HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that was officially signed and introduced under the esteemed former US President,Bill Clinton. This framework was mainly created to secure the information flow in health care sectors, to properly maintain sensitive information like PII (Personal Identifiable Information)and PHI (Personal Health Information) of patients from beingstolen and manipulated by intruders and to address the shortcomings on healthcare insurance coverage.

In this technological age, medical providers are using clinical applications such as Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems, Electronic Health Records (EHR), radiology, pharmacy, and laboratory systems. Health plans are providing access to claims and care management, as well as member self-service applications. This means that the medical workforce is getting more dynamic and efficient (i.e., physicians can check patient records and test results from any part of the globe using connecting mediums). As many people leveragethese technologies, potential security threats are also on the rise and this provides the need to audit them using a proper framework that's none other than HIPPA. Further, HIPAA comprises of 5 titles briefed below:

1. Title 1 (Health Insurance Coverage) - Protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs.

2. Title 11 (Administrative Simplification) - Checks if the national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers are well established.

3. Title 111 - Sets guidelines for pre-tax medical spending accounts.

4. Title 1V - Sets guidelines for group health plans.

5. Tile V - Governs company-owned life insurance policies.

HIPAA provides two important rules namely HPR (HIPAA Privacy Rule) and HSR (HIPAA Security Rule). To explain them in a swift manner, HPR safeguards protected health information while HSR protects a subset of information covered by the Privacy Rule.Cycatz's capable security auditors scrutinize both and ensure if their requirements are met. Further, they

1. Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all electronic protected health information.

2. Detect and protect against anticipated threats.

3. Safeguard against insecure uses or disclosures.

4. Certify compliance by their workforce.

5. To know further, feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime!

PCI DSS Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a security standard established by major credit card companies to protect the sensitive information of cardholders and ensure secure payment card transactions. It applies to any organization that handles, processes, or stores payment card data.

The PCI DSS framework consists of twelve requirements that cover various aspects of security, including network security, data protection, access controls, and monitoring. These requirements include maintaining a secure network, implementing strong access controls, regularly monitoring and testing systems, and maintaining a policy that addresses information security for employees and contractors.

PCI DSS compliance is essential for businesses that handle payment card data to protect against data breaches and unauthorized access. Compliance helps ensure the secure handling of sensitive customer information, builds trust with customers, and reduces the risk of financial losses due to fraud.

At Cycatz, our experienced auditors assess and validate organizations' adherence to the PCI DSS requirements. We help businesses identify and address security vulnerabilities, implement best practices, and achieve compliance to protect payment card data and maintain a secure payment environment.

For more information about our services and how we can assist you with PCI DSS compliance, please feel free to reach out via email at [email protected]

ISO stands for International Standards of Organizations. There are various ISO standards for managing various sectors. Amongst them, ISO 27001 standard is used to manage information security Management systems that entirely deals with the aspects of establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and regularly improving ISMS (Information Security Management Systems) with the goal to fine tune the security of information assets in the best possible manner.

An ISMS is a holistic approach to secure the CIA triad of corporate information assets that consists a set of policies, procedures and other controls involving people, processes and technology. CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability and maintaining these 3 at all costs is the goal of any information security organization. Envision a scenario where the most contemporary information security assets are purchased but they aren't maintained in a secure manner which definitely doesn't make sense. To maintain them secure and to check it, arrives the indispensable need of ISO 27001 audit that

1. Examines the organization's security assets in a scrutinized manner noting all the existing and potential threats.

2. To implement a lucid and prudent suite of information security controls to address the risks.

3. Ensures the entire ISMS process in ISO 27001 fulfills the information security risks of an organization.

Having emphasized the basic significance of ISO 27001 audit on every organization, it is even more important to get it done by competent auditors who scrutinize every layer of security aspects on an information asset. Cycatz has a well-qualified and experienced team of auditors

1. Who have conducted audits for over 100+ organizations in the best possible manner.

2. Who can be relied and questioned on confusions and for assistance anytime.

To know further, feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime!

NIST stands for National Institute of Standards and Technology. It is a cybersecurity framework that's designed for various individual businesses and federal, state and defense organizations outlined in Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) to assess and protect from the risks they face. As per recent survey, 70% of organizations choose NIST framework as the best practice for computer security.

