When Advanced Threat Actors Turn Their Eyes to Mainframes
The recent cyberattack that forced Jaguar Land Rover to halt production makes one thing unmistakably clear: even large, well-resourced organisations are not immune to persistent, stealthy adversaries. These are not opportunistic hacks—they are long campaigns by APT groups, probing, infiltrating, and lying in wait.
Many organisations assume their mainframe or host layer is safe because it’s old, reliable, or “behind the firewall.” But attackers know otherwise. They go after the weakest gap—often legacy connections, vendor access tunnels, or authentication paths that weren’t designed for today’s threat environment. Once they breach the boundary, they move sideways, escalate access, and lie dormant until they can do maximum damage.
Why Major Organisations Are Under Increasing Risk
Large enterprises are attractive precisely because their environments are complex. They run hybrid stacks combining new cloud apps, middleware, legacy systems, and host infrastructure. Each integration point, third-party link, or terminal session becomes a possible pivot. The JLR case illustrates how disruption in one layer cascades through production, supply chain, and customer systems.
APT actors do not rush. They exploit trust, overlooked access routes, and low-visibility sessions. That’s why the first sign is often unusual session behavior or credential use—things only visible if your host access layer has full auditing and centralized control.
How Flynet Fortifies Access to Core Systems
At Flynet, we’ve built our terminal access technology specifically to defend against these risks. Our Flynet Viewer Terminal Emulator works entirely in the browser with no plugins or local installations, reducing client-side exposure. Because the logic runs server-side and centrally, updates and patches roll out immediately to every user without downtime, helping close vulnerability windows.
We enforce modern authentication—SSO, MFA, and context-aware access controls—sealing off legacy credential paths that attackers often exploit. Every session, keystroke, and macro is auditable and centrally logged, giving you visibility into anomalous behavior before it snowballs. By acting as a secure gateway, Flynet prevents clients from connecting directly to host ports or legacy protocols, shrinking the attack surface.
In effect, Flynet blends enterprise-grade performance with hardened security built for the world of APTs.
Time to Lock Down Your Host Layer
APT groups aren’t going anywhere. They are evolving, growing more patient, and targeting foundational infrastructure—not just shiny new apps. If your mainframe access layer is treated as “untouchable,” attackers see it as a target, not a protected asset.
Now is the moment to rethink. Assess your access paths, retire weak authentication, unify your session audit, and move to a hardened, centrally controlled terminal architecture.
Flynet doesn’t just connect you to your host systems; it protects the paths by which attackers try to cross your walls. The next wave of threats is inevitable—let’s make sure your core systems survive.