Nearly every day there is news of a new high-profile cyber-security attack. These types of attacks are increasing in frequency, and the statistics on these trends are alarming. The AV-Test Institute, an independent malware research firm, analyzes and documents malicious programs. In just the twelve months between May 2015 and April 2016, the group recorded 140 million new malicious programs with an average of over 390,000 new malware instances uncovered every day.
Lately, a form of cyber-attack called ransomware—which is a type of malware that hijacks IT systems until a ransom is paid to the perpetrator—has become increasingly more popular. In one recent example, the attack halted IT operations at a hospital in Los Angeles for over a week. The hospital eventually chose the path of least resistance to solve their problem: they paid the ransom and subsequently their systems were re-instated by the hackers. The hospital had little choice in the matter considering the health of all the patients was at risk.
“But Our Systems Are Secure”
If you are an IT professional, you are probably already doing plenty to stop the threat of malware. Maybe you already invest in IT security products that scan your networks for threats. You invest in authentication products like one-time passcode tokens to verify who is accessing your networks. You even run complex analytics on network traffic to determine and scrub any incoming traffic from dubious sources. The U.S. alone spends $8 billion per year on IT security products. So you have your bases covered, right? How could malware possibly enter your IT ecosystem?
The answer is simple: portable media.
Cyber Security Kiosks Protect Your Systems at the Front Door
With the spread of malware at all-time highs, fighting hackers at every vector is critical. Many times, the threat is not coming in through your network, rather, it is being transported on premise via portable media like thumbdrives and SD cards.
New forms of malware are actually designed to propagate offline, because while offline, the devices are not receiving updates from cloud-based security software. The idea is that if placed on a machine between updates, the malicious software can slip between updates and the currently installed (in this case outdated) version of the security software will not recognize the malicious software.
Think about the many ways malicious software can make its way onto portable media. Perhaps a user downloads something at home, where they do not have sophisticated security on their personal device, and later, they bring the thumbdrive to work to continue working on a project that they had taken home. In this example, the enterprise network would be at risk.
If you have deployed cyber security kiosks at your location, then you would be able to stop this sort of threat from spiraling into a serious security breach. As your users bring portable media on premise, they simply scan the media on the cyber security kiosk which scans for and detects malicious software.
The California Cyber Security Kiosk is a cutting edge anti-malware portable media scanning kiosk developed through a partnership between Olea Kiosks and OPSWAT, a San Francisco based IT security firm. The California Kiosk features a 15-in-1 smart media reader, external USB ports, and a Blu-ray reader that will scan all incoming media using up to 30 fully-licensed anti-malware and anti-virus security programs.
If IT security is a priority to you, then you should definitely consider this often overlooked risk vector: the front door. Contact Olea Kiosks today to find out how an anti-malware cyber security kiosk can ensure the safety of your IT infrastructure.
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