How can we prevent what happened to JBS happening at your company?
Yet another major player in the Western World’s supply chain has seen its operations grind to a halt this past week. JBS, one of the world's largest meat suppliers, came under attack from what is presumed to be a criminal organization based out of Asia. Regardless of whether the attackers’ activities were officially sanctioned by a nation-state like Russia, China, or North
Korea, the negative impact to the average citizens of freedom-loving countries is the same: disruption of important aspects of life and possibly even a hit to their bank accounts. Though “there are differing views regarding whether global governments are ready”(1) for the types of attacks industry experts expect to impact our critical infrastructure, it would not be unreasonable to estimate that the overwhelming majority of such service providers are woefully unprepared.
JBS asserts that their Information Technology (IT) team has responded quickly enough to the attack that normal operations will resume today(at time of writing). However, this massive cog in the wheels that churn out necessities, like foodstuffs, a single day of interference has major consequences. It is enough to cut off product availability, drive the inflation that is already on the uptick further upwards, and have significant and far-reaching negative impact on the global economy.
This highlights the importance of preparedness for all our organizations’ security teams. How do we gain the confidence that the defenses protecting our networks, servers, and other critical assets have been sufficiently bolstered? Can they withstand the relentless assaults that we can expect criminals and state-sponsored hackers to continuously intensify over the coming years? A key tool in the defense toolbelt is the use of external penetration testing, which is recommended to be used as frequently as reasonably possible, by a team of professionals who can test on a regular basis to build familiarity with your systems.
Webcheck Security is your most valuable partner in obtaining assurance that the security solutions you have implemented across your organization can withstand the abuse they will experience. Providers of services of any type—but especially providers of critical infrastructure—would do well to contact Webcheck to discuss adding a program of regular penetration testing to their security program. Such decisions may well be the key to preventing another major cyber attack from pushing the economy over the brink of recession.
1 https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/how-vulnerable-is-criticalinfrastructure-to-a-cyberattack.html