The telecoms industry is viewed as one of the most vulnerable to cyber security attacks. According to a recent report from Efficient, 43% of telecom companies have suffered a DNS-malware based attack. It was also reported that on average, telecoms companies only applied 4 out of the 11 critical patches recommended by the ISC in 2016, making them particularly vulnerable to zero-day attacks.
There is an extremely large amount of data and customer sensitive information held by telecoms companies. This makes them very attractive to cyber attacks. Mobile devices are a particularly major source of vulnerability. This is also the case with home internet points and low-security smartphone applications.
A telecom breach can lead to the theft of Credit Card and ID data, cause damage to websites, inflict a loss of reputation and cause many more dire consequences . In the most extreme of circumstances, such a breach could potentially impact an entire country, with businesses, consumers and government agencies becoming affected.
Boltonshield suggests that telecoms companies remain up to date with all of the technological advancements in the world of data security and cyber security in general.
Having last month’s technology and systems implemented is nowhere near adequate. Organisations must perform daily reviews of both their environment as well as technological advancements in the market. This allows them to be aware of when a new solution becomes available or a new software patch is released so they can quickly move to seal any security gaps.
A holistic cyber security programme should cover areas such as threat detection, prevention measures and incident response methods.