Cyber Security Redifined

March 10, 2021

We are living in an increasingly digital world with our entire lives, businesses, and finances revolving around the internet, mobile computing, and electronic media. Unfortunately, such widespread and unhindered real time connectivity also makes us increasingly vulnerable to malicious attacks, invasions of privacy, fraud, and other such unpleasantries.

Worse still, as technology grows more complex, so too do the criminals tools and attacks. And as technology takes over an ever-increasing part of our lives and businesses, we are growing increasingly vulnerable to such threats. Gone are the days of simple firewalls and antivirus software being your sole security measures. Business leaders can no longer leave information security to just basic countermeasures.

WHAT IS CYBER SECURITY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

At face value, Cyber security is nothing more than the process of protecting and recovering computer systems, networks, devices, and programs from any type of cyber-attack. However, the reality of it is far more complex. The world is becoming increasingly reliant on technology and this reliance will continue as we introduce even more smart Internet-enabled devices that have ready access to our networks.

Because our society is more technologically reliant than ever before, a lot of our sensitive personal data that could result in identity theft, such as credit card information and bank account details, are now stored in the cloud. Pair this with an increasing number of cloud services, poor cloud service security, ready availability of increasingly more complex smartphones and portable devices, and the Internet of Things (IoT), and we have the prefect breeding ground for a wide range of cyber security threats that didn’t exist just a few decades ago.

Moreover, cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated by the day, changing what they target, how they affect organizations and their methods of attack for different security systems. In today’s world ransomware, phishing, and spyware are by far the most common cyber threats with third-party and fourth-party vendor apps, who process your data but have poor cyber security practices, coming in close behind as another common attack vector. Data breaches are another form of attack that generally involves the theft of financial information like credit card numbers or bank account details, trade secrets, intellectual property, and other targets of industrial espionage.

Unfortunately, there are several factors that are fueling the flames of cyber crime – namely the difficulty in policing them. The issue here lies in the distributed nature of the Internet coupled with the ability of cyber criminals to attack targets outside their jurisdiction. Worse still, the ease of commerce on the dark web and the proliferation of mobile devices and the Internet of Things is leading to its ever-increasing profitability. In fact, cyber crime damages are projected to exceed a staggering USD 6 trillion by 2021.

It comes as no surprise then that nearly every prominent global brand and business, in just about every sector of business, is investing in advanced cyber security infrastructure to protect their business practices and the millions of customers that trust them with their data.

WHAT IMPACT CAN CYBERCRIME HAVE ON YOUR BUSINESS?

The lack of effective cyber security can severely damage your business in multiple ways. You could suffer economic repercussions from the theft of intellectual property, corporate information, disruption in trading, and the cost of repairing damaged systems. Data breach laws could mean regulatory fines or sanctions as a result of cyber crimes. But by far the worst impact would most certainly be on the reputation of your business. The loss of consumer trust, loss of current and future customers, and the negative impact of poor media coverage could be a death sentence for your business; especially so if your business is of a smaller scale and growing.

As such, all businesses, regardless of the size, must ensure they have the necessary precautions and security measures in place to protect themselves, their customers, and their reputation from such criminals. They also need to ensure their staff understand cyber security threats and how to mitigate them.

The scale of damage that can result from not doing so has already been very well documented in just the past few years. One of the most prominent examples of this was the Equifax cyber crime identity theft event which affected approximately 145.5 million U.S. consumers along with 400,000 – 44 million British residents and 19,000 Canadian residents. Equifax agreed to a settlement with the FTC which included a USD 300 million fund for victim compensation, USD 175m for states and territories in the agreement and USD 100 million in fines; a sum it is still paying to this day.

Another prominent example is the eBay data breach of 2014 which resulted 145 million users accounts being compromised. The stolen information included encrypted passwords and other personal information, including names, e-mail addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. The breach was only disclosed after a month-long investigation by eBay.

These are just two prominent examples of the risk’s cyber crimes pose. There hundreds more examples and with the rate of cyber crimes continuing to increase, we can only expect to see more such cases in the future.

In fact, if you look at the real underlying facts, things start to look increasingly grim. Today, hackers attack every 39 seconds, on average 2,244 times a day. As of 2020, the average cost of every successful data breach is USD 3.86 million and the average cost of a ransomware attack on businesses is USD 133,000.

This is also yet another reason why companies should no longer be asking why cyber security is important, but rather what can be done to ensure their cyber security practices are optimized to protect their business against sophisticated and inevitable cyber-attacks.

Unfortunately, establishing a strong security infrastructure that is capable of combatting such threats effectively involves multiple layers of protection dispersed throughout a company’s computers, programs, and networks. This includes complex firewalls, SIEM systems, antivirus software, anti-spyware software, password management tools, and more, all working in perfect harmony to outwit surprisingly creative cyber criminals. Achieving such a level of security on your business’ premises is not always financially feasible. This is where Cyber Security Service Providers like Oman Data Park come in. They can provide corporates with more cost effective and readily available scalable cyber security solutions, tailored to their business, at a fraction of the cost.

