Be Cyber Smart: How to Own Your Role in Protecting Cyberspace

Each October, the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness month by publishing practical tips for safe, secure online experiences.

You’ve likely heard about book smarts and street smarts. In today’s digital era, there’s a third important category: cyber smarts. And that’s the first message that CISA and NCSA are sharing this month.

Emphasizing personal accountability and proactivity, the agencies are encouraging you to own your role in safeguarding your corner of cyberspace. You can start by protecting your web applications and users from the bad bots and client-side threats that ravage your cyber territory.

IDENTIFY AND MANAGE BAD BOTS

Almost 90% of organizations say sophisticated, malicious bots are becoming more difficult for their security tools to detect. That’s a problem, because cybercriminals are increasingly using malicious automated software to orchestrate cyberattacks on web and mobile applications and their users.

Here are the top five attack scenarios to watch out for:

• Account takeovers (ATO): Bots stuff stolen credentials into login screens for confirmation before use in fraudulent transactions.
• Web scraping: Bots compromise applications to extract pricing data for competitor sites.
• Carding and gift card cracking: Bots test stolen card data then withdraw funds or purchase gift cards to buy goods for resale.
• Scalping and denial of inventory: Bots buy out inventories and scalp products on third-party and dark web sites.
• Skewed analytics: You count bot traffic, inflating data about customer interest, and then make bad decisions based on that data.

Benefits of bot management

Identifying and blocking bad bots protects consumers against online fraud and preserves the digital experience.

• E-commerce sites can restrict bots that purchase and scalp inventory. Customers are satisfied with product availability and competitive prices, which increases (Read more...)