Guardforce Post

What is “Real-time Insured Defence”?

We’ve been guarding precious items for our clients for the past 40 years. But nowadays what is considered precious has gone far beyond tangible objects in the physical world, to critically valuable material in the digital world.

But just as in the physical world, digital material has to be guarded.

Technical defence infrastructures can be hugely robust, but they need to be complemented by constant, unrelenting, pro-active monitoring, just as we might have round-the-clock security guards in the physical world.

To top it all off, mitigation insurance should be taken out to provide a 100% bullet-proof defence in the unlikely event of a breach. This is what we meant by “Insured Defence”.

Five reasons why “Insured Defence” matters.

1. Everyone and everything is connect

Like it or not, we now live in a world where most of us are connected to the internet one way or another, either directly with our own device, or through a corporate network that itself is connected to the internet.

The average Hong Kong person today has more than one phone

mobile device, or portable laptop. The number of ‘things’ with embedded internet access, the Internet of Things (IoT)¹, is forecast to exceed 20 billion by 2020.

Cameras are everywhere, on our phones, in surveillance systems in shopping centres, our offices and homes. For better or worse, simply by going about our daily lives we are all leaving a digital footprint in cyberspace, part of which, or even most of which, we want to protect. Therefore we cannot take cyber security, or internet security, for granted.

2. Over reliance on mobile devices both personally and professionally

We may not always realise it, but we are all addicted to our mobile devices one way or another. On a personal basis, our habitual use of social networks, our preference for messaging rather than calling, our use of mobile payments at retail outlets, and our habit of incessantly taking pictures or recordings of our loved ones all leave a footprint. For work, we exchange confidential information on our mobile devices with colleagues and clients, we use them to manage projects, we even sign contracts on them.

What we don’t realise, however, is that remote as the chance may be, there is always a possibility of a breach, and once that happens, hackers can do quite a lot with our phones or mobile devices. This could include recording our calls, combing through our messages, stealing our contacts, viewing our pictures, turning on our cameras, and checking our whereabouts.

3. Cyber attack is a lot more common than you think

Cyberattacks on mobile devices are on the rise. According to a recent survey by Information Age², 20% of respondents reported that their company had already experienced information security breaches on mobile devices. 94% of security professionals expect the frequency of mobile attacks to increase rapidly in the coming years. And 64% of respondents doubted whether their organisations could defend against an aggressive mobile cyber attack.

One study³suggests that, “The potential economic losses in Hong Kong from cyber security attacks could hit anything up to US$32 billion (HKS249.6 billion) annually – or about 10 per cent of the city’s gross domestic product – within the next few years.”

And if you haven’t seen this picture before, note that Mark Zuckerberg⁴, the founder of Facebook, has his notebook camera covered. For a guy who knows stuff about the internet that we may not know, it is very telling how easily we can be attacked.

4. Cyber attack happens quickly and without notice

Cyber attack can occur suddenly in many forms, in many scenarios, and without notice. For example:

A coworker plugs in an infected USB, which installs a back door that hackers can exploit.
Your staff are sending e-mails which contain confidential files.
A teammate unwittingly clicks a ransomware link in a phishing email behind your firewall.
You’ve installed a new smart device, but it is vulnerable and has no firewall.
Your kids may access inappropriate websites by accident.

This means that in addition to being prudent and having robust network security in place, you also need constant proactive monitoring to monitor your cyberspace to ensure a timely response in the event of a cyber attack.

5. It’s not just your data that’s at risk, it’s your reputation

The main reasons for any form of protection against cyber attack is the security of your economic interests, your privacy and your reputation. As a last resort to complement the short-comings of technological protection, you should take out an insurance policy to hedge against any unfortunate consequences in the event of an attack.

Learn more about Guardforce’s GRID solution

Guardforce Real-time Insured Defence (GRID) combines advance technology services and insurance protection to guard corporations from data or security breaches.

When installed on your network gateway, GRID’s Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices set a firewall that protects and secures all your data, networks and networked devices.

It also enables our professional team of security engineer to provide you with round-the-clock security management service.

GRID is the first-in-market with the backing of a Cyber Crisis Expense Insurance, 24 x 7 cyber security monitoring services and comprehensive Unified Threat Management (UTM).

To learn more about GRID, please download our brochure, or contact us at mkt@guardforce.com.hk.

Reference

1. https://blog.checkpoint.com/2018/07/05/an-invasive-spyware-attack-on-military-mobile-devices/

2. https://www.information-age.com/corporations-not-prepared- mobile-breach-123465744/

3. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/2150875/cyberattacks-could-cost-hong-kong-massive-us32

4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-tape-webcam-microphone-facebook