Increase Your Website’s Security After a Spate of Russian Cyber Attacks

Increase Your Website’s Security After a Spate of Russian Cyber Attacks

• 3 March, 2022
• Webicorp
• Web Development Company, Website Development Company

The second leg of the Russia-Ukraine conflict began on 24 February 2022. Post that day, there has been a lot of cyber-attacks on Ukrainian government sites. Experts suggest these attacks were Russian state-sponsored. Hence, they have released several advisories to protect commercial and business website owners from potential threats on both sides of the Atlantic.

Typically, website security does not fall under the purview of SEO. However, website owners should be vigilant as access to web pages may fail, creating havoc. So, given these warnings, this top website development company in India decided to issue some warnings sourced from the US government Shield UP and Wordfence’s CEO and founder Mark Maunder.

Check out below!

Security Advisories from Wordfence

With the full-scale invasion of Ukraine underway, Russian state-sponsored cyber-attacks targeting the Ukrainian infrastructure and government sites is increasing. Under such conditions, Wordfence, the cybersecurity organisation has issued some of the following advisories:

Zero-Day Attacks Possible

If you are a business owner, know that a zero-day vulnerability is a vulnerability that is known only to hackers and mitigators, but does not, as yet, have a security patch. Usually, zero-day attacks come to light during war situations or other conflict scenarios.

Hence, it makes sense to wait until experts deploy the patches. It is not uncommon to see a spate of zero days during a conflict scenario.

Avoid Getting Phished or Spear Phished

Phishing is an attack where attackers use compromised WordPress sites to send messages that look like they are authentic. Also, avoid spear phishing that targets particular individuals and important organisational members.

Mandate Two Factor Authentication

For all important user accounts, enable two-factor authentication. This will prevent hackers from compromising your website accounts

Keep A Special Eye On the Security Logs

Monitor all the security logs and check to see if there are any unusual activities. Someone needs to check the systems under your team’s control and monitor them carefully. Look for strange files that you didn’t create on your critical infrastructure. It is a potential red flag.

Lockdown HR systems

All personally identifiable information should be under lockdown. Moreover, sensitise your team to check for anything odd or out of the way. Ask your team to say something if they see something. It could be nothing or an attack underway.

Security Advisories from US Shield Up

So far there has not been any attack on the US homeland, but CISA is ready to help organisations prepare for cyber-attacks. CISA has recommended that organisations irrespective of size, should adopt a heightened sense of security. Some of their recommended actions are:

• Enable multi-factor authentication for all the organisation’s privileged and administrative accounts.
• Update all software to combat the known vulnerabilities identified byCISA.
• Disable all the ports and protocols that are not necessary for communication.
• Use CISA’s guidelines with respect to cloud usage.
• Sign up for CISA’s free cyber hygiene services.
• Have a crisis response team to investigate any potential threat.
• Secure the organisation with antivirus or anti-malware software.
• If you are working with a Ukrainian company do so only after careful inspection and verification.
• Test backup procedures. Isolate backups from the network connections.

Security Advisories from CISA for individuals

CISA has released few advisories for its citizens although they are not seeing many attacks towards American citizens. Some of the advisories are:

• Open multi-factor authentication for all your accounts. A password isn’t enough to secure your computer or accounts, hence use multifactor authentication.
• Turn on automatic security updates for your computer so that software is running fully updated.
• Be careful of what you click. 90% of all phishing attacks start with phishing mail. Hence, be careful of what you are clicking online.
• Lastly, use strong passwords and a password manager to handle all the passwords. All of us need to rely on each other to get through this.

Some of the country’s best web design companies suggest that you keep your websites secured and at high alert following the crisis in Russia and Ukraine.

Conclusion

These are trying times as we have witnessed by the situation in Russia and Ukraine. To protect the integrity of the world’s commercial online systems we will need to take cautionary measures as a group.

Moreover, the top website development company in India, also asks you to keep an eye on the SEO aspect of your websites. If under attack, report the same to government authorities.

Hence, in these uncertain times, cybersecurity needs to be taken very seriously by all stakeholders. Install the latest and most updated antimalware and antivirus software.

While India may not be under direct threat, those companies that are directly doing business with Ukraine should be careful of the traffic that they are receiving.