NIST framework provides fine detailing of cybersecurity practices like none other framework. NIST cybersecurity framework has 5 primary functions that's further subdivided into 23 categories. These categories are further partitioned into many subcategories that contain distinct cybersecurity outcomes and security controls. They follow 5 important processes namely:

1. Identify - Identifying the underlying security concerns in information assets; checking the roles and responsibilities of risk management decisions; understand the operational requirements and identify the setbacks in it.

2. Protect - Protect all the access to information security assets to ensure secure delivery of information across all sides; to provide proper cybersecurity awareness on securing security aspects.

3. Detect - Ability to sanely scrutinize the information security assets and detect the potential hazards bound to strike them. Respond - After detecting the potential hazards in assets, responding them with protective actions.

4. Recover - After responding with right treatment to information assets, care must be ensured to recover them from the hazard once and for all with necessary resilient measures.

1. Our auditors provide expert yet prudent and affordable suggestions in fixing the loopholes in assets.

2. Our auditors are approachable anytime and provide solid assistance until the confusions are cleared.

To know further, feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime!

HITRUST stands for Health Information Trust. It's a privately held company led in association with leaders from industries like healthcare, technology and information security organizations that formed the HITRUST CSF. CSF is a comprehensive, prescriptive, and certifiable framework that can be used by all organizations that create, access, store or exchange sensitive data. The HITRUST CSF framework incorporates various security, privacy, and other regulatory requirements from existing frameworks and standards, some organizations utilize this framework to demonstrate their security and compliance in a consistent and streamlined manner.

However, HITRUST CSF has garnered criticism for being “cumbersome, expensive, arbitrary, unnecessarily complex”, and using “outdated data.”

Cycatz suggests some effective ways to overcome it's setbacks and to get started with HITRUST. It includes

1. Define Security Services (ref: ITIL).

2. Map Controls/Resources to Security Services

3. Develop Annual Work Plan to Address:

3.1 Remediation Activity (Operational Work and Project Support, including Capital Budget Planning)

3.2 Keep the Security Program Relevant - Integrate Threat Intelligence (e.g., HITRUST C3) Into Risk Management Processes

4. Develop/Improve/Exercise Incident Management Capabilities

4.1 Internal Exercises

4.2 External (Multi-organizational) Exercises (e.g., CyberRX)

To know further, feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime!

ENISA stands for European Network and Information Security Agency that was founded by European parliament. ENISA framework enhances the trustworthiness of ICT products, services and processes with cybersecurity certification schemes, cooperates with Member States and EU bodies, and helps to prepare for the cyber challenges. This framework is mainly or only meant for European bodies.

ENISA is important for distinct significant factors namely:

Cybersecurity has never been an individual's responsibility andwill never be but has ever been a shared responsibility. On that understanding, ENISA greatly helps in creating consistent communications between the cybersecurity stakeholders in Member States and the EU institutions and agencies. It also strives to upholdthe value to the stakeholders, exploring synergies and finely using scarce cybersecurity expertise and resources.

Cybersecurity shouldn't and cannot be pertained to one specific sector and therefore it is an inevitable universal requirement and thus must be used across all divisions of EU policy.

The talent deficit in cybersecurity all over the globe is no wonder and the existing use of outdated technologies in many firms of ICT infrastructure is one of the biggest reasons for unprecedented increase in cyber threats. Investments to improve the competencies must be mandatory but with focus not only on it but also on making sure that the different operational communities possess the appropriate capacity to deal with the cyber threat landscape.

Ability to foresee the futuristic threats would benefit EU organizations to strengthen their resistance against security threats.

To know further, feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime!

'Cloud security' is becoming more and more significant part of every organization's concern who host and store all their data in cloud. It is easy to use and access as data is stored online and any employee can save all their information there and access at ease with right credentials.

But the biggest problem in cloud is if some unauthorized parties infiltrate their security defenses, then entire information stored over there could be compromised.

Another big misconception is that cloud security is considered to be the sole responsibility of security professionals which is not. It is the shared responsibility of every employee in the organization.

Hosting in Cloud environment holds unprecedented security challenges as they are different than those that exist on non-cloud environment.

Nevertheless, the overall processes to build and maintain a secure environment are the same.

1. What would be the impact if your database was compromised?

2. What impacts would arise if an intruder obtained access to your complete cloud environment?

3. How to assure that there isn't a misconfiguration in the infrastructure?

4. How would you determine if your cloud security isn't compromised?

Well the answer for all these startling questions is just one and simple, initiate a proper Cloud Security Assessment.

