Graphic: Trenton Systems and its security partners strongly believe in comprehensive cybersecurity solutions, starting with the hardware that underlies your server or workstation. Recent high-profile cyberattacks and shocking revelations about supply chain security are causing military, industrial, and commercial enterprises to rethink, reassess, and rebuild their cybersecurity infrastructure to better protect their sensitive data with the latest technologies and tactics. Hackers were able to remain undetected for more than a year while they modified SolarWinds' Orion software update system and executed a covert, clever supply chain attack, the likes of which its victims had never seen.
The COVID pandemic hasn't helped matters on the cybersecurity front, either, with up to as many as 4, attacks now being reported to the FBI daily, a percent increase from before the pandemic. Hackers have begun to shift their attack focus from individuals and small businesses to major corporations, the federal government, and critical infrastructure amid COVID as well.
The SolarWinds hack and related incidents are perfect examples. I t's readily apparent that large-scale cyberattacks on these crucial institutions are becoming increasingly prevalent. And nearly 45 percent of decision-makers say that information security has become a greater priority for their organizations since the onset of the pandemic. It's not difficult to see why. More and more enterprises are sharing more data and becoming increasingly reliant on remote workers and remote networks employing various, sometimes vulnerable, hardware and software combinations, which broadens a cybercriminal's attack surface and provides more avenues into a business's or organization's network.
Considering these figures and others outlined later in this blog post, securing the system stack's "big three" layers - hardware, firmware, and software - holistically is and should continue to be a top priority moving forward.
Attackers are now targeting the lower layers of the computing stack after spending years bombarding the software layers, which, thanks to years of study, investment, and continuous implementation of improvements, have become more challenging for hackers to exploit. Now, hackers are hitting hardware and firmware as well as software.
