What is an APT?
Just being reactive to cyber threats is the last thing a small business should do. It’s akin to trying to plug a hole in a boat after it’s started taking on water.
To keep hackers out, small businesses are better off being proactive by focusing on prevention with their cybersecurity strategy. You want to stop the cyberattack from happening instead of scrambling to recover once hackers have already gotten into your network.
With a proactive approach, you’re not looking to plug the hole — you want to make sure the hole in your cyber defenses never happens. And that means preventing the types of vulnerabilities that a reactive cybersecurity strategy model tends to discover too late: misconfigured firewalls, unpatched applications, weak passwords, giving too many users access to sensitive information, and more.
Why every business has to proactively care about cyber defense
The first thing small businesses need to remember when shoring up cyber defenses is this: Hackers don’t care how small you are. If you handle data, some of it is bound to have value to cyber-criminals.
What cyber-criminals may want from your business:
Company secrets
Personnel files with Social Security numbers and bank account numbers
Medical records
Confidential data from larger business partners or government contracts
Customer data, including credit card and identity information
To get at that data, hackers operate individually and in groups. Some groups engage in advanced persistent threats (APT) with the goal of infiltrating networks to steal information.
The second thing is that you must be on the lookout for cyber threats constantly. Cybersecurity isn’t a passive endeavor; it requires effort, especially if you’re taking a proactive approach. Cyber attackers never rest, and threats get more dangerous by the day.
The No. 1 threat to a company of any size currently is ransomware. This type of attack has become more and more sophisticated and perpetrators are getting bolder, demanding ever-higher sums in ransom.
You’re more likely to prevent a ransomware attack with a proactive security strategy that fully addresses the attack surface — from desktops to laptops to open network ports — and defends against all types of threats, including those that haven’t even surfaced yet. This may seem daunting for a small company — and it is — but help is available from managed security services providers (MSSPs) that can manage your cybersecurity on your behalf.
APTs are some of the more sophisticated attacks and are on the opposite spectrum of more commonly known attacks like phishing and spam. They’re highly targeted and have a long lead time where hacker groups take the time to learn about their target and find the best way to enter their environment.
APT attacks are designed to hide and lurk in a victim’s network for weeks, months, and potentially even years. The main goal of these attacks is usually to monitor and steal data, or to embed itself into a company’s environment so deeply that a follow-up attack would be hard to prevent and recover from.
There aren’t automated attacks and fewer companies are targeted because of how much time and resources are devoted to the attack and the target. However, this makes the odds of success much higher.
How an APT attack is carried out varies wildly but usually an attacker makes their way in via an exploit or vulnerability in a company’s network. The well-known SolarWinds hack was the result of an APT attack carried out by Russian hacker groups and security researchers at Microsoft have observed APT attacks leveraging the recently discovered Log4j vulnerability.
Who’s behind APT attacks?
Because the goal of APT attacks isn’t necessarily financial, and is quite often intelligence-related, APTs are the type of attacks most carried out by countries’ own cyber military or hacker organizations. This means nation-state attackers and state-sponsored groups are most often the ones carrying out APT attacks.
However, a recent trend is showing that other well-funded and resourced hacker groups are getting into the APT game. These hacker groups will either work on behalf of government agencies (likely for a lucrative price) or they may be enlisted by major corporations who may have other motives for spying on major corporations or government departments.
Who’s most at risk for APT attacks?
Traditionally, governments, government departments and agencies, critical infrastructure companies, and government contractors are those most likely to be targeted by organizations. However, large corporations and enterprises have also been major targets because of how much data they house and the value of their most sensitive data.
Over the past several years, APT threats have impacted all kinds of organizations like mid-sized enterprises and major supply chain and infrastructure providers (like we saw with SolarWinds). And this trend is likely to continue in 2023 and beyond. This is in part because APT attacks are now easier to carry out and because hacker groups have more resources to carry out these kinds of attacks.
How to defend against APT attacks?
Defending against an APT attack is inherently more difficult because if you’re targeted, it means hackers spent a lot of time finding a vulnerability you may not even know you have. But with the proper threat hunting, detection, and monitoring, you can stop an APT before it can do major damage. If you focus on the following, you can make carrying out an APT attack quite challenging.
Patch your tools and software - APTs most often make their way in via vulnerable software, apps, devices. If you keep all systems updated, hackers will have a harder time finding a way into your environment. Try and keep automated updates on as much as possible, keep a patch management schedule, and make sure you’re aware of critical vulnerabilities (like Log4j) as soon as they come out.
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) - Keeping track of your endpoints removes your most common blind spots and alerts you to suspicious behavior. For an APT attack to be successful, they’ll need to enter your environment via one of your endpoints - by ensuring you’re monitoring them all, you can spot an intruder who doesn’t take the steps to cover their tracks.
Asset and device visibility - Asset and device visibility helps you keep track of your environment so you know what you need to update while monitoring for any suspicious behavior. APT attacks can come through via devices that are easy to forget are connected to your network. If you don’t have the visibility or awareness, you can’t protect them or your organization.
Network monitoring - APT threats, once inside, often move laterally within an organization’s network. The initial point of compromise may not always give the attacker the access they want, so they’re likely to look for accounts with elevated permissions or access so they can find critical files and assets or more deeply embed themselves within your network. Network monitoring is another helpful tool that will alert you to anomalous behavior while also showing you whether a user or account is accessing files or servers they’re not supposed to. This could be a sign of an APT attack.
APTs are sophisticated attacks and it takes a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity to properly defend against them.
To Learn About More About APTs and How TechSafe Cybersecurity can help your organization, contact us TODAY at (828) 979-0919
