Cybersecurity warnings for telcos

January 24, 2022

The FCC is urging communications companies to protect their networks from cyber threats. This follows close on the heels of a Cybersecurity Advisory from the U.S. government and not too long after a series of denial-of-service attacks against telcos. Let’s review what’s happening.

Warnings

There’s been a rapid-fire series of warnings about cybersecurity recently:

January 21, 2022: The FCC issued a public notice to urge communications companies to pay attention to a cybersecurity advisory from the U.S. government (see below).
January 16, 2022: The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center identified and reported on a destructive malware operation targeting multiple organizations in Ukraine. The malware was designed to look like ransomware but had no ransom recovery mechanism.
January 11, 2022: Several U.S. government agencies joined together to issue a cybersecurity advisory, Understanding and Mitigating Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure.

In case you missed it, there has been a steady stream of news about possible Russian military action in the Ukraine. The U.S. military and NATO have been put on high alert.

Should communications companies be concerned? The FCC says yes.

You may recall that several telcos were hit by cyber-attacks in 2021. We reported on a series of denial-of-service attacks last September. We aren’t saying those events were related to these latest warnings, but they demonstrate that attacks on critical communications are a real threat.

Threat mitigation

The Cybersecurity Advisory from CISA, the FBI, and the NSA provides a range of threat mitigation guidelines and specific detailed actions that organizations should take to safeguard your networks from attack.

We don’t want to seem like alarmists, but these warnings seem important, and we urge our readers to take heed.

About TransNexus

TransNexus is a leader in developing innovative software to manage and protect telecommunications networks. The company has over 20 years’ experience in providing telecom software solutions including toll fraud prevention, robocall mitigation and prevention, TDoS prevention, analytics, routing, billing support, STIR/SHAKEN and SHAKEN certificate services.

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