1. Assessing cloud security risks.

2. Conducting an entire cloud security audit and assessment to provide eye-opening reality check for organizations about the strengths and weaknesses of current systems.

3. Reviewing loopholes in ongoing cloud activities that're prone to cloud security vulnerabilities and suggesting secure ways to address them.

4. Generating reports on compliance with the CIS Framework, AWS Well Architected Framework (for AWS environments), and the Microsoft Azure Best Practices (for Azure environments).

Wake Up Words: Clouds in the sky may not be important to the eye but cloud security service does!

For further details, kindly feel free to reach us out at [email protected] anytime.

At Cycatz, we understand the importance of securing your cloud infrastructure and ensuring the integrity of your applications and APIs. Our Cloud Risk Advisory Infrastructure Architecture Review/Assessment service focuses on evaluating the security posture of your cloud-based infrastructure.

Securing your cloud infrastructure is vital to protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorized access, and maintain the trust of your users. With numerous high-profile security breaches in recent years, it has become crucial to proactively assess and enhance the security of your cloud environment.

Our experienced security professionals will conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of your cloud infrastructure architecture. We follow industry best practices and leverage our expertise to identify potential vulnerabilities and risks.

1. Identity and Access Management (IAM) : We analyze your IAM configuration to ensure proper user access controls, strong authentication mechanisms, and least privilege principles.

2. Data Security : We assess your data storage, encryption, and transmission mechanisms to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of your data.

3. Network Security : We review your network architecture, firewall configurations, and network segmentation to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities.

4. Compliance and Governance : We evaluate your adherence to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and best practices to ensure proper governance and compliance.

5. Incident Response and Disaster Recovery : We assess your incident response plans, backup strategies, and disaster recovery mechanisms to ensure business continuity in case of security incidents.

1. Our detailed assessment report will provide you with:

2. Identified vulnerabilities, risks, and their potential impact.

3. Prioritized recommendations for mitigating the identified risks.

4. Best practices and actionable steps to enhance the security of your cloud infrastructure.

5. Compliance guidance to align with relevant regulatory frameworks.

Let us help you strengthen the security of your cloud infrastructure and protect your valuable assets. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your specific needs and schedule a Cloud Risk Advisory Infrastructure Architecture Review/Assessment with our expert team.

At Cycatz, we recognize the significance of assessing and enhancing the security of your infrastructure architecture to mitigate cyber risks. Our Cyber Risk Advisory Infrastructure Architecture Review/Assessment service focuses on evaluating the security posture of your infrastructure to safeguard against potential threats and vulnerabilities.

Securing your infrastructure is critical to protect sensitive data, maintain operational resilience, and defend against cyber threats. With increasing incidents of data breaches and cyberattacks, it is essential to proactively assess and fortify your infrastructure against potential risks.

Our expert team conducts a comprehensive review and assessment of your infrastructure architecture, following industry best practices and leveraging our expertise to identify potential vulnerabilities and risks.

1. Network Security : We evaluate your network architecture, firewall configurations, and intrusion detection systems to identify potential vulnerabilities and recommend security enhancements.

2. Identity and Access Management (IAM): We assess your IAM controls, authentication mechanisms, and user access privileges to ensure secure and authorized access to critical resources.

3. Data Protection: We review your data encryption, storage, and transmission mechanisms to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information.

4. Incident Response and Recovery: We evaluate your incident response plans, backup strategies, and recovery procedures to minimize the impact of security incidents and ensure business continuity.

5. Compliance and Governance: We assess your compliance with relevant regulations and industry standards, providing guidance on achieving and maintaining compliance.

1. Identified vulnerabilities, risks, and their potential impact.

2. Prioritized recommendations for strengthening your infrastructure's security posture.

3. Best practices and actionable steps to enhance the overall security of your architecture.

4. Compliance guidance to align with applicable regulatory frameworks.

Let us help you fortify the security of your infrastructure and protect your critical assets. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your specific needs and schedule a Cyber Risk Advisory Infrastructure Architecture Review/Assessment with our experienced team.

Remember, securing an application alone is not sufficient. Safeguarding the entire infrastructure and its interconnected functionalities is indispensable in today's cyber landscape.

At Cycatz, we understand the growing threat of social engineering and phishing attacks, which can lead to data breaches and compromise your organization's security. Our Cyber Risk Advisory Social Engineering/Phishing Simulation service helps you assess and strengthen your employees' resilience against these threats.