WHO ARE WE?

Established in 2012, Oman Data Park is the Sultanate’s premier IT Managed Services Provider offering superior Managed Data Centre, Cyber Security and Cloud Services utilizing our locally hosted TIA 942 Rating 3 certified certified Data Centers.

These services are vital parts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution axis, whose features are already emerging on the ground, such as online shopping, robot-managed enterprises, self-automated vehicles, smart digital industries, Assets and sensitive resources, such as oilfields, power stations, logistics, aviation, banks and other sectors. However, as technology advances and as we get more increasingly more “connected,” online threats and security risks also get increasingly more sophisticated. These threats impact not just individuals and institutions, but also national security and the economic resources of countries. In order for the Sultanate to maintain its advanced position as a preferred investment destination, we launched our Cyber Security Centre at Knowledge Oasis Muscat in February, 2019.

Through the Cyber Security Center, we provided our clients with pioneering ‎and effective smart security solutions to ‎reduce cyber-attacks. Within a very short span of time, our services have grown up to become one ‎of the few specialized cyber security centre in the Sultanate that provide services round the clock ‎seven days a week. In fact, supported by a choice of Preventive, Detective and Threat Intelligence cyber security services to shield customers, the Center is perfectly equipped to deal with the over 8,000 cyber-attacks faced by various institutions in the ‎Sultanate of Oman on a daily basis.

Our performance since the center was established has helped us ‎strengthen our position as a pioneer in ‎cloud computing in the Sultanate. We are the only such institution in ‎the country to have obtained PCI DSS ‎certification. We have also received ISO27001: 2013 ‎ISO20000-1 certifications and have also been accredited by the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology.

OUR FACILITIES

Hardware powers data and apps. The cloud floats on the back of servers at data centers all over the world and your business runs on its hardware. However, as more businesses take their businesses online, the threat level also continues to rise. As a result, our customers look to us to help them maintain their safety. This is why the Cyber Security Center was commissioned. Through it, our team of highly trained staff continue to offer an even more advanced level of Intelligence, protection, and mitigation to our present and future clients.

Our cyber security products and services are also backed by our three TIA 942 Rating 3 certified Data Centers located in KOM, Wattaya, and Duqm, that are monitored by a tech and security team around the clock, every day. These data centers can not only satisfy the IT needs of any business or enterprise in the country, but also feature some of the most advanced data security systems and protocols available on the market today. We also continue to invest heavily in our infrastructure to ensure we stay at the top.

WE HAVE REBRANDED

We have come a long way since our humble beginnings in 2012. We have been continually upgrading our facilities and adding new cyber security products and services to our portfolio. We have invested heavily in providing a world-class TIA 942 Rating 3 certified Data Center to our region, as well as everything an organization could possibly need to fully modernize its IT security systems. As a result, we wanted to rebrand ourselves to better reflect our growth. This is why we are now no longer just a Cyber Security Centre, but rather a Cyber Security Park. This change of our commercial identity has come as a culmination of the successes of the Cyber Security Center, which has been at the forefront of combating cyber crime in the Sultanate. We come to you today as one of the only specialized cyber security centers that provide services 24×7. We are also a PCI DSS Certified service provider as well as ISO27001: 2013 ISO20000 -1 certification and accredited by the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology. This new identity is also a reflection of the five core cyber security principles that govern every aspect of our operation:
  • Availability: When your business needs us, we are here for you. 24×7. 365 days a year.
  • Confidentiality: We take the confidentiality of our customers and their data very seriously.
  • Integrity: We ensure that the integrity of your business is never compromised.
  • Accountability: We offer clear, prompt, and efficient solutions and stick to our promised timelines backed by SLA’s.
  • Assurance: You have our assurance, that your business will remain free from threats and vulnerabilities, always.
In addition, we are continually expanding range of specialized Preventive, Detective, and Threat Intelligence Services we offer – more on both a little later.
However, while our identity may have changed, our key intent remains the same – to enhance cyber security in the Sultanate and help businesses thrive in the online space by securing their digital assets. We aim to continue our support of the digital transformation efforts for the government and the private sector by ensuring the provision of smart security solutions to fend off electronic attacks that institutions in Oman face daily.

WHAT CAN WE OFFER TO YOUR BUSINESS?

In these challenging times, cyber-attacks against business data and systems are unrelenting and evolving every day. In Oman alone institutions face more than 8,000 cyber-attacks every day!

It has become critical to protect one’s organization and its reputation by maintaining the confidentiality, availability, and performance of the systems that are important for your business.

