The CyberLab team has carried out a cyber attack simulation in front of more than 30 Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) officers.
CyberLab's penetration testing team of CREST, CHECK and Cyber Scheme accredited engineers and Wayne Price, commercial director, conducted a live hack demonstration in front of the attendees.
A mix of Cyber Protect officers providing signposting and advice to individuals and organisations within the region and Cyber Pursue officers investigating cybercrime joined the event to see how malicious agents can break into an organisation's network in less than five minutes.
CyberLab’s penetration testing engineer, Alexandru Blanaru, showed how an attacker can exploit multiple attack vectors to penetrate a network, escalate access and breach valuable data. Together Price and Blanaru talked about the best cybersecurity practices organisations can adopt to protect their data.
Created in 2010, ERSOU operates across the seven police forces that make up the Eastern Region - Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, and Suffolk. It is made up of a Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) and a counter terrorism policing unit, which respectively manage the threat of serious and organised crime and terrorism across the region.
Working with local forces, external stakeholders and partners such as the National Crime Agency, the ROCU tackles and disrupts organised criminality such as drugs and firearms importation, cyber attacks and large-scale fraud.
John Greenwood, cyber protect co-ordinator at ERSOU, said, "It is always great to collaborate with industry to ensure that, through shared learning, we remain at the forefront of protecting the region from cyber threats.“The input from CyberLab helped our officers and investigators develop their skills around the complexities of different attack methodologies, and how they could be used by criminals.
“This in turn allowed further discussion about preventative measures, both technical and behavioural, to better inform our advice to the public."
Price said, "It was an honour to be invited to present in front of the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit, deliver the attack simulation and discuss the latest trends our team of engineers discover during their work in the field. The cyber team at ERSOU are doing an amazing job operating in an incredibly complex and ever-evolving field and digital wild west – the dark web."
Penetration Testing identifies vulnerabilities before attackers do, evaluates how effectively companies can respond to security threats, assesses compliance with security policies and improves the level of security awareness among staff.
Using industry-standard methodologies, 15 of the UK's top penetration test experts, CyberLab’s team of CREST, CHECK, and Cyber Scheme approved engineers undertake ethical attack simulations to uncover areas of concern in infrastructure, policies and procedures.
The CyberLab team runs attack simulations and educational sessions as part of customer and public engagements, as well as at events and industry conferences.