It was the crippling ransomware attack that ensured cybercriminals made their intentions absolutely clear at the start of the 2020s.
Foreign currency and travel money service Travelex has been largely unavailable throughout January after being attacked by a virus on December 31, 2019.
It has been widely reported that many Travelex employees were forced to use pen and paper following the attack.
A statement on Travelex's website states: "Upon discovery, we immediately began an investigation and as a precautionary measure, took all our systems offline to prevent the spread of the malware further across our network.
"Since then, we’ve been working with a team of world-renowned international cyber experts to contain it, and now we are turning our focus to a robust recovery and remediation strategy.
"To date, there is no evidence that any data has left the organisation."
Here, 海角视频Fast chief technology officer Neil Lathwood provides his professional opinion about the Travelex cyber attack – and what lies in store for the cybersecurity sector over the next decade.
What lessons should businesses learn from the Travelex cyber-attack?
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We're seeing a significant rise in ‘bug bounties’, where hackers or penetration testers find vulnerabilities in systems and software, then disclose them to the business for a fee.
Once the business has had a chance to 'patch' the vulnerability, it is then published so others can learn from it.
These vulnerabilities are being announced all the time. In the last few weeks Microsoft published a major patch for Windows 10.
It is widely reported that Travelex failed to patch a known vulnerability in its systems that was published back in April 2019, leaving the door open for hackers.
The key thing people should learn from this is to have a rigorous vulnerability management program in place.
Know which technologies your business uses and keep on top of your patches and updates.
The preparation and response from Travelex was also poor. Businesses should ensure that if they lose access to a system, they have backups in place to restore from a certain point in time.
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This would have allowed Travelex to begin functioning again, rather than having to resort to pen and paper.
What would be your advice to companies when it comes to protecting themselves from cyber security at the start of 2020 ?
In the first two weeks of January we've already seen Microsoft and VMware announce major vulnerabilities that need patching.
My advice would be to know who’s responsible for security within your business, make sure they have a view on every piece of technology you’re using and have a way of identifying when that technology becomes vulnerable.
We’re seeing more and more of these vulnerabilities being exploited and it’s critical to have a clear strategy for addressing them.
Relying on third parties is important in this sector.
It’s natural companies don't have the expertise to build cybersecurity platforms in house, so tapping into the expertise of specialists can really help you avoid disastrous outcomes like the one we’ve seen with Travelex.
How does 海角视频Fast’s cybersecurity firm Secarma ensure that its clients are best placed to ensure that they don't fall victim to a cyber-attack?
We help organisations understand the risks to their business and provide consultation and technologies to mitigate against those key risks.
There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to keeping your business secure, so we approach it in a bespoke manner to ensure our customers are safe.
When businesses look at themselves internally they can be blinkered by familiarity with their own technology.
You might see one area and identify it as the major vulnerability and risk to the company, but if you bring in someone from the outside they're often able to see with fresh eyes and identify much more clearly what is going to get hit first and where the gaps are.
Our technology solutions, including Threat Monitoring and DDoSX, protect thousands of businesses.
This gives us a huge dataset to learn from.
We look at different industries and different types of businesses and see who's being affected by what type of attack, so we can understand where to channel resources.
Being able to tap into that huge dataset is of great benefit to the businesses we work with.
What do the 2020s hold in store for the cybersecurity sector?
I can see further extensive growth for the cybersecurity sector in 2020 as more businesses are impacted by high-profile attacks and others subsequently gain a greater understanding of the risks.
5G is going to be a significant issue.
With more and more devices being connected to faster mobile networks, there’s a greater attack surface for hackers to create DDoS attacks and cause havoc.
We’re also seeing growth in artificial intelligence (AI) attacks and AI defence.
AI attacks scan platforms and systems to identify vulnerabilities and then use automation against those vulnerabilities to break through.
On the defence side, AI is used to trace attack patterns and learn from them so organisations can identify attacks and provide real-time patching and other mitigation in response.