At Cyber Security Park, our services come to you with the advantage of managed services where we look after the operational activities of the applicable security service, thus saving valuable time to focus on your core business. Our service offering is based on three key areas of expertise which when applied collectively, will ensure a dependable cyber security environment for your business.

PREVENTIVE SERVICES

To combat today’s sophisticated cyber attacks, organizations implement a multilayered approach to threat prevention. These cyber security prevention services aim to prevent known vulnerabilities and advanced threats through dedicated threat prevention technologies.

Network Zero Day Attack Prevention

The rise of ransomware and botnets has made it easier for cyber criminals to infect businesses with viruses and other malicious software. Ransomware attacks worldwide rose 350% in 2018 alone. Ransomware attacks are estimated to cost USD 6 trillion annually and 75% of companies infected with ransomware were running up-to-date endpoint protection. While Proactive measures such as antivirus software can help prevent malware infections, they aren’t sufficient to deal with the more advanced threats that evade detection. The most advanced of these threats are known as zero-day attacks. They are called this because the malicious software is unknown prior to the attack.

Protecting against a zero-day attack is very difficult. In fact, advanced threats have become so evasive that current technologies have proven to be unreliable for malware. Enterprise security strategies are shifting from prevention to post-breach detection and remediation. While detection and remediation will always be an important part of best practices, effective threat prevention is still the first order of business.

This is where our Zero Day Attack Prevention service comes in. This service will scan for attacks, detect any threats present, and alert your business to take swift action. Constant vigilance is achieved through our Security Operations Center. They use specific tools to scan for viruses at the network level based on heuristics, known threats, and virus signatures. It makes use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to protect your business against unknown attacks by detecting attack profiles from known threats and applying them to evaluate new problems. It also uses a multi-stage data analysis process with machine learning, behavioral analysis, and other techniques to characterize and confirm previously undiscovered malicious content. Best of all, the service is endpoint agnostic, meaning it can be deployed regardless of the devices end users are using.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) Services

Phishing is easily one of the most common ways through which hackers wreak havoc on a business. Cyber criminals send out approximately 156 million phishing emails every single day. At least eight million are opened and users who interact with them. Of these phishing emails, at least 2 out of the 3 mails use either a malicious link or malware in the email. Your employees could be receiving 4-5 such phishing emails every week. This situation is very alarming as about 30% of all the phishing emails make it past the IT security.

Worse still, most senders are unaware when a hacker is sending email on their behalf. Recipients believe that the email has been sent from a large organization or a trusted source and subsequently click on the links included in the email. Unfortunately, the messages direct recipients to do something that captures their personal information or executes a malicious attachment.

When such a cyber-attack hits a small business, it could cost them USD 53,987 on average. This cost is lower than cyber-attacks on medium and large enterprises that easily escalate into millions of dollars. Proportionally, small businesses struggle to meet the costs of cyber-attacks.If you want to prevent such unauthorized usage of your email domain and keep your business and employees away from spam and fraud, we suggest making use of our DMARC services.

The process of keeping your domain safe with our DMARC is relatively simple to explain:

  • Domain-Based: Set up a DMARC policy for each of your domains and tracking their usage.
  • Message: Provides protection to your email messages.
  • Authentication: Reports with insights to the authentication of these messages.
  • Reporting: The results are reported for your review.
  • Conformance: You can instruct ISP’s how they should handle invalid messages.

These simple steps can secure your email systems against phishing and social engineering attacks by restraining the unauthorized use of your email domain; in turn protecting your business and clients from spam, fraud, and phishing. At the same time, it helps you gain visibility into who and what across the internet is using your email domain to send emails. By using our DMARC, you also make your email easy to identify across the huge and growing footprint of DMARC-capable receivers. As a result, our DMARC service lets you take absolute control over emails sent from your domains. If anyone starts abusing your domain, you will instantly see it in the DMARC report.

Managed Network Security Services

Hackers and criminals are constantly searching for their next score and they are getting more and more sophisticated in their attacks with every passing day. There are however tools and systems to ensure your network is prepared and secured from these attacks such as web application firewalls, SIEM protocols, Endpoint security, and more. In spite of these tools being readily available, 62% of companies do not feel prepared to combat such threats. Given that a cyber-attack occurs on average every 39 seconds, as mentioned earlier, this means the odds of an unprepared company being victimized are very high.

Failure to prevent attacks can lead to millions of dollars in losses. But the immediate monetary cost is only the tip of the iceberg. Consumer confidence plummets after a data breach leading to lost traffic and sales. Valuable employee time is spent combatting the breach and repairing the damage. Legal fees and government fines add to the total costs. However, solving the problems is not easy. Information security costs mount up quickly when companies choose to build their own security infrastructure. Instead, choosing a method that provides world-class security at a reasonable cost is a far better option for most.

This is where our Managed Network Security Services come in. The service helps you establish your security perimeter as well as monitors threats. Best of all, our Security Operations Center and team can secure your network without increasing your infrastructure costs or personnel budget. In fact, there are two big reasons you would want to choose us as your Managed Network Security Provider.

