When organizations’ employees use their private smartphones to access their organization’s IT network and email accounts, cyber criminals can take advantage of this vulnerability and infiltrate the organization’s systems. Assac Networks provides the solution to mitigate this threat.

Although awareness to the importance of cyber security is quite high nowadays, and organizations invest heavily in order to protect themselves from cyber threats, there still exists a major and significant cyber security weak link which, in large, is still not properly addressed.

We are referring to employees’ and managers’ smartphones – private iOS and Android, which are extensively used by them to access the organizations’ IT networks and mail servers, and are extremely vulnerable to both hacking and tapping.

Just recently, Gil Shwed, founder of Check Point, said in an interview to the “7 Days” magazine, that “We are witnessing a huge increase in the number of attacks on smartphones. The technology to protect against such attack is available, but, in many cases, organizations do not implement it. It is like saying: I bought the safest car in the world, but I never buckle up.”

Recognizing the threat to organizations which stems from this vulnerability, Assac Networks developed a comprehensive solution, which is already operational and is used by numerous commercial and security organizations worldwide.

“Nearly 75% of the endpoint connections in all organizations are Smartphones, according to a Gartner Research,” says Shimon Zigdon, CEO of Assac Networks. “Employees use smartphones to access the organizations’ systems, such as email and files, as well as for their personal communication and applications, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and others.”

Organizations nowadays attempt to maximize communication and data security by using VPNs to create a partition between employees’ private and corporate applications. Unfortunately, VPN has its own vulnerability, as the hackers can target the employee’s mobile device, which is usually unsecured, and use it to infiltrate the organization’s email system, and from there they can quite easily breach the entire IT system.

“Once the hacker succeeds in accessing the organization’s email server, he can, for example, send phishing links via email to the organization’s employees, run malicious software inside the network, impersonate an actual employee to steal information, and launch a DoS attack”, says Shimon Zigdon.“ Such a cyber attack, which can be carried out using a simple BYOD smartphone, can covertly cause a great deal of damage to the organization. This kind of threat carries a huge potential risk because by using an employee’s smartphone to breach the network, the hacker can pose as an actual employee, and gain access with privileged credentials. This enables him to put his hand on the organization’s most sensitive data.”

The solution Assac Networks provides for such cyber threats is a proven app, available for both Android and IOS devices that integrates two different protection systems: ShieldiT, an app and system solution that provides protection against both tapping and hacking. ShieldiT’s anti-tapping technology prevents eavesdropping on employees’ conversations and messaging, and its anti-hacking technology detects and prevents installation of malware on the device.

To complement ShieldiT, Assac Networks also developed ManageiT, which enables CISOs to manage all the endpoints, supervise the threats facing the company, prepare the organization for possible attacks and locate vulnerable points. Both the app and the system solution fully integrate with the organization’s voice and data networks.”

While some employees may oppose the installation of a security application on their smartphones, it is important to emphasize that such an application also secures their own privacy and essential information, such as bank account details, private photos and all the data stored on the device. It’s important for all of us to remember that any hacker can, for example, fairly easily access any person’s WhatsApp app, impersonate the actual user, send intimate pictures, as well as use malicious apps to steal bank account’s credentials and much more.

“Securing the smartphone endpoint against both hacking and tapping, secures not only the organization’s IT and voice systems but also protects the employees private data,” summarizes Zigdon.

 For additional information and to get a demo: info@assacnetworks.com

The original article and photograph were published (in Hebrew) by Israel’s leading financial and business newspaper and website – Calcalist: https://calcalist360.webflow.io/articles/smartphone

A recent cyberattack has recently caused UHS hospital network, one of the largest healthcare centers network in the US, to shut down its IT computer systems all across the US.

While it’s not yet clear if any patient data was stolen, but the attack did require a complete shut-down of the entire UHS computer network. Reports by UHS employees hint that the ransomware involved was Ryuk, which can be difficult to detect and contain as the initial infection usually happens via spam/phishing and can propagate and infect IoT/IoMT devices.

Shimon Zigdon, CEO and founder of Assac Networks, an Israeli-based provider of mobile security anti-hacking and anti-tapping smartphone solutions, says that “such attacks take place much more frequently than people realize”, and that “such an incident once again proves how important it is to ensure that all the organization’s devices which are connected to the  IT network, including smartphones and tablets, are fully secured with anti-malware and anti-hacking systems.” The reason is that mobile devices constitute the very weakest link in the organization’s cybersecurity line of defense, and therefore they serve as the easiest way through which a hacker can infiltrate an organization’s IT network.