Social engineering and phishing attacks continue to be significant risks to organizations worldwide. Attackers exploit human vulnerabilities, tricking individuals into disclosing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise security. By simulating real-world scenarios, you can identify potential weaknesses and educate your employees to recognize and respond effectively to these threats.

Our experienced team conducts controlled social engineering and phishing simulations, emulating real-world attack techniques. We customize the simulations based on your organization's needs and goals, ensuring a targeted and effective assessment.

1. Phone-Based Attacks : We simulate phone calls or voicemails, aiming to gather sensitive information or gain unauthorized access. This exercise helps evaluate employees' response to social engineering attempts through voice-based communication.

2. Physical Intrusions: We assess your organization's physical security by conducting simulated attempts to gain unauthorized access to restricted areas. This exercise helps identify vulnerabilities and evaluate employees' adherence to security protocols.

3. Awareness and Training: Alongside the simulations, we provide targeted training and educational resources to help employees understand the risks associated with social engineering attacks. This empowers them to make informed decisions and respond appropriately.

1. Insights into employees' susceptibility to different attack vectors.

2. Comprehensive reports with analysis, statistics, and recommendations for strengthening security awareness and training programs.

3. Customized training materials and resources to educate employees on best practices.

4. Ongoing support and guidance to implement security measures and enhance your organization's resilience against social engineering attacks.

Protect your organization from the devastating effects of social engineering and phishing attacks. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your requirements and schedule a Cyber Risk Advisory Social Engineering/Phishing Simulation with our expert team.

Remember, empowering your employees with knowledge and awareness is crucial in mitigating the risks associated with social engineering and phishing.

At Cycatz, we recognize the critical role that employee awareness, training, and education play in safeguarding your organization against cyber threats. Our Cyber Impactful Awareness/Training and Education service focuses on empowering your workforce with the knowledge and skills needed to mitigate risks and enhance your overall security posture.

Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and employees are often the first line of defence against such attacks. By providing impactful awareness, training, and education, you can equip your employees with the tools to identify, report, and respond effectively to cyber risks, thereby reducing the likelihood of successful attacks.

We take a comprehensive approach to cyber awareness, training, and education, tailoring our services to your organization's specific needs and goals. Our experienced team combines industry best practices with engaging content delivery methods to maximize knowledge retention and behavioural change.

1. Cyber Awareness Campaigns : We design and implement targeted awareness campaigns to raise employee consciousness about various cyber risks, including phishing, social engineering, malware, and data breaches. These campaigns may involve posters, newsletters, email reminders, and interactive online resources.

2. Interactive Training Modules: We develop interactive and engaging online training modules that cover essential cybersecurity topics. Our modules utilize real-life scenarios, quizzes, and interactive elements to reinforce learning and promote best practices. Topics may include password security, email hygiene, safe web browsing, and incident reporting.

3. Phishing Simulations: We conduct simulated phishing campaigns to assess employees' susceptibility to phishing attacks. These simulations help identify areas for improvement and provide teachable moments for employees to recognize and respond appropriately to phishing attempts.

4. Workshops and Webinars: We organize interactive workshops and webinars led by our cybersecurity experts. These sessions cover a wide range of topics, from basic cybersecurity awareness to advanced incident response techniques. Participants have the opportunity to ask questions and gain practical knowledge from industry professionals.

1. Increased employee awareness of cyber risks and best practices.

2. Reduced vulnerability to phishing attacks and social engineering attempts.

3. Customized training materials, including online modules, posters, and newsletters.

4. Reports and metrics on employee engagement and performance in awareness campaigns and training exercises.

5. Ongoing support and guidance to reinforce cybersecurity practices and adapt to emerging threats.

Invest in the cyber resilience of your workforce. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your organization's requirements and schedule a Cyber Impactful Awareness/Training and Education program tailored to your needs.

Remember, a well-informed and educated workforce is a powerful defense against cyber threats.

In a football match, there's always offensive, defensive and center player roles in every team. Offensive players are the ones trying to break the defensive perimeter of the opponent and strike a goal, the defensive players are the ones trying to prevent the opponent from breaking their guard while the center player does enhancing both these for their team.

