Time to panic, or "business as usual"?

Hybrid war is on our doorstep, and Europe as we know it, might be at stake. As an ongoing political crisis is growing in the Ukraine, the nation's banks and government agencies have been struck with disruptive cyberattacks for the second time in two weeks. At the same time, reports of Ukrainian cities being under physical attack are reaching us. But; can this affect YOUR business and YOUR organization? Are there some preventing steps we need to take, some vital information we need to accept, to make sure that we still can operate safely, work as usual and even keep our daily life going? The answer is yes, yes and yes! Let us explain it a bit further.

Mychailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, now confirms that the country has been subjected to a new cyberattack. He declares on his Twitter account: "It was a tough night in terms of cybersecurity of Ukraine. We've been protecting our cyberspace all night. However, Ukraine is experienced and continues to counter non-stop attacks on main informational sources. As of now, everything operates stably. So keep calm, and don't panic."

Websites belonging to Ukrainian banks, the Ukrainian parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are some of a large number of sites that are said to have been exposed to an overload attack on Wednesday the 23:d of February 2022. An extensive cyberattack on similar sites was also reported earlier in February.

Fedorov recently stated on social media that he believes that all government agencies should use cloud tech. This will reduce corruption risks, cut budget costs, and accelerate the innovations in the operation of state authorities.

Prioritizing security is essential to a fully functional and safe workplace - now more than ever! At Farsight, we help organizations achieve a safe digital foundation to help you prevent emergencies.

For preventive purposes, one can make sure that your workplace is as secure as possible by:

• Implement an increased IT security awareness.
• Execute an IT-audit to examine and evaluate YOUR organization's entire information technology infrastructure and operations. It's an excellent first step towards increased security within the organization.
• Evaluate passwords and password complexity
• Check access - who has access and to what?
• Examine firewalls
• Evaluate cloud services
• Check policies - do these exist, and do the organization follow these procedures?
• Identify the shortcomings and thus minimize the risks of external threats?
• Do you know where your data is? The risks of cyberattacks are a part of daily life and your company's reputation may fall into the wrong hands. If sharing essential and valuable data with third parties, make sure that it's being appropriately protected – the correct info is thus shared to the right people at the right time. Failure to protect data means information may be communicated to the wrong people via a data breach – the cost being potentially very high, with severe impact.   
• Set up an "off-line, off-site"-backup. Off-site backup is a method of backing up data to a remote server or media. By applying a low-tech physical timer on the external backup device, it will only be reachable during backup periods, which means that the rest of the time, the backup is disconnected and therefore much safer from threats. 

Should the worst happen, and your organization is exposed to a digital threat, following these recommendations may be helpful:

1. Turn off all workstations and servers unrelated to critical functions in the interests of citizens, business and the state.
2. Update the system and operating system software to the latest version. Update ALL devices!
3. Immediately back up important information to external media, preferably to new storage devices.

Do you want help securing essential data and valuable documents? Do you want to make sure that you and your organization conduct "business as usual" even during cyberattacks? Then, we're here to help! 

Take contact with:

Carina Sjövill
IT-Project manager

Mail: carina.sjovill@farsight.se

Phone: +46 (0)70 73 96 722
Phone: +46 (0)500 48 16 50