Reading last week about the most recent TalkTalk and Post Office routers hit by cyber-attack, I find myself being reminded of the 3 little Pigs story that my 5 year old loves, you know the one; "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!"
Well if you need a reminder, Wikipedia has a good summary:
The Three Little Pigs fable/fairy tale featuring anthropomorphicpigs who build three houses of different materials. A big bad wolf blows down the first two pigs' houses, made of straw and sticks respectively, but is unable to destroy the third pig's house, made of bricks.
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I find it surprisingly good at helping to describe how most of small businesses approach their internet security today.
So, the story begins with the title characters being sent out into the world by their mother, to seek out their fortune. The first little pig builds a house of straw, but a wolf blows it down and eats him. The second little pig builds a house of sticks, which the wolf also blows down and eats him.
Each exchange between wolf and pig features ringing proverbial phrases, namely:
"Little, little Pig, let me come in."
"No, no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin."
"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down."
The third little pig builds a house of bricks. The wolf fails to blow down the house. He then attempts to trick the pig out of the house by asking to meet him at various places, but he is outwitted each time. Finally, the wolf resolves to come down the chimney, whereupon the pig catches the wolf in a cauldron of boiling water, slams the lid on, then cooks and eats him.
Well - and this is where I get to my point...using a router to try and protect yourself from a big bad wolf is as naive as the Pig with his Straw house; you might think that you are safe because the front door is closed, but - you are not! A cyber attack will just blow that one in with ease.
Possibly, you are a bit more switched on than the little pig with the straw house and you have put a firewall in place to protect your network and company, but without the correct management of the firewall and the adequate computer local Anti Virus your house is still no better than Pig No.2's straw house. Blown down again!
If you want to make your house safe from the Big Bad Wolf build a big brick firewall, have it managed by experts, and place very clever AV onto your computers so even if the clever wolf tries to trick you you can catch him and enjoy some cyber wolf stew!
Straw and sticks are cheaper than bricks I hear you cry - but when was the last time you checked the actual cost, and how much would going out of business cost you!?
The difference between the little pigs' wolf and the Cyber Wolf is that the Cyber Wolf is not going to warn you about it before he blows you down.
Don't be a victim of Cyber crime - it is in your power to prevent it!
Several models of router are vulnerable to the latest cyber-assault, simple routers should not be used to try and protect a business from a cyber attack.
The Mirai worm was also involved in an earlier attack that caused several of the world's leading websites to become inaccessible, including Spotify, Twitter and Reddit.
Get protection today, or do you just not believe in fairy tales?
Thousands of TalkTalk and Post Office customers have had their internet access cut by an attack targeting certain types of internet routers. A spokeswoman for the Post Office told the BBC that the problem began on Sunday and had affected about 100,000 of its customers. Talk Talk also confirmed that some of its customers had been affected, and it was working on a fix. It is not yet known who is responsible for the attack. Earlier in the week, Germany's Deutsche Telekom revealed that up to 900,000 of its customers had lost their internet connection as a result of the attack. It involves the use of a modified form of the Mirai worm - a type of malware that is spread via hijacked computers, which causes damage to equipment powered by Linux-based operating systems. spokeswoman.
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