The same ones do exist in information security sector. The roles and responsibilities are the same as that of football but the terms used to define them vary. Here, the center team is the Purple team, the defensive team is the Blue team while the offensive team is none other than the Red team. This document will elucidate the deeds of Red team swiftly.

Red teams emulate real world attacking scenarios by getting into the shoes of a malicious hacker and launching attacks on a target's security environment to exploit the systems/networks as much as possible. This is done by using various tools (both paid and commercial), techniques (based on OWASP, NIST, PTES and others) and through malicious coding practices.

It is an effective way to show the prevalent loopholes persisting in an organization's security landscape, the potential ways they could be exploited and the attacks that could be driven from then and destroying the feel of ‘Zen’ for an organization. It further provides a pre-glimpse on how miserable things would look if security posture gets compromised.

Of-course, this is a Himalayan feat but the well-planned strategies deployed and executed make this look simple for hackers. Even the most sophisticated firewall and antivirus in the world means trivial against a well-planned deceiving strategy for hackers, which makes red team presence inevitable for an organization to foresee and prevent such occurrences.

Many may wonder why Red teamers are more paid and dangerous than traditional pentesters?

It’s simple.

Traditional testers only test the target using antiquated and routine techniques and their testing is confined within the given scope. This isn’t the case for Red teamers. They aren’t the old school testing guys whom practice monotonous techniques during testing. They are just given a task “Break this organization’s security defenses and gain internal access.” That’s it…. Since then, they use various tools (even indigenous), strategies, focus on various verticals (even through hardware compromises), updated hacking principles and execute all their wide range of prowess with one sole determination, “Break it!” Here are some of the most common ways that red team assessors do:

1. Think outside the box : One sure quality for a skilled red teamer is to think outside the box and using or developing new tools and strategies to exploit the data and help blue team enrich their defense activity for helping company security. However, these wouldn’t be liked by the organization nor the blue team to be pin-pointed with their flaws but they’ve got to accept it if betterment is wanted.

2. Dense Knowledge of systems : Having deep knowledge of computer systems, protocols and libraries and known methodologies will give you a clearer road to success. It’s crucial for a red team to possess an understanding of all systems and follow trends in technology. Having knowledge of servers and databases will allow you more options in finding ways to discover their vulnerabilities.

3. Email and phone-based social engineering: With dedicated reconnaissance on individuals and organizations, phishing emails become undistinguishable from the legitimate ones and many fall into the bait of traps. This is the best weapon in red team’s arsenal as human insanity is ever an ongoing issue. Also, this is the most effective method to reach their goal i.e., do compromises.

4. Network service exploitation: Exploiting unpatched or misconfigured network services can provide an attacker with access to previously inaccessible networks or to sensitive information. Often times, an attacker will leave a persistent back door in case they need access in the future. Red teamers waste no time in trying exploiting this.

5. Physical facility exploitation: Gaining access to a secure facility is often as easy as following someone through a door. Red teamers sometimes try to impersonate as someone authentic or cover up as a doppelganger of another in order to gain physical access of the target, legitimately with the noble intention of indicating the physical security holes in an organization and ways to improve it.

6. Application layer exploitation: Web applications are often the first thing an attacker sees when looking at an organization’s network perimeter. In order to give a chance for hackers, red teamers get into the shoes of a hacker and try to exploiting all the web application vulnerabilities (e.g., cross-site scripting, SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, etc) to fix the defects that detractors can use.

7. Incessant R&D on it: A vulnerability that arose today becomes obsolete tomorrow as thousands of new ones pop-up every day. Hence, it’s mandatory for red team to know what are the latest vulnerabilities that are found and the ways they could be possibly exploited in order to check if organization security can be scoffed if a 3rd party manages to get it done. Thus, continous R&D is the key.

8. Constantly updating the blue team: As much of the flaws red teamers find and exploit, they must also know to inform them to the blue team who’s responsible for the other side of the line, defense-in-depth. Constant discussions on the ways available for attacking, the ways for thwarting them, the ways to bypass those defenses, the ways to block them with better defensive techniques and this back-and-forth conversations must be ongoing by the red and blue team to best protect the organizations from any potential cyber threats.

9. Discussions with the management team: If any requirements is lagging for red team, it should be brought to management notice rather waiting for them to ask and know about it. A weekly review of what are the deficit findings found, the insights given to blue team to numb these attacks by deploying better defenses, the progress in various researches and other such should be discussed during that time in order to make the management feel confident in their investments for the security team and happy to do more.