INDUSTRY FOCUS
Catching the Cybersecurity Wave
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Jun 01, 2018
A few months ago I attended a security
event in Atlanta that was
primarily focused on cybersecurity
and learned a number of
things to share.
At the GC&E Systems Group event in
Atlanta, the conversation was about cybersecurity
because the network is involved. Just
in case you are not familiar with GC&E, they
are a Georgia-based company that specializes
in integrated security solutions, integrated
electronic security solutions and telecommunications
consulting. They also play in
the IT world, hence the topic for the one-day
conference.
John Gomez, the CEO of Sensato Cybersecurity
Solutions, talked about the state of
cybersecurity. He said 67 percent of all employees
leaving a job steal information on the
way out the door. Even more noteworthy, 80
percent of banks fail to catch fraud.
The real stunning number is that it takes
businesses as much as 265 days to detect a
network breach.
Kenrick Bagnall, a deputy constable and
police investigator with the Toronto Police
Department, offered the anatomy of a cyberattack,
beginning with a risk assessment.
Among the threat considerations, managers
must understand system susceptibility.
“When a small or medium-sized business
is attacked, 60 percent of those firms will go
out of business within six months,” Bagnall
said. “An attack on a smaller business has
huge collateral damage. The weakest link in
all this is the human factor.”
Organizations are too afraid about reporting
cybercrime to police, Bagnall said,
which impairs law enforcement’s ability to go
after criminals.
“Corporations are concerned about their
reputation, their stock price and share valuation,
and these are the things that prevent
them from coming to law enforcement early
in the process,” Bagnell said. “The sooner an
individual or a corporation comes to law enforcement
it increases the chances of a positive
result tremendously.”
So, what are the next generation strategies
to fight cyber warfare? Darnell Washington,
president and CEO of SecureXperts,
told the audience at the GC&E Converged
Security Summit that 80 percent of federal
agencies has reported successful breaches in
the last five years. Even 40 percent of commercial
intrusions went undetected for at
least four months.
“Unfortunately, most people are comfortable
trading some security for convenience
of running their lives,” Washington
said. “Top of the list of things to do; change
passwords every time an employee leaves
your firm.”
Something very important to keep top of
mind: Washington regularly advises the security
community at large on insider threat
management, such as using structured and
independent verification using next generation
adaptive methodologies and strategies
to identify and mitigate human and environmental
threats to information and communication
systems.
This article originally appeared in the June 2018 issue of Security Today.
About the Author
Ralph C. Jensen is the Publisher of Security Today magazine.