Telecom Industry and Its Tryst with Cybersecurity

Posted on: May 16, 2022 | 3 mins | Written by: HDFC ERGO Team

Telecom Industry and Its Tryst with Cybersecurity

One of the few things that keep us all connected across the globe, is the Telecom industry. Without the Telecom industry, it would be incredibly difficult to keep up with private communications or even business communications. In fact, it is so embedded into our ecosystem, that we almost take it for granted at times. It is this nature of the industry that makes it prone to cyberattacks. Thus, cybersecurity insurance makes even more sense.

A dire situation like a network outage or some failure from the Telecom industry makes us realise, how heavily we are dependent on them. The Telecom industry has us connected via the phone, with the help of the internet, over cables and waves. The presence of internet providers, satellite companies and telephone corporations has built a strong infrastructure that allows easy transfer of audio and video files across the globe. This has led to the growth in a lot of other industries. Given the vast number of consumers and data that is available in the Telecom industry, it should not be surprising that the industry is witnessing a massive number of cyberattacks. And given how complex the infrastructure of the Telecom industry is, a cyberattack can be disastrous, extensive and quite significant as well. The vastness of the Telecom industry makes it prone to attacks either from the industry, third party operators, or subscribers.

The following are some of the most common cyber attacks that the Telecom industry faces

1. Insider Attacks

A common recurrence within the Telecom industry is that a lot of its employees or insiders are not aware of the fact that they can be a threat in the first place. And it is usually the insider attacks that are the most difficult ones to trace. A vast majority of the people in the industry have no training in cybersecurity measures.

And given the fact that more than 30% of the workforce is now working remotely, greatly increases the chances of cyberattacks. Since there is a higher number of connections to unsecured networks.

2. IoT

While IoT or the Internet of Things is proving to make lives easier by the hour, it is also one of the greatest headaches for the Telecom industry along with the internet service providers. The Telecom industry and ISPs are not entirely sure how IoT will impact cybersecurity.

There has been a rapid growth in the implementation of IoT over the last few years, thereby providing even more entry points to the systems. And quite a few of these entry points might not be properly patched, thereby exposing the data of customers, companies or clients.

Some common examples of vulnerable entry points include security cameras installed in homes, smart hubs, and storage devices that are attached to the network.

3. DDoS

DDoS or Denial of Service attacks along with advanced distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) is rampant these days. These are usually done using the standard network protocols along with IoT devices and Mobile devices that are compromised. These attacks are even more critical since they have a direct financial impact if there is an outage or disruption of business.

There are quite a few examples of DDoS attacks, the most recent one being on the Telecom operators in North America. The Telecom operators were under a Distributed Denial of Services attack. It is widely known to be one of the largest cyberattacks on Telecom operators to date.

4. Third Parties

There are a lot of third-party entities involved in the Telecom industry. These could be vendors, email providers, web hosting companies, law companies, companies that manage data, service providers, subcontractors and so on. With so many variables, it is quite easy to get into the infrastructure and infiltrate it.

It can get a bit tricky to manage the security of your company along with the security of the providers or entities involved. This is where managed security services are essential.

5. Terrorism

Bad actors can take infiltrate systems remotely and take control of physical elements, thereby impacting infrastructure and manipulating systems as they wish to. Once they infiltrate the systems, they can then acquire important data and information on personal data, agreements between entities and at times even intellectual property.

However, the above are just some of the vulnerabilities and it is not an exhaustive list as well. Telecom operators need to look out for a few other vulnerabilities such as:

a. Espionage campaigns that can last a while

b. Misconfiguration of services

c. Using techniques such as social engineering, malware, or phishing to compromise the credentials of subscribers

These attacks can either be by low-level criminals that do not have a specific agenda. On the other hand, Telecom companies might also be attacked by sophisticated organisations as well. And at times such cases even go undetected.

What’s Next?

There are a lot of potential risk factors, and it is important to safeguard against them. However, enhancing the security of large complicated systems, reducing such attacks and protecting your data from sophisticated organisations is not a quick fix and needs time. Also, one needs to consider the cost involved in doing so.

A lot of organisations have limited sources and they must allocate the available funds judiciously. This is where you can take the help of Managed Security Providers. With the help of MSPs, Telecom operators can enhance their business with decisions that are based on data and provide their security team with the right arsenal as well. This would enable the security team to address and mitigate any cyber threats in a short span of time.

The Telecom industry can also benefit from Digital Risk and Threat Monitoring. This technique will help them gather information available on the deep web and darknet and provide them with a better ideas to highlight and identify attacks. To detect any breached materials, to ensure that the data is safe and to ensure that any future threats are well taken care of.

Apart from the above, it is also important to safeguard your interests with the help of cybersecurity insurance. Cybersecurity insurance is also known as cyber insurance or cyber liability insurance. Insurance plays a crucial role in reducing the financial impact of a cyberattack.

The insurance makes for an even stronger case for the Telecom operators since there is a lot of potential risks and the recent example DDoS attack on North America is proof of that. Cybersecurity insurance is based on errors and omissions insurance, which offers liability against defects or faults in the service of a company.

Disclaimer: The above information is for illustrative purpose only. For more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before concluding the sales.

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