First and foremost, we have the necessary expertise to protect your network. Our team is certified with Microsoft as a Tier 1 Cloud Solutions Provider. We hold numerous other certifications which demonstrate our commitment to ongoing training and development. And secondly, our Managed Network Security Services are more cost-efficient than any in-house solution. We have already invested in the infrastructure, personnel, training, and certification necessary to build a world-class security system. All you need to do is leverage our investments to protect yours.

As your trusted security advisor, we will ensure you are not part of the 62% of companies who feel unprepared and provide a simple and cost-effective way to limit potential threats, meet compliance regulations, and protect sensitive data 24×7×365.

 Endpoint Security

Not so long ago, a breach that compromised the data of a few million people was massive news. Today, breaches that affect hundreds of millions of people have become far too common. In fact, systems today are attacked on average every 39 seconds. Of these, the most common attack surfaces are mobile devices. Laptops, tablets, and mobile phones are particularly vulnerable to attack. Furthermore, attacks on web apps on endpoints make up 43% of all breaches. Unfortunately, endpoints are not attached to digital tethers at all times and so monitoring their security is more difficult.

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. In fact, small business cyber breaches grew more than five times in 2019 compared to the previous year. The primary reason behind this is that small businesses tend to seriously underestimate the high risk of cyber-attack that they face and, as a result, do not devote much attention to setting up processes and protections for mitigating risk.

Nearly 43% of cyber-attacks target small business and 62% of companies have experienced phishing and social engineering attacks. Many small business owners do not know where to begin. At least three out of four small businesses stated that they do not have the personnel to address IT security. Enterprise-level organizations face the same problems but at a much higher level of complexity. Endpoint management is even more important because a large business may have thousands of endpoints operating at any given time.

Our Advanced Malware Protection and Endpoint Protection Solutions offers your business 360° protection with a telemetry model to handle the big data at an affordable price. The Advanced Malware and Endpoint services do continuous and advanced analysis of threats and activity to protect your business before, during, and after attacks. Furthermore, our Endpoint Security service is backed by our Security Operations Center for real-time monitoring of threats, processes, and data. The highly trained staff will always be on hand to give assistance and support whenever trouble strikes.

SSL Certificates

Roughly one in ten websites are malicious despite attempts by Google, Microsoft, and Firefox to stamp out these criminal areas. Online shoppers and potential customers are getting more tech savvy by the day and are increasingly, and rightly, avoiding unsecured websites; as they seek to be assured that they are not surfing into a trap.

As a result, if your business or ecommerce site is not visibly secured, then you will be losing traffic and customers. In fact, lack of clearly visible website security has a two-fold impact – security that is not visible to the customer results in lost conversions and also affects SEO Performance

All the emphasis on security means your website needs an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate installed to offer a secured connection to your web visitors. What is does is encrypt traffic between site visitors and the website’s information. Encryption makes eavesdropping, hacking, and data theft significantly more difficult. Most customers are aware of this and respond positively to such visible security signals.

Our SSL Certificate Service has been designed to meet whatever needs you may have for your business websites. Regardless of the server type, number of servers, or number of domains you need secured, we will always have the best choice for your business. We offer a choice of SSL Certificate types from a variety of vendors such as Comodo, Symantec, Thawte, and Trustwave.

Cyber Security Drill Test

53% of companies have over 1,000 sensitive files accessible to every employee, 38% of all users have a password that never expires, and 24% of data breaches are caused by human error. This coupled with the fact that cyber-attacks are so common, the risk for a data breach is extremely high. Worse still, the average life cycle of a data breach is 314 days. From the moment of a criminal breach till the time the damage is repaired, your business is exposed and could be losing money.

This is why cyber security drill tests are so invaluable. They are designed to reveal vulnerabilities in your system and help your business prepare a rapid response to any penetration. This could save your business millions.

Our Cyber Security Drill Test will deploy lightweight agents to probe your cyber security defenses. They will pose challenges to your security postures, deploy false phishing and ransomware attacks, create validation scenarios to test network policies, deploy pre configured attack scenarios designed from real cases, and will include various actors such as insider threats and national attacks.

Following this test, a clear executive report will be delivered to your company. Action items can be used to enhance your security perimeter and build your company’s culture of cyber hygiene.

Preparing for an attack and testing your systems will help your company identify security gaps and blind spots; in turn allowing you to maximize the effectiveness of security infrastructure and raise it to the highest possible level.

Web Application Security Assessment

Companies repeatedly list data theft as one of their greatest fears. And rightfully so, as customers value their personal data above most other things. In fact, 68% of customers will not resume business with a breached company until they are convinced the problem has been fixed. 10% on the other hand will no longer conduct business with the victimized company at all. This lack of trust, as a result of a cyber-attack, is particularly damaging to companies with a younger client base.

