Don’t doubt it: The next phase of Russian military actions will almost assuredly involve cyberattacks against the nations imposing economic sanctions… and because that includes the United States, it includes you and me.Let’s look at the history.
Russia has been linked to cyber warfare attacks against Ukraine since 2015, as well as standing up fake social-media accounts to distribute disinformation during U.S. elections for the past decade. As the New York Post reported just this week:
Russia appears to have officially declared cyberwar on the U.S., taking what’s been described as preliminary steps at crippling its banking system and possibly other major industries.
The Biden administration has been working with bank executives for months about preparing for cyberattacks as retaliation over US sanctions.
The big U.S. banks — JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs — are under constant attacks by cyber criminals looking to disrupt operations and steal client information. The usual suspects are most often located in Iran, China and, of course, Russia.
What’s the logical next step from either the Russian government or independent operatives? Undermining U.S. small businesses, both non-profit and for-profit, which employ more people than any other sector, seems a likely action.
Now is the time to protect yourself from:
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- Malware that requests ransom payment and destroys your files anyway
- Website defacement
- Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks that suspend your access to bank accounts, or, worse, send money from your accounts
- And more
What can you do?
Beef up your digital security NOW, including getting some training for yourself and your team that helps you identify phishing expeditions and other insidious plots.
Our longtime friends at The Core Group, who are IT security experts, have posted a helpful article, “14 Ways to Avoid a Cyberattack.” It’s well worth reading.
The digital attacks are already happening. Don’t wait until tomorrow. I know you’re busy because I’m busy too. But over the past two weeks we’ve made a further commitment here at Counterintuity to working with an IT firm to enhance our security and our training. Why?
Because the Russians are already here.