Ukraine: The Rise of the White Hat Hacker.
Anyone who is in the IT industry will know that Ukraine has some of the best programming talent in the world. Now young Ukrainians are using their technical skills to help their country.
There have been numerous reports about cyber-attacks, originating out of Russia, hitting Ukrainian state infrastructure. Of course Ukraine has not been the only victim as there are an increasing number of reported cases in the US and Europe. Whilst it is not easy to determine the exact origin, or purpose, of these attacks (state backed or private, strategic or economic) it is interesting to see last month that one aluminium producer in the US was attacked, as well as one major oil distributor in Germany — both industries are of strategic importance in the case of heavy sanctions against Russia.
Hackers are not always bad and come in many shapes and sizes, However, the lines between different types of Hackers can be very opaque.
Whilst most of us are watching the military advance into Ukraine, hackers are working in the background to slow that down. One group called Anonymous have claimed that they have been able to hack the Russian Ministry of Defence database, as well as infiltrate Russian State media to promote pro-Ukrainian content.
One key strike method is a Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attack. This effectively bombards a website with calls, or data, making it unusable. A number of Russian sites were down over the past few days as a result of DDoS attacks. Whilst a DDoS attack is temporary, a Malware attack can be permanent. With a Malware attack your data can be permanently encrypted rendering it useless.
Hackers are savvy individuals who always look for an unlocked door. In many cases that door is email where a malicious link or Trojan* is embedded. Just one careless click on that link and your network can grind to a halt.
Whilst we all wish for a peaceful end to the current conflict, let’s hope White Hat Hackers can play their part in reducing the number of casualties on all sides.
About TradeCloud.
At TradeCloud our goal was to build a communications platform specifically designed for the commodities industry. This meant that data security was our top priority. As highlighted above, the key to keeping communications private is to keep them within a secure environment. The TradeCloud environment is a closed system, making it far less susceptible to attack.
So, if you want to significantly reduce the risk of your data being intercepted, you should send it via TradeCloud. TradeCloud allows you to send messages and documents in structured manner and has security features throughout. Furthermore, TradeCloud can be fully monitored by your compliance department via our partner Global Relay — the leader in global communication monitoring.
This is just one feature amongst many we have created for a more secure and compliant environment for the commodities industry of the future.