Mobile apps in particular, given their prevalence, are a growing target for hackers. Over 60% of online fraud is now accomplished through mobile devices. 80% of that fraud is carried out through apps and not mobile browsers. Losing such a battle irreparably damages your reputation and revenue. As a result, this is one battle your business simply can’t afford to lose.

Thankfully, you can test just how secure your apps are prior to release with our Web Application Security Assessment service. It has been specifically designed to seek out weak points in your security and test them.

Its unique and accurate Proof-Based scanning technology does not just find and report vulnerabilities. It also produces a Proof of Concept to confirm they are not false positives. We then provide you with a Web Application Security Assessment Report of our scope, identified vulnerabilities, and recommendations to secure your web applications. In doing so we provide you with real, actionable information to protect yourself and your applications.

DNS Filtering Service

Defeating malware has continued to become harder over the years as advancement in technology has given rise to even more sophisticated malicious software. This has been further exasperated with the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought more businesses online. Most former brick and mortar stores have had to turn towards cloud computing and the WFH culture to continue operations and remain in business. However, this has had the side effect of causing a drastic increase in the number and complexity of cyber-attacks globally in recent months. The primary reason for this is the sudden increase in the number of unsecured computers and handheld devices being connected to previously closed and secure networks, leaving them vulnerable to advanced malware attack targeting emails, Microsoft Office, and more.

Alongside the rising attacks, the average cost for data breaches has also increased significantly, reaching $3.86 million globally in 2020. Worse still, this cost continues to rise with Ransomware, legal battles, and loss of consumer confidence, coupled with our increased reliance on cloud computing because of the pandemic, as contributing factors.

This is where a DNS filter comes in. A DNS filter works by allowing or blocking access to websites and URLs at the network level. This gives an organization complete control over its network security regardless of who accesses the network or which device they use. The DNS Filter from Oman Data Park is powered by AI that has powerful analysis capabilities and gives the DNS web filtering service an advantage over device-based security measures. It does so by detecting threats and blocking them in real time, giving an unrivaled level of protection.

Customizing it is also easy with a clear dashboard and visual reports providing excellent management of the DNS filter. Usage, total requests, and user trends can be identified effortlessly. The DNS content filtering also works with simple tools for adding rules and categories of content in seconds. Block adult content, allow specific websites, and set up social media access in a short time.

DETECTIVE SERVICES

Detective controls are an essential component in providing visibility into malicious activities, breaches and attacks on an organization’s IT environment. If designed correctly and operated effectively, such controls should be able to detect many existing cyber threats within the IT environment.

Distributed Denial of Service Protection

Distributed Denial of Service occurs when your servers, website, or any other online service is overwhelmed with Internet traffic in order to render them inoperable. The very nature of a DDoS attack is extremely effective because it targets and overwhelms a server with traffic until it effectively crashes.

What really sets these attacks apart from other cyber crime is the low barrier to entry. A moderately well-organized group can easily perform a large-scale DDoS attack. In fact, there are websites out there that sell these attacks as a service for as little as five dollars.

So, if your business hasn’t already fallen victim to a DDoS attack, it is worth learning how to protect yourself from a future attack. If you have already been on the receiving end of a DDoS incident, then you will be all too aware of the disastrous financial and service level impacts it can have and would want to explore how to safeguard your online services in future.

As with most protection services, identifying an attack early is a key strategy to successful defense. Our DDoS protection therefore begins with detecting emerging application-level threats. Real-time security information collected by our systems is then used to shut down suspicious botnet activity.

Monitoring is provided around the clock by our Security Operations Center. Our trained professionals conduct security testing, active directory audits, and threat intelligence services. Their training and experience equip them to deal with any attacks directed against your company.

Furthermore, DDoS attacks are often used as cover for some other penetration of your security perimeter. This is why, in addition to our DDoS protection, we can use the data collected to provide you with even better protection against other cyber threats. All of this has been set up with your security and peace of mind as a priority.

Managed Web Application Firewall

As mobile device usage has increased, so has the number of threats received. Moreover, these attacks are becoming more sophisticated. Zero-Day attacks are becoming common; to a point where, by 2022, companies can expect a new zero-day attack every single day. Older methods of relying on antivirus patches or database downloads are simply ineffective against this kind of onslaught.

One crucial, and rather effective, layers of your defense against such attacks is our Web Application Firewall (WAF). It stops these threats via a combination of leading layer 7 DDoS defenses, advanced detection and mitigation techniques, deep-threat analysis, dynamic learning, virtual patching, and granular attack visibility. It works as an appliance, server plugin, or filter that applies a set of rules to an HTTP conversation. Generally, these rules cover common attacks such as Cross-site Scripting (XSS) and SQL Injection.

