Hear from the Head of Cyber Security at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Former Executive for the NSA on the Issue of Cybercrime in Today's World
With cybercrime projected by Cybersecurity Ventures to cost $9.5 trillion by the end of 2024, Rachel Wilson, the Head of Cybersecurity at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, was a keynote for one of enterprise cyber storage leader Infinidat. At this webinar Rachel noted that everyone is living in “a brave new world” in which enterprises need to be more cyber resilient than ever against the increase in cyberattacks.
“The rise in cybercriminal syndicates has been dramatic over the last few years,” Rachel said in a sobering statement. “Now, 70% of malicious cyber activity we see on the Internet is criminal in nature and financially motivated. It’s opportunistic and it’s egalitarian.” In other words, cyber criminals will hit any enterprise at any time for any reason that profits them. They are equal opportunist hackers.
Nicknamed the “queen of the hackers” when she led a team of elite cybersecurity experts protecting the United States, Rachel spent 15 years working for the National Security Agency (NSA). She says that any entity with data is a potential target. AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for cyber actors. “Lowering that barrier to entry has increased the scope, scale and velocity of cyber action we’ve seen across the board,” she added.
The reasons for her sleepless nights over cybersecurity issues today are becoming more diverse. Among them are ransomware and knowing the right level of cyber resilience to have in your data infrastructure.
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“Ransomware is the most lucrative cyberattack in history,” Rachel stated on Infinidat’s eye-opening webinar. “Hacker calls, ‘Hi, Happy Monday, you’ll see that I am in your environment. I’ve encrypted all of your systems. If you want your data back, if you want your systems restored, I’m going to need $500,000 in this cryptocurrency equivalent, in this South African bitcoin wallet by 2 o’clock this afternoon. And if you don’t pay by 2 o’clock, make it $600,000. We’ll keep ratcheting up that ransom until you are willing to pay.’”
Rachel has unequivocal advice in Infnidat's webinar: “Now, I can tell you as someone in the cybersecurity business for 25 years, we never recommend paying the ransom. What happens when you pay the ransom is that you have told the world that you are someone willing to pay a ransom, and the hackers will just keep coming back.”