Two Chinese nations are being charged with hacking cloud providers, NASA, and the US Navy. According to the Associated Press, the suspects have been accused of carrying out cyber-attacks against more than 45 US companies, US government agencies, and several unnamed managed service providers. An FBI investigator indicated in US News that none of the victims have been named but it is a list of ‘who’s who’ in the global economy.
This is just one of many major hacks that have taken place in 2018. Marriott, Twitter, UnderArmor, Facebook, Google, and T-Mobile have all fallen victim to data breaches. As we can see in the latest news, hackers tend to target large data structures. These hacks leave many IT professionals struggling to keep up with the growing number of risks that target their company’s lifeline… their data.
There is a misrepresentation that the cloud is inherently more secure than on-premise systems. All data is potentially at risk of theft or destruction. But as US News states, the professional hackers are targeting large organizations and the cloud. The reason is simple – these targets represent potentially more profits for the criminals.
Whether in the cloud or on-premise, each organization needs to identify their most sensitive data and do their due diligence in reviewing options.
There are steps you can take as an organization to minimize your data security risks, from protecting end-points with security software, to having reliable backups. There is so much information out there, the task can seem daunting. That is where we come in. Our engineers can help you understand your data security risks and the options you have to cost-effectively protect your organization. Contact us to start the process of securing your infrastructure.
Sources:
Balsamo, Michael & Tucker, Eric (2018) Associated Press – US News article: https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2018-12-20/justice-department-levies-charges-against-2-chinese-hackers