By customizing the rules for a web application, many attacks can be identified and blocked. The effort to perform this customization can be significant and needs to be maintained as the application is modified. The WAF aims to prevent attacks on custom coded web applications by providing multiple layers of protection to effectively neutralize known and unknown threats.

As a result, the WAF leverages the power and scalability of cloud-based networks to isolate your web app from incoming threats. It also blocks any attacks from outside of your perimeter before they reach your cloud-based network. Our reporting engine can even be configured to automatically drop an email notification on attack attempts keeping you well informed of any threats.

Managed Anti-Spam Service

Over half of all email is spam and it is unfortunately here to stay. But what exactly is a spam email? Technically speaking, spam is classed as unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email. Unfortunately for us, Email spam has grown massively in the lifetime of the internet clocking in at approximately 53% of all emails sent currently. In fact, they are so common that we can say with confidence that you have most probably received one within the past few minutes.

The biggest risk with spam and phishing emails is user error. Spam is designed to appear legitimate, and as if it were sent by a bank or genuine online source. Many of us can pick out the obvious fakes such as those from a Saudi prince or Nigerian businessman. But as a whole, these spam emails are getting far more convincing.

The primary goal of spam however is usually the same – to get a user to unknowingly download a malicious piece of software by clicking on a link. The average user will receive 16 such malicious spam emails per month, almost one per working day. Depending on the size of your organization, this means you will receive anywhere from hundreds, to tens of thousands of potentially damaging emails per year. It is a terrible nuisance that can have wide ranging negative effects on your business, and one that you shouldn’t have to deal with.

Our Managed Anti-Spam Service can work hard on your behalf, protecting your business from the relentless attack of spam and phishing emails. Our systems detect new spam and malware outbreaks immediately, and spam filters apply continuous improvements in secure data collection and analysis. That accumulated intelligence is shared real-time, assuring timely protection against new threats.

We increase email continuity through an extra protective layer on your email flow, and this infrastructure adds redundancy and continuity to your email delivery process. By managing your spam email flow efficiently, we allow productivity increases for workers through less time wasted with junk mail and reduce the risks of an employee clicking on a malicious link.

Mobile Application Security Assessment

76% of all mobile apps contain data storage vulnerabilities. The impact of poor mobile data protection could be very significant to your business. Your potential data loss could cost you more than just money. It could also cost you the trust of your customer as well as your reputation. As such, when your business is considering building or reviewing it mobile app, security should be one of the biggest items on the to-do list and our Mobile Application Security Assessment can help.

We view mobile app security and secure coding as a continuous, iterative process and want to become part of your development and testing process. As such, as part of the service, we will bring top security experts onto your team. We begin by mapping the application for each type of operating system. As a detailed understanding of the application’s data flow is produced, we can assess any vulnerabilities that may exist. As we work together to build the security of your app, you can be confident that the product you release to the marketplace will keep both your customers data and your own reputation protected.

Brand Protection Service

Your company brand is so much more than just a logo and catchy tagline. Your brand embodies the principles and values, as well as the direction you are taking as an organization. It is the visual and verbal representation of the journey you are on. If that logo and tagline were not present, you would not have a brand at all.

Just as important as your logo and tagline are to your brand, so too is its integrity and security. If your company does not take the correct measures you risk counterfeiting, impersonation, piracy, or outright theft of IP and data. The big brands know this, and act accordingly.

Smaller brands, especially growing ones, are at greater risk from theft of IP, counterfeit products, and impersonation. In fact, as a brand is growing, this is the time when it is at most risk as the fakes and bad actors try to attach themselves to the upward trend to make some quick cash.

Fail to protect your brand from these negative forces and you risk a tarnished reputation, both online and offline. If customers are buying fakes, or an impersonation of your product, the quality is invariably poor, and your brand suffers as a result.

Our Brand Protection Service will help defend your brand on all fronts. It will help you monitor your brand across multiple digital channels and manage results in one place, combining domain names, Internet content, trademark jurisdictions, and social media mentions. As a result, it offers reliable and affordable monitoring of your Domain, Social Media, and Mobile Apps. We watch your digital assets in real time, acting swiftly at the first sight of any suspicious activity. Our systems even monitor for malware and phishing attacks and send you real-time alerts when infections are discovered or suspected on end-user devices, as well as alerts for potential phishing sites and account takeover. In doing so, we make sure your brand’s defense is secured with what is effectively “Military-grade” protection.

Managed Social Media Cyber Security

Over 2.6 billion people are active monthly on Facebook. Social Media platforms like these server as effective awareness mediums for businesses. It is an enabler to reach your current customers and to gain the attention of more potential customers.

Unfortunately, the inherent popularity of these platforms also makes them a massive target for cyber-attacks. Facebook breaches alone were responsible for the 849 million leaked records in 2019. In 2018, all social media incidents combined to contribute to 56% of the 4.5 billion records breached. According to reports by Statista 16% of all Facebook accounts are fake or duplicates. You or your business could be one of those duplicates. Hackers could use your brand or identity to steal data, ruin reputations, and take money illegally.

