SonicWall Philippines – MEC Networks Corporation

SonicWall Finds 5 Trends in the Global Cyber Frontlines

MEC Updates — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 05:30:16 +0000

Mid-year Update to the 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report

Geopolitics and cybersecurity have always been intertwined. Over the past six months, the threat landscape has progressively shown this.

“The international threat landscape is now seeing an active migration that is profoundly changing the challenges not only in Europe, but the United States as well.... Cybercriminals are working harder than ever to be ahead of the cybersecurity industry, and unlike many of the businesses they target, threat actors often have no shortage of skills, motivation, expertise and funding within their organizations.”

Immanuel Chavoya, SonicWall expert on emerging threats Tweet

But in the first half of 2022, the patterns are also altering, aside from the targets.

5 Cyber Threat Landscape Trends

1. Rising Malware

Malware increased 11% globally during the first half of 2022 after following a declining trend for previous quarters. A decline in ransomware also helped slow down this progress. However, a spike in cryptojacking and spiking rates of IoT malware were more than enough to push a double-digit growth.

There are very few universally relevant cyber threat trends, and the surge in malware is one of them. However, regions that often see heavy malware activity, such as the U.S., U.K., and Germany experienced drops, indicating that these global hotspots could be starting to change.

2. Ransomware Decreases by Nearly a Quarter

Although ransomware attacks have significantly increased over the last two years, they decreased by 23% in the first half of 2022. As Russian ransomware organizations struggle to maintain their prior pace in the face of the ongoing crisis with Ukraine, this long-awaited reversal appears to be mostly the product of geopolitical circumstances.

Unfortunately, due to the greater, ongoing global dynamics, this trend is not expected to last.

“As bad actors diversify their tactics, and look to expand their attack vectors, we expect global ransomware volume to climb — not only in the next six months but in the years to come... With so much turmoil in the geopolitical landscape, cybercrime is increasingly becoming more sophisticated and varying in the threats, tools, targets, and locations.”

Bill Conner, SonicWall President and CEO Tweet

However, due to the shifting nature of ransomware, certain places are recording drastically different results than expected. While Europe had a 63% spike in attack volume, North America, which normally experiences the majority of ransomware attacks, saw a 42% decline in attack volume.

3. RTDMI Detections Increase

A 45% increase over the same time in 2021, SonicWall’s proprietary Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI) technology discovered 270,228 never-before-seen malware types in the first half of 2022.

This technology is a part of the Sonicwall Capture Advanced Threat Protection and uses machine learning to become very good at spotting new and sophisticated threats. It gets better every year as evidenced by the 2,079 percent increase in new variants discovered by RTDMI since it was first introduced in early 2018.

4. IoT Malware Goes Up by 77%

It’s hardly surprising that opportunistic hackers are increasingly turning to IoT malware attacks as more and more IoT devices come online. IoT malware volume has increased 77% to 57 million since the start of the year, which is more than at any other time since SonicWall started keeping track of these attacks and almost as many as were discovered in 2021 as a whole.

5. Encrypted Threats Show Triple-Digit Growth

Threats that are encrypted increased 132% in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year. Based on an exceptionally high number of attacks in Q2, which spiked in May to become the second-highest month for encrypted threat volume ever recorded by SonicWall, this was the case.

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MEC Networks’ Collation of Awards and Recognition

MEC Networks Corporation — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 08:10:20 +0000

For over 2 decades, MEC Networks Corporation has proven itself to be the Philippines’ premier ICT & physical security products, solutions, and services distributor. The company has received numerous awards from different organizations recognizing its initiative in bringing a brighter future today through World-Class ICT distribution.

Some of the most recent awards received by the company are:

At the Panduit-MEC Partners’ Bootcamp held on the 9th of August 2017, MEC Networks Corporation was awarded as Top Distributor of the Year in the Enterprise and Data Center Infrastructure Solutions Category.

ShoreTel held the Partner Appreciation Night on July 19, 2017, at the Marco Polo Ortigas, and MEC Networks Corporation was awarded as Value Added Distributor for 2016.

MEC Networks Corporation was awarded the Best Distributor of 2016 for Axis Communications at the Axis ASEAN Awards Gala Dinner on July 18, 2017.

During the FY16 HPE Partners Appreciation Night held on the 9th of March 2017, MEC Networks Corporation was awarded Top Distributor of the Year for HPE Aruba.

On January 12, 2017, MEC was awarded Growth Distributor of the Year for the APAC region during Fortinet’s Accelerate 2017 event held at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Representatives from nearly 700 different partner organizations from over 90 countries attended this year’s Accelerate conference, making it Fortinet’s most successful event ever.

On November 28, 2016, SonicWall awarded MEC Networks Corporation as FY17 Distributor of the Year at the Dillinger’s, Makati City.

