Social Exposure: Examining The Underlying Insecurities In The Future Of Robotics
ISBuzz Team
What is Cyber Resilience, and how will it Help Businesses?
As the world continues to undergo rapid digital change, it is increasingly important for businesses to bolster their cyber resilience. This means not only being able to prevent and defend against cyber-attacks, but also being able to recognize, respond to, and recover from them. While cyber security focuses on a company's ability to protect itself from attacks, cyber resilience takes a wider approach, including business resilience and a culture of awareness that allows for recovery from cyber-attacks. In today's climate, it is more crucial than ever for businesses to prioritize cyber resilience in order to gain an advantage over their competition and ensure business continuity and reputation.
What is Cyber Resilience?
Cyber resilience refers to an organization's ability to maintain its essential functions during and after a cyber-attack or other digital disruption. This includes protecting against cyber threats and attacks, responding effectively to incidents, and ensuring business continuity.
There are several key elements to cyber resilience:
Cybersecurity: This involves implementing measures to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks and other security threats. This can include firewalls, antivirus software, and employee training on cybersecurity best practices.
Incident response: Set a plan in place for responding to cyber incidents is critical for minimizing the impact of an attack and returning to normal operations as quickly as possible. This plan should include steps for identifying and responding to an incident, as well as communication protocols for informing employees, customers, and stakeholders.
Business continuity: Ensuring that essential business functions can continue even if there is a disruption is crucial for maintaining customer trust and minimizing financial losses. This can include implementing backup and recovery systems, such as data backups and disaster recovery plans.
In today's digital age, cyber resilience is more important than ever. With the increasing reliance on technology for business operations and the growing sophistication of cyber-attacks, it is essential for businesses to protect themselves against potential threats and disruptions.
How Cyber Resilience Helps Businesses
There are several ways in which cyber resilience can help businesses:
Protects against cyber threats and attacks: By implementing cybersecurity measures and an incident response plan, businesses can reduce their risk of being targeted by cyber-attackers and minimize the impact of an attack if one does occur.
Ensures business continuity: Peradventure, there happens to be a cyber-attack or other disruption, having a business continuity plan in place can help a company maintain its essential functions and minimize financial losses. This is particularly important for businesses that rely heavily on technology for their operations.
Improves customer trust and confidence: Customers are more likely to trust and continue doing business with a company that has demonstrated its ability to protect against cyber threats and recover from incidents.
Increases overall business productivity and efficiency: By implementing cyber resilience measures, businesses can reduce the risk of disruptions to their operations, allowing them to focus on serving their customers and growing their business.
Steps for Implementing Cyber Resilience in a Business
As technology continues to advance and the digital landscape evolves, it is more important than ever for businesses to prioritize cyber resilience. Cyber resilience is the ability to prevent, recognize, respond to, and recover from cyber-attacks, ensuring the continued operation and success of a company. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of many small businesses to safeguard themselves against online threats, a significant number still fall victim to cybercrime.
In fact, according to recent statistics, 66% of small businesses have experienced a cyber-attack in the past two years, despite 93% of them taking measures to protect their operations. To help businesses strengthen their cyber resilience strategy and better protect themselves against online threats, here are seven steps to follow:
Strategize: The first step in building a strong cyber resilience strategy is to assess the potential risks and vulnerabilities facing your business. This includes evaluating the security of your digital assets, such as your website and network infrastructure, as well as the potential consequences of a cyber-attack. Based on this assessment, you can develop a comprehensive plan for protecting against cyber threats and attacks.
Ensure: Implementing robust cybersecurity measures is essential for protecting your business against online threats. This can include firewalls, antivirus software, and employee training on cybersecurity best practices. It is also important to regularly update your cybersecurity measures to stay ahead of the latest threats.
Withstand: In the event of a cyber-attack, it is important for your business to be able to withstand the impact and maintain essential functions. This can be achieved through the implementation of backup and recovery systems, such as data backups and disaster recovery plans, as well as redundant systems for critical operations.
Defend: Having a plan in place for responding to a cyber incident is crucial for minimizing the impact of an attack and returning to normal operations as quickly as possible. This plan should include steps for identifying and responding to an incident, as well as communication protocols for informing employees, customers, and stakeholders.
Inspect: Regular security assessments, such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessments, can help identify weaknesses in your systems and allow you to take steps to address them. Utilizing security information and event management (SIEM) systems can also help you monitor for threats in real-time and respond quickly to incidents.