Thankfully, securing your social media is relatively easy with our Managed Social Media Cyber Security Service. As part of the service, we will continually monitor your targeted social media accounts and will identify any malicious behavior and security threats. We will even address fraud and brand abuse cases. Personal Identifying Information will be clearly identified and monitored. This prevents sensitive information from leaking into the public domain where it can be used maliciously.

Best of all, our team is highly experienced in implementing cyber security plans for businesses. Our Security Operations Center operates 24/7 to monitor any social media threats and will maintain the highest level of protection for you and your brand on all your social media platforms.

Penetration Testing

The impact on your business due to a cyber-attack can be devastating. Phishing attacks alone can cost an average of $17,700 per minute while data breaches cost businesses an average of $3.92 million in direct costs and lost customer revenue. Worse still, attacks on IoT devices nearly increased five-fold in 2020 because of our growing reliance on the internet because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. But by far the most shocking statistic is the fact that a stunning 60% of breaches involved vulnerabilities for which a solution was available but not applied. That is 3 out of 5 attacks that could be easily have been prevented with solutions that are already available on the market.

This is why spotting vulnerabilities and identifying fixes within your network is extremely important and the best way to do so is to think like a cyber attacker. This is where penetration testing comes in. It is a targeted attack of your systems by a competent professional to reveal vulnerabilities. It begins with a review of your business data structure and the identification of areas to be tested as well as a clarification of your compliance needs. Following the initial brief, we begin to “think like thieves.” Our security experts look for every way into your system. Their goal is to find any vulnerabilities and flag them for review. After the tests have been completed, we produce detailed reports that contain information on the nature of the test, any vulnerabilities found, and the steps your business can take to protect itself from a malicious attack. As a result of its capabilities, penetration testing is by far one of the most important first steps towards taking your security to the maximum level.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

Cyber Criminals are working and evolving every day, so it is important that organizations use proactive best practices to prevent cyber security incidents. One of the best ways to do so is to understand and evaluate information about your organization’s cyber threats, and then apply that knowledge to ongoing efforts. Our Threat intelligence service helps organizations to collect such data and use it to better understand the past, present, and future threats. The information collected provides context to the operation on an organizations’ network and helps identify potential threats and remain secure from future attacks.

Security Information and Event Management

Your infosec professionals – those people responsible for information security in your organization – waste about 25% of their time chasing false positives. This is because Cyber threats and security information can generate huge amounts of data. Your tools for managing this data should be able to process between 10,000 – 500,000 events per second.

Numbers such as these inform us of the need for a sophisticated management system. However, threat detection isn’t just an automated process. Humans are required to evaluate the threats identified by the security information and event management systems.

This is where our Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system comes in. It helps you cut down on false positives, save time, and build a more effective security perimeter. In order to do so it has been designed to focus on three key objectives:

  • Capturing incidents on your systems (standard or proprietary) before they become a threat to your business.
  • Obtaining a real-time overview of network data to avoid service degradation and allow new insights.
  • Detecting undesirable network behavior and investigate incidents through data enrichment.

The built-in intelligent log analysis engine also automatically detects and notifies you of all critical incidents on your systems. In doing so it provides effective reports to your company. These reports allow you to take proper actions to address threats before they become breaches. Moreover, this insight into your systems helps you take the necessary steps required to achieve compliance with major regulations such as PCI-DSS, SOX, HIPAA, Basel-II, ISO27001, GDPR, GPG13, and more.

Threat Intelligence Services

Companies are struggling to keep up with the increasing complexity of cyber-attacks. Financial damage amounts are growing constantly and could exceed USD 6 trillion by the end of 2021. In fact, security breaches have increased by 11% since 2018 and 67% since 2014. 52% of these breaches featured hacking, 28% involved malware, and 32% used some form of phishing or social engineering.

Loss of data costs companies billions of dollars every year. Yet cyber security expenditure is constantly growing. Why are businesses spending more money on protection even while they lose funds to their attackers? The truth lies in the lack of threat intelligence.

The issue is every layer of your network security, right from your SIEM System to your most basic firewalls, must work effectively together to produce a robust defense. An uncoordinated defense is easily broken.

Our Threat Intelligence Services are a fully managed solution designed specifically to achieve this by giving your organization actionable insight into the cyber threat landscape. It works by correlating your internal data with indicators of compromise. These innocent-looking data points can hint at a potential issue. Pre-configured analytics in the form of alert rules, dashboards and data mappings run right away. The whole program can begin working right away to analyze your network, traffic, and threats. However, every organization is unique. We therefore plan a thorough threat intelligence strategy specifically tailored for your organization.

