
As was the case with the latest Western Digital breach, most cyber criminals gain illicit access to the system to get sensitive data. They can use it to demand ransom or sell it on hacking forums and the dark web — in case the company doesn’t meet their demands.
One of SASE’s components specializes in preventing access to possible malicious hackers.
There is also an additional data loss prevention solution designed to keep the files that are used and stored in the cloud environment safe from threat actors that want to use it for ransom and other criminal activities.
Key Takeaways
Businesses adopt the cloud to reclaim power over their systems. They want a flexible solution and technology they can scale at any moment depending on the needs of their organization. And they want to do so while also saving on costs.
The problem is that many companies deploy the cloud on their network when they lack the proper security needed to protect systems and the most valuable asset of a business (e.g. sensitive user documents).
More often than now, we talk about complex multi-cloud environments that combine structures from multiple vendors and add them to the old infrastructure. The larger the company, the more complex these systems become, and the more there is to lose.
As a result, security teams have a hard time keeping track of all the changes, let alone who might be accessing the network.
SASE takes the complexity out of cloud security. For teams, this means they have complete visibility of the network at all times.
They can rest assured knowing that both the cloud and network are in safe hands — without settling for a network that is not working as fast as it should be.