How Automation Can Protect You Against False Logins

The digital era is filled with danger. Malware, spyware, ransomware, denial of service attacks, and more all threaten the security of digital workplaces everywhere. A system’s security protocols, including defenses such as firewalls, authentication, and encryption, can harden a system to a great degree. Most threats can be stopped by such measures. Unfortunately, all it takes is one compromised account to throw everything into chaos. 

According to Ponemon Institute’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach, the average cost of a single data breach is $3.86 million. The largest individual facet of this loss is difficult for any company to fix. $1.45 million of that $3.86 million is caused by lost business. A company that suffers a data breach suffers a tremendous loss in public trust. Years might pass before the incident is forgiven by the general public, during which many companies cannot survive the drought of customer acquisition. 

However, loss of public trust is not the sole source of cost. Post-breach forensic analysis can rack up quite the bill. The cost of detection and security escalation is the second largest cost of a data breach: $1.23 million of the cost is found in root cause determination, organizing an incident response team, and audit services. 

Traditional security is reactive. A firewall can stop a virus and a login screen can require a complex password, but neither inherently give a user the details necessary to prevent future attempts to breach the system. These excluded details might reveal critical intelligence in the war against cybercrime. For example, a company might discover that several employee login attempts originate from Brazil despite having no Brazilian employees. These login attempts likely originate from attackers attempting to gain access to employee accounts. Most enterprises would want to do something about the situation if they were made aware of it. 

What a company might choose to do is up to the company in question. A hardline stance would block all employee login attempts coming from Brazil, but other options are available. Multi-factor authentication, targeted application security, and other defenses can be tailored to the specific problem region. An enterprise might want to deliberately reset and strengthen passwords in response to an upsurge in suspicious login attempts. Adding login attempt limits further reinforces system security against brute-force attacks. Myriad options are available to a prepared enterprise. However, no action can be taken if an enterprise isn’t made aware of the problem. 

How can an enterprise acquire the information it needs? 

In this example, an enterprise might once have needed a specialist to determine the location of the login information, if it could be found at all. Once the specialist compiled all the login details, they would need to identify the region from which the false login attempts originated. This was a complicated, time-consuming process rife with human error that often saw results pushed to the bottom of the priority list, overlooked, or dismissed entirely. 

With the power of a security automation platform like Voleer, vital data such as the location of suspicious login attempts can be tracked without the need for a costly and time-consuming campaign. Without writing any code, an enterprise can receive detailed login records with the press of a button. Armed with data free of human error, there can be no doubt as to the scale -and thus priority- of the mysterious Brazilian logins. Automation can even assess multi-factor authentication enablement to further harden system security against false logins. When an automated enterprise notices suspicious login attempts, it is armed with the tools necessary to respond quickly. 

The data backs up these claims. Ponemon Institute’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach states that a fully deployed security automation system reduces the average cost of a data breach to just $2.88 million - saving enterprises almost one million. Even partial implementation of security automation can reduce the cost by tens of thousands of dollars. Protecting systems from illegitimate login attempts is just one small part of those numbers.  

Automation reduces not only the cost of attacks but increases enterprise awareness of risk.  The old maxim “knowledge is power” has never been more relevant than now. Become aware of illegitimate login attempts and other important security details with Voleer today! 

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