Other awards received by MEC Networks Corporation are:

HPE FY2014 Top Distributor for 2014
HPE Distributor of the Year 2013
HPE Distributor of the Year 2012
HPE 2008/2009 Best Distributor for Market Share Growth (ProCurve Networking by HP)
HPE Customer Advocacy Award 2007 (ProCurve Networking by HP)’
Axis Communications Distributor of the Year 2014
Axis Communications Best Growth Distributor of the Year 2010 (Asia)
Axis Communications Best Effort Distributor of the Year 2009
Panduit 2016 Growth Partner of the Year
Ruckus 2016 Distributor of the Year
SonicWall Recognition of Outstanding Achievement 2016
Quantum Best Performance Strategic Distributor 2016
Aimetis Distributor of the Year – SEA
ADC Krone Million Dollar Club 2007 Award
TE Connectivity 2014 Sales Achievement Award
TE Connectivity / ADC Krone 10 Years Distributorship Award
Huawei Best Collaboration Award 2016
Huawei Best ISDP Application Award 2016

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ICTip #16: Keeping Your Software Up-to-Date

MEC Networks Corporation — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 02:00:48 +0000

The importance of keeping your software up to date

Being outdated is an unpleasant feeling. In technology, software updates are much more critical and can cause real harm when not given proper attention.

By not being up to date, you are allowing yourself to be vulnerable to hacking, having your data are taken, and other mischievous and malicious acts. That’s right! When it comes to antivirus software (or hardware), the functionality is the same. What differs one from the other is their signature database. Every application all around the world has signatures, and these signatures grant the antivirus the ability to have control over it (allow, block, monitor, etc.).

This is one of the reasons why Fortinet still sits at the top. It is due to their capacity to keep your firewall’s database up to date – automatically. As they promote the 365 x 24 x 7 updates, they do deliver.

Emerging threats and how to deal with them

Ever heard about WannaCry Ransomware or simply WCry? Ransomware is the most lethally dangerous threat in your network to date. Once it enters your network, any type of data that you have, client database, computer files, your RPG saved game, even your high school pictures. It can encrypt these and have them unreadable. You’ll be asked to pay for decryption afterward. And the biggest catch, if you do not comply within 24 or 48 hours, your files will be permanently deleted. Again, one of its attributes as Ransomware is that its signature is not registered. To counter this, we make use of the technology we call, FortiSandbox, or simple Sandboxing. It filters this unregistered application and identifies it thus, creating a signature and making it blockable. You may deal with it by having an AntiVirus that is connected to a Sandbox, FortiClient, it’s free by the way.

Why humans/users are the the biggest vulnerability to a network + tips

Passwords. Social Engineering. Phishing.

We are now in the age of having every answer to our questions, ideas for new projects, strategies for business because they are one .. click .. away. As people continue to explore the internet, there are a certain few who takes advantage of this, getting their details, bank accounts, social media accounts, we call it identity theft, and their method, falls under Social Engineering, by exploiting humans’ curiosity, because why not?

Aside from protecting your network from the outside, you still have to protect your network from the inside whether the people (intentionally or unintentionally) do it. To prevent this from happening, Companies set strict firewall policies, sometimes, totally blocks access to non-business-related websites as a result you will have a more secured environment and more focused and productive employees. This is very similar to what Fortinet is trying to create with its Security Fabric. An ecosystem that can provide you total visibility of your network from inside and out.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Paolo Reucaza, Technical Consultant for Network Security

We distribute:

Fortinet

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of the ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #15: Upgrades and Refresh Cycles

MEC Networks Corporation — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 02:00:42 +0000

Tips on firewall software upgrades and refresh cycles:

How often does your company go through hardware and software refreshes?
Be sure to confirm with the vendor what its patch program is, when it goes through major software refreshes and how often a forklift (new hardware) upgrade is required.
Security issues can arise from slow patch cycles, and industry-laggard issues can result from slow software refreshes.
On the other hand, rapid software or hardware refreshes can raise TCO significantly, so the right balance needs to be struck.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • Sonicwall

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ICTip #13: Renewals or Ongoing Costs and Licensing

MEC Networks Corporation — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 02:30:05 +0000

When a business purchases a product such as an NGFW, a copy of the software and its license is provided. The software that comes with the purchase is actually remains to be under the ownership of the software company, and customers are limited by the terms and conditions of the license. All NGFW products are licensed per physical device. Usually smaller NGFW needs means simpler pricing, while larger enterprises means greater the disparity, but also the greater the bargaining power on the part of the customer. As the number of users increase, volume discounts often apply.

Here are some key points to ask yourself before purchasing an NGFW:

Do the ongoing costs and licensing account for a global environment?
What is the licensing structure?
- Standard 18% or more complicated?
- Will that go up or down over the life of the product?

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • Sonicwall

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