“Especially now, due to Covid-19, hundreds of millions of people are working remotely, conducting business activities using their mobile devices,” said Zigdon. “This is compounding the cybersecurity threat, as so much sensitive data, files, and information are being processed using BYOD devices. With mobile devices being so prone to, for example, phishing attacks, all that a hacker needs to do in order to gain access to the IT network is to send an innocent-looking SMS or an e-mail with a link to one of the organization’s employees. Once any one of those employees clicks thelink, a whole chain of hacking events is set in motion, eventually infecting the entire organization’s IT and iOT network. “

These attacks occur on a daily basis,” summarizes Shimon, ”yet many of them stay unreported for various reasons. CISOs need to consider the risks and the potential damage, and take proactive steps in order to mitigate such threats.”

For information about Assac Networks’ ShieldiT app, a comprehensive smartphone and mobile communication security solution to protect organizations against cyberattacks, data breaches, and eavesdropping, please leave your details and we will contact you ASAP.

Cyber attacks that target mobile devices are becoming more common, as cybercriminals take advantage of the relative ease with which these devices can be hacked. In many cases, a hacked smartphone is used in order to gain access to organizations’ IT networks and steal vital information.

According to a McAfee’s report, in the first quarter of 2019 alone, more than 35 million cyber hacking incidents involving mobile devices took place, 10 million more than in the previous quarter. In addition, during September 2019 alone, about 172 malicious apps were identified in the Google Play Store, and those were downloaded more than 335 million times. The numbers of malicious apps are astronomical, and are only expected to grow from year to year.

“There are thousands of different types of malicious apps out there that are installed on millions of mobile devices,” says Shimon Zigdon, CEO and founder of Assac Networks, a cyber defense company which developed ShieldiT, the first-ever app to provide both anti-hacking and anti-tapping protect3ion for smartphones and mobile communications. “These malicious apps run covertly, without the devices’ users ever knowing about it. While the goal of some of these apps is to simply make money by displaying advertisements, the goals of many other malicious apps is to collect data stored in mobile devices, record everything the user types in, such as bank account information, credit card numbers, personal data, etc. The information collected by these apps is transmitted to cyber criminals, who can use it in a variety of harmful ways.”

“For example, it’s quite possible that every time you log into your bank account, or make a purchase from a website using your credit card, a malicious app installed on your device collects the data you type in and transmits it to a hacker,” says Zigdon. “The risk of malicious applications can go much further when it comes to employees of commercial and government organizations, because a hacked mobile devices can easily be used by cyber criminals to access organizations’ IT networks and servers – mail, data, sensitive files, etc,  steal organizational  data, install malicious software and more.”

How easy is it for hackers to install malicious apps on a mobile device? Very easy

“Hackers no longer need for you to install a malicious app,” Shimon adds. “All they need you to do is click a video on any social channel or an icon on a website, and from that point onwards, what is yours is theirs to know. Without an anti-hacking detection and protection app, you will never know that their app is running in the background, wreaking havoc to your organization, collecting information about you, and recording all your mobile calls. Those apps can also record whatever is said in the vicinity of the device. Cyber criminals can even turn on the camera and film whatever you’re doing without you ever knowing about it. “

The only way to mitigate these threats is to use an app that continuously monitors and scans your mobile device, and detect if any malicious apps are running on it,”  adds Shimon. “That’s the reason we’ve developed ShieldiT. It’s a single solution that protects individuals and organizations against both hacking and tapping. You can find apps that protect you from either tapping OR hacking, but ShieldiT is unique in that it provides dual protection- from both hacking and tapping. “

ShieldiT was originally developed to meet the need of governmental and HLS security organizations, but with cyber threat and attacks on BYOD becoming so ubiquities, the technology was adapted to meet the security needs of enterprises, telecom service providers, and other organizations. The app’s anti-tapping protection utilizes military-grade encryption technology and provides anti-tapping protection even in scenarios where the party on the other end of the call uses a non-encrypted device.

“ShieldiT is in fact the only app today that provides comprehensive protection – against malicious apps, wiretapping, and also the interception of text messages made from the device,” summarizes Shimon. “The solution thus provides private users and especially organizations with the protection they need through computer-based learning identification., thereby it can even detect and prevent ZERO DAY attacks.”

For further information about ShieldiT anti-hacking and anti-tapping protection for smartphones and mobile communications, please contact us:
https://assacnetworks.com/contact/