Observe: Cybersecurity training and awareness programs can help employees understand the importance of cybersecurity and how they can help to protect their company against threats. This can include education on phishing scams, password management, and other best practices.
Recover: In the event of a cyber-attack, it is paramount for your business to have a plan in place for recovery. This can include implementing a business continuity plan to ensure essential functions can continue, as well as collaborating with other businesses and organizations to share information and best practices on cyber resilience.
By following these seven steps, businesses can significantly strengthen their cyber resilience strategy and better protect themselves against online threats. While no business is completely immune to cyber-attacks, by proactively planning and preparing for potential incidents, companies can minimize the impact of an attack and ensure their continued success.
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Conclusion
Cyber resilience is essential for businesses in today's digital age. With the increasing reliance on technology for business operations and the growing sophistication of cyber-attacks, it is crucial for companies to protect themselves against potential threats and disruptions. By implementing cyber resilience measures, businesses can protect against cyber threats, ensure business continuity in the event of a cyber-incident, improve customer trust and confidence, and increase overall business productivity and efficiency.
The social influence of robots on people and the insecurities this can bring should not be underestimated. Research conducted by Kaspersky and Ghent University has found that robots can effectively extract sensitive information from people who trust them, by persuading them to take unsafe actions. For example, in certain scenarios, the presence of a robot can have a big impact on people’s willingness to give out access to secure buildings.
The world is rapidly moving towards increased digitalisation and mobility of services, with many industries and households relying strongly on automatisation and the use of robotic systems. According to some estimates, the latter will become the norm for wealthy households by 2040. Currently, most of these robotic systems are at the academic research stage and it is too early to discuss how to incorporate cybersecurity measures. However, research by Kaspersky and Ghent University has found a new and unexpected dimension of risk associated with robotics – the social impact it has on people’s behavior, as well as the potential danger and attack vector this brings.
The research focused on the impact of a specific social robot – one that was designed and programmed to interact with people using human-like channels, such as speech or non-verbal communication, and as many as around 50 participants. Assuming that social robots can be hacked, and that an attacker had taken control in this scenario, the research envisaged the potential security risks related to the robot actively influencing its users to take certain actions including:
gaining access to off-limits premises. The robot was placed near a secure entrance of a mixed-use building in the city center of Ghent, Belgium, and asked staff if it could follow them through the door. By default, the area can only be accessed by tapping a security pass on the access readers of doors. During the experiment, not all staff complied with the robot’s request, but 40% did unlock the door and keep it open to let the robot into the secured area. However, when the robot was positioned as a pizza delivery person, holding a box from a well-known international take away brand, staff readily accepted the robot’s role and seemed less inclined to question its presence or its reasons for needing access to the secure area.
extracting sensitive information. The second part of the study focused on obtaining personal information which would typically be used to reset passwords (including date of birth, make of first car, favorite color, etc.). Again, the social robot was used, this time inviting people to make friendly conversation. With all but one participant, the researchers managed to obtain personal information at a rate of about one item per minute.
Commenting on the results of the experiment, Dmitry Galov, Security Researcher at Kaspersky, said, “At the start of the research we examined the software used in robotic system development. Interestingly we found that designers make a conscious decision to exclude security mechanisms and instead focus on the development of comfort and efficiency. However, as the results of our experiment have shown, developers should not forget about security once the research stage is complete. In addition to the technical considerations there are key aspects to be worried about when it comes to the security of robotics. We hope that our joint project and foray into the field of cybersecurity robotics with colleagues from the University of Ghent will encourage others to follow our example and raise more public and community awareness of the issue.”
Tony Belpaeme, Professor in AI and Robotics at Ghent University added: “Scientific literature indicates that trust in robots and specifically social robots is real and can be used to persuade people to take actions or reveal information. In general, the more human-like the robot is, the more it has the power to persuade and convince. Our experiment has shown that this could carry significant security risks: people tend not to consider them, assuming that the robot is benevolent and trustworthy. This provides a potential conduit for malicious attacks and the three case studies discussed in the report are only a fraction of the security risks associated with social robots. This is why it is crucial to collaborate now to understand and address emerging risks and vulnerabilities – it will pay off in the future.”
A copy of the report, The potential of social robots for persuasion and manipulation: a proof of concept study, is available on Securelist.
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