Vulnerability Assessment

34% of data breaches involve internal actors and 48% of malicious attachments are office files! These figures, from Verizon and Symantec, should make you feel vulnerable. The threats to your business are very real and they are growing by the day.

However, as technology continues to advance, businesses are also growing more complex. ERP systems and hybrid cloud infrastructure, as well as a dozen other developments, mean businesses are experiencing more and more network sprawl. Simply identifying the vulnerable areas across such networks is a massive task.

This makes the need for a Vulnerability Assessment of your company’s network more important than ever before. Our Vulnerability Assessment Service utilizes advanced tools to detect multiple levels of security risks to your company’s network infrastructure. We find the weak spots and help you fix them. This means more than just finding problems. We help you create automated processes to find the vulnerable areas and fix them quickly. We begin with the most critical and work until every weak point has been hardened.

In order to achieve this, we first collect data using real-time coverage of your entire network to get a better understanding of your risk at any given moment. We then prioritize your vulnerabilities by identifying those with more meaningful risk scores. And lastly, we provide IT with the information they need to fix issues quickly and efficiently. The entire process is ongoing and clear reports will be created on a regular basis to help your business maintain visibility of its network status and security posture.

Active Directory (AD) Audit Service

An Active Directory (AD) is a vital part of any organization’s processes and services if they are operating on the Microsoft Windows system. AD is a feature present on most Windows OS and is now commonly used as an umbrella term for a range of identity related services.

The simplest example of this is user identification at login. If you are running on Windows, when a user in your business logs in to their organization account, it is the Active Directory which checks their details to decide if the user is an administrator, or regular user.

AD also enables management and retention of information and can facilitate authentication and authorization. It is a critically important collection of resources on your company network, one which must be protected from attack and kept up to date for regulatory purposes.

Hackers target the AD to create fake user accounts with high-level permissions. These fake accounts have the necessary authority to download confidential information and perform many kinds of adverse operations.

Furthermore, an AD is particularly vulnerable to insider attacks where the attacker is a trusted and privileged user of your network. This is often an IT employee with privileged access to systems such as your AD.

So why not get another set of eyes to keep your AD secure with our Fully Managed Active Directory Audit Service. With it we can take the responsibility for monitoring and controlling your internal network, leaving you to focus on growing your business.

We provide real-time assurance that critical resources in your network like the Domain Controllers are audited, monitored, and reported. You will have access to all relevant information on your Active Directory (AD) objects, including: Users, Groups, GPO, Computer, OU, DNS, AD Schema, and Configuration changes. Active Directory events are logged and analyzed to detect suspicious activity. This includes real-time visibility of Group Policy Objects (GPO).

Our service is ISO27001 certified for Information Security Management Systems and is backed by our world-class customer service giving you access to our Security Operations Center 24/7.Everyone wants to trust their staff. But why not go the extra step and audit your Active Directory to ensure everything remains in order.

 

Managed Security Awareness

Malware and phishing attacks represent 74% of all data breaches and there is a good reason for that – Human Error. 3 of 4 data breaches come from malware downloaded by people or phishing scams that trap unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately for most of the people that do get scammed, they are punished by their employers. In fact, 42% of organizations do so with punishments ranging from ‘naming and shaming’ to denial of access until mandatory training has been completed.

This is a very problematic approach to take and is not an effective strategy for retraining employees. Aside from being unfair to the employee, all it does is build resentment and stress, while diminishing productivity. Furthermore, people who have faced such repercussions or seen others face them are much less likely to report quickly, if at all, for fear of being punished themselves.

A better way to raise the cyber hygiene level of your organization is managed security awareness–a comprehensive cyber security training program that follows an “Awareness as a Service” (AWaaS) model. It is a full-featured training suite that covers the most relevant “business as usual” security awareness topics. Each module has been developed using rich content and the program itself is scalable and can expand to match the size of your organization.

Such modular training is a brilliant method of raising the cyber hygiene of your entire organization. Combined with other tools, we can effectively help you measure the outcomes of your security investments, all while improving the overall productivity of your employees.

 

CONCLUSION

With such a broad range of services covering every possible aspect of cyber security, coupled with world-class facilities, proven industry leaders, and great return on investment, ODP is your best choice for a cyber security partner in Oman and the Middle East. We deliver the right outcomes, have great experienced staff ready to support you 24×7, and our facilities have all the capabilities you could possibly need.

Moreover, we have a proven track record of offering reliable and affordable cyber security solutions that have successfully protected over 600+ customers to date. And we endeavor to continue keeping all of our customers secure by living the cyber security principles of Availability, Confidentiality, Integrity, Accountability, and Assurance, which are also embodied in our new logo.

So, why wait? Let’s kick start your digital transformation today and broaden your business horizons. You can find out more about our products and services on our website www.omandatapark.com or you can reach out to us via phone on +968 2417 1111 or email support@omandatapark.com.