According to recent reports, multiple Russian government websites, including those of the Kremlin, the State Duma, and the Ministry of Defense, have been taken offline due to a cyberattack in the last week. The outages come days after a smaller DDoS attack knocked the websites offline for a brief period, and Russia geofenced several of the sites to prevent traffic from leaving the country.
The disruptions, which coincide with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, come after DDoS attacks shut down Ukrainian government websites.
It is unknown who was responsible for the most recent attack on Russian websites, as well as the prior one. Anonymous, a hacktivist collective, announced this week that it would commence operations against Russia’s government.
Anonymous claimed responsibility for a number of outages, including those of Russian news organisation RT, and claimed to deface local government websites. It further stated that login credentials for the Russian Ministry of Defense website would be leaked.
The influence of Russian cyberattacks on SA
Even though the Russian government being under cyber attack does not have a direct influence on the everyday South African, it does in fact makes us aware of the importance of cybersecurity. The importance of cybersecurity is increasing. Fundamentally, our society is more technologically reliant than it has ever been, and this tendency shows no signs of slowing. Data breaches that potentially lead to identity theft are now being shared openly on social media sites. Social security numbers, credit card numbers, and bank account information are now saved in cloud storage services such as Dropbox or Google Drive.
Whether you’re an individual, a small business, or a major corporation, you rely on computer systems on a daily basis. When you combine this with the advent of cloud services, bad cloud service security, cellphones, and the Internet of Things (IoT), you have too many new security risks that didn’t exist only a few decades ago.
Cybersecurity: How to protect yourself
The best form of protection is prevention. Before you invest in cybersecurity software, you need to do some research. Anti-malware software, for example, serves a different purpose than an SSL certificate. As a result, both should be employed in the event of a data breach or malware attack. CWatch website security is a comprehensive solution that can only be completed with the addition of an SSL certificate.
Anti-Malware software
Anti-malware software performs thorough scans to detect any security threats and sends out immediate alerts in the case of a security breach, making it a proactive solution. It provides powerful, always-on cybersecurity and continuing protection for your website, preventing malware from re-infecting it. Malware removal is frequently included in this program. It is important to clean your website of any malware that has been discovered and make sure it is 100% malware-free.
SSL certificate
An SSL Certificate’s main function is to protect your data. An SSL certificate protects your clients’ information on the internet by encrypting any data they provide you and then decrypting it once you receive it. All of our solutions include high-encryption (128–256 bit) to ensure that transactions and sensitive data are kept safe. There is no such thing as a little website that can’t be hacked! All of your pages with login functionality, as well as your web forms, are protected by an SSL certificate.
Cybersecurity is critical because it safeguards all types of data against theft and loss. Sensitive data, personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), personal information, intellectual property, data, and governmental and industry information systems all fall under this category.
Your company can’t defend itself against cybersecurity incidents without a cybersecurity program, making it an easy target for fraudsters.
