Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 22 | Page 94

/ FINAL WORD Preventing your network from becoming a Botnet Not having enough network protection may allow your organisation’s devices to be part of the next cyberattack, according to Harish Chib, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Sophos. B otnets are large volumes of distributed networked computers and devices that have been taken over by a cybercriminal. Also referred to as bots, they are usually taken over by malicious software to enable remote control by a threat actor. They are set up and developed by a hacker to provide a powerful and dark, cloud computing network to conduct cyberattacks of a criminal nature. The growth in mobile and network devices has created large scale social and productivity benefits for us. We can now remotely access computers, security systems, cameras, appliances and a growing list of devices, interconnected with cloud. Collectively this is referred to as the Internet of Things or IoT. A worrying aspect of the growth of Internet-connected devices is the absence of basic security precautions. Most end users rarely change factory defaults, which can be exploited by hackers to take control of the devices. Another door for cybercriminals to take control of connected devices is called the back-door entry. This is a manufacturer's access to the device through an undisclosed connection, used for remote testing and updates. This large distributed, network of computers, under the control of threat actors, represents an aggregation of computing power that can be used for a devastating effect. 94 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com