It is very interesting to understand how attackers work, and sometimes it is also scary to see how unprepared we are. This in an unbalanced war, which we are losing.
Ransomware is on the rise, and it is more and more dangerous. But it is not the only problem. Many of my customers are totally unprepared, yet they say that they have not been compromised in the past, but for a couple of well known incidents. No wonder, considering that their detection controls are in some cases totally ineffective.
Sometimes customers have no clue of where their assets are or how they can be exploited. The most absurd thing to see is that many organizations have VIPs that are not tolerant toward the limitations imposed for Security reasons, and they have the power to require exemption: as a result, sometimes those who have the highest value for an organization are the least protected!
Attackers already know all this and understand your business better than you. They are going to find your weakest spots and to hit them, hard. Many are not able to see that coming and even less to respond properly.
FireEye’s incident response business further reports the mean “dwell time” for breaches in EMEA is 469 days, versus 146 globally.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/08/breach_trends_emea_mandiant/.
In other words, in EMEA the time an attacker on average remains undetected in a victim’s system, is more than 3 times higher than the World average!
We have to change this and soon, and it all starts from adopting a more active stance toward Security. It is not a cost: it is a necessity!
David Ferbrache from KPMG describes the situation very well, and SC Magazine has an article about it that can be both alarming and illuminating:
Enjoy!
Simone On Security 