4 Security Blind Spots IP Tracking Won’t Catch (and What Will)

IP address tracking has been a reliable way for modern organizations to monitor the origin and behavior of traffic that goes into their networks. It safeguards them from malicious servers, brute-force attacks, fraud, and the like. But what if this isn't enough? IP tracking can be easily bypassed by attackers that become more and more sophisticated by the day. One can't just solely rely on IP data and then call it a day.

There are security blind spots you need to be on the lookout for at all times. This article will be discussing 4 critical ones that could lead to damaging attacks once ignored and the ways to effectively address them. Read on.

1. Insider Threats

This is one security blind spot often disregarded by organizations, but it happens to be one of the most complicated, not to mention one of the costliest, risks to manage. IP data proves futile in these cases since insiders are connecting from an internal and legitimate address, such as the company office or a fully authorized remote access point.

An insider attack can be carried out by a trusted employee abusing their privileges. They may take advantage of their authorized network access to commit malicious acts such as data exfiltration. A disgruntled team member may also infect your network with malware through a USB drive. An external attacker may even pose as an insider, stealing an unknowing employee's credentials by way of malware or phishing attacks.

Identity and access management (IAM) is crucial in these scenarios. Implement the principle of least privilege so employees only have access to data they need. User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) is equally essential as it establishes a baseline of what's considered normal in terms of user or system activity. Meanwhile, security information and event management (SIEM) lets you detect suspicious patterns from collected and aggregated data from all your systems.

Network visibility also plays a major role in preventing cybersecurity blind spots. It allows you to have a holistic, real-time view of all your devices, network traffic, and user behavior. So, detecting anomalies becomes much easier.

2. Encrypted Channels

Encryption remains one of the most trusted security tools of modern organizations to prevent data breaches. It scrambles human-readable data into an incomprehensible text, which can only be decoded through a decryption key.

Great for privacy, right? The problem now is that IP tracking has no way of detecting malicious activities happening in encrypted channels. Attackers can bypass firewalls and conceal exploits, command-and-control (C2) communication, and other threats inside what appear to be secure environments.

Traffic inspection is a potent antidote for this issue. With solutions like next-generation firewalls and secure web gateways, you can temporarily decrypt traffic data, analyze and inspect it for stolen data, policy violations, or bad code, then encrypt it again. Data loss prevention or DLP tools can complement your traffic inspection efforts. They classify sensitive data, such as intellectual property and credit card numbers, then enforce policies that protect it from unauthorized exfiltration.

3. Cloud Environments

The cloud is what runs the world these days, and it's not even an exaggeration. Today's organizations have this as their default operating model, thanks to its cost-efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. But cloud environments can actually create security blind spots.

For one, cloud providers frequently rotate IP addresses among their customers. Who knows if, one day, you'll be assigned an IP address linked to a malicious activity? Also, IP tracking only gets to monitor the public-facing aspects of the cloud, not the internal cloud-to-cloud traffic. Another thing is that cloud computing has given rise to containerized applications, which pose a threat too, as many of them share a similar IP address. This means IP tracking will have a difficult time finding the source of an attack.

Application programming interface or API monitoring is paramount in this regard since many cloud services communicate via this language. This solution focuses on data flow and application behavior, both are reliable indicators of malicious activity. Cloud security posture management or CSPM tools prove beneficial here as well. These provide continuous monitoring of the entire cloud infrastructure to detect and rectify any misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.

Moreover, you're most likely using artificial intelligence (AI) in your daily operations, like many organizations do these days. That said, AI security posture management (AI-SPM) ought to be part of your cloud security strategy as well. It monitors the entire AI lifecycle, making sure that your AI systems don't introduce yet another attack surface.

4. Fileless Malware

This major blind spot eludes IP tracking since it exploits some of your systems' trusted tools, including Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and PowerShell. Fileless malware gets to sneak in malicious commands in the computer's memory, leaving no trace in network logs since they're done from a legitimate IP address. Traditional antivirus tools are ineffective in such cases as well.

Memory forensics is paramount in post-incident analysis. Tools like Volatility Framework assess a system's most vulnerable parts, such as a computer's memory or RAM, to detect any artifacts (injected code, hidden processes) left by the malware. Endpoint detection and response (EDR), on the one hand, looks into every script execution and memory event with the help of advanced analytics and machine learning (ML). Its primary aim is to spot deviations from normal behavior, such as execution of obfuscated commands.