To protect your company, it’s essential to implement robust security measures that control and monitor the information you make publicly available. we’ll explore practical steps to prepare and identify potential threats, focusing on website searches and web crawler activity.
Preparation: Limiting and Controlling Information
1. Conduct a Thorough Risk Analysis: Start by understanding the potential risks associated with the information your company shares. Perform a comprehensive risk analysis to identify what data could be leveraged by attackers and how.
2. Control Information Disclosure: Be strategic about the information your company shares publicly.
Employment Ads: Work with HR to make job postings more general, avoiding specifics about the technologies or systems your company uses.
Website Content: Regularly review your website content to ensure sensitive information isn’t inadvertently exposed.
Linked Sites: Identify and assess other websites that link to your company. Ensure these sites don’t share or link to sensitive information about your organization.
3. Limit Public Information: Reducing the amount of detailed information available to the public can decrease the likelihood of it being used in a cyberattack.
Website: Limit the amount of detailed technical or strategic information posted on your website.
Public Documents: Be cautious with the information shared in publicly accessible documents, presentations, and reports.
Identification: Monitoring for Web Spider/Crawler Activity
1. Understand Normal Activity: Differentiate between normal and suspicious web crawler activity. Search engines like Google use web spiders to index your site, and their activity is generally benign.
2. Analyze Web Logs: Regularly review your web server logs to identify unusual patterns that may indicate a security threat.
Systematic Access: Look for logs showing systematic access to every page on your site within a short timeframe. This could indicate a web spider or a more nefarious reconnaissance attempt.
Volume of Access: High volumes of access in a short period might suggest someone is trying to download the entire contents of your site, which could be a precursor to an attack.
3. Investigate Anomalies: When you detect unusual web activity, investigate further to determine its nature.
Source Identification: Identify the IP addresses and user agents associated with the suspicious activity. Check if they belong to legitimate search engines or potentially malicious actors.
Pattern Analysis: Analyze the access patterns. Malicious actors might access pages in a way that mimics legitimate behavior but within a much shorter period.
Ongoing Monitoring and Review
1. Open Source Information Checks: Periodically review open sources to see what information about your company is available publicly. This helps you understand what data might be exposed and how it could be used against you.
2. Involve Key Departments: Engage your security team, legal department, and public relations team in monitoring and protecting corporate information. Each department has a vested interest in maintaining the security and reputation of the company.
3. Update Security Measures: Regularly update and refine your security measures based on the latest threat intelligence and findings from your risk analyses and monitoring efforts.
Conclusion
By implementing these preparatory and identification steps, you can significantly enhance your company’s security posture. Controlling the information you share publicly and continuously monitoring for suspicious activities are crucial components of a robust security strategy. Stay vigilant, stay informed, and protect your corporate information from potential threats.
Akash Patel
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