Notes from the European CyberSecurity Congress, Romania 2017: Fighting Cyber Threats Through Collaboration and a Holistic Approach.

I attended the CyberSecurity Congress in Sibiu, Romania. It was my first time in the beautiful city of Sibiu. It all started with a visit to the Carpathian mountain to see the real unknown “Dracula's Castle” where apparently the Dracula legend is said to have originated. I then drove through the scary and amazing Transfagarasan road to climb to the second highest mountain pass in Romania (2,042 metres / 6,699 ft. climb!). This road is famous for its scenic views and super car thrill from Top Gear - Series 14 – BBC

Beyond the breath-taking mountains of Romania and the legendary castle of Dracula, is the beautiful city of Sibiu, in the midst of food festivals and cultural events, the ITU-Backed European Cybersecurity Congress 2017 was taking place.

As a speaker, my presentation was about defence-in-depth, “Full Stack Cyber Security: why breaches will remain hard to address until organisations adopt end-to-end competence across the seven layers of the security stack.” I also talked to many business leaders and IT Executives. I listened to many presentations; from Police Chiefs battling with cybercrime, Heads of Cyber Intelligence protecting Critical National Infrastructure against advanced persistent cyber threats, regulators trying to keep up with the fast pace of technology, CISOs, security vendors, and researchers. Two key words that stuck with me are collaboration and holistic. I will cover those two points in this post. Read on.

Collaboration - Fighting Cyber Threats Through Strong Collaboration

It was clear from several speakers that cyber threats are growing in scale and complexity. With cyber criminals and state actors getting more and more active on the global arena. The nature of the threat to all organisations worldwide is real and persistent. Organisations, businesses, intelligence agencies, and security vendors worldwide must collaborate to tackle this growing challenge head on. The challenge facing organisations worldwide is perhaps well summarised by Former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III: “There are only two types of companies: Those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked.”

Nation states actors and cyber criminals

It is a known fact that when it comes to cyber attacks top actors are nation states and cyber criminals. They are active and use their skills and resources to launch targeted attacks against people and network infrastructures using social engineering techniques and advanced malware tools.

Attribution to cyber attacks remains a real question. Even when a cyber attack is detected and stopped it is extremely difficult to accurately find out who, why, and the real source of the attack. Moreover, different countries have inconsistent laws when it comes to cyber crime. A lot of effort has been made by EU-sponsored organisations to put in place a common framework to prosecute against cyber crime. Nevertheless, attribution will remain a tough problem to tackle as the Internet is fundamentally designed as an open system. Unless all users connecting to the Internet are accurately identified at the source, the challenge and complexity of attribution will not go away.

One thing that is certain is that nation states are investing in offensive cyber capabilities. Cyber criminals are also investing in developing smarter tools to steal data and money using custom malware tools that are harder to detect by standard anti-virus and intrusion detection systems.

Holistic - Fighting Cyber Attacks Through A Holistic Approach

Given the complexity and the sharp increase of cyber attacks, how should organisations defend their digital assets? A holistic approach to cyber defence is crucial. Organisations must embrace a defence-in-depth approach by combining best-of-breed cyber technologies, continuous training of people, and constant fine-tuning of security processes. This is to ensure that the most adequate protections are in place to mitigate against advanced persistent threats.

Technology, people, and processes working as one 

Holistic means technology, people, and processes must work as one effective defence mechanism. People will remain the weakest link in any cyber defence system. But with the appropriate training and awareness, people, technology, and processes can provide the strongest defence against the most complex attacks also called Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Holistic also means that no single security vendor can provide a complete protection against all types of threats. Rather, by combining multi-vendor technologies in best-of-breed defence architecture, organisations can ensure that they have the means to monitor, detect, deter, and prevent breaches. In the unfortunate event that a breach occurs, it can be contained and mitigated quickly to minimise the impact.

Conclusion

Cyber attacks are increasing in numbers and complexity. The cyber threat is real. The number of attacks from cyber criminals and nation states to organisations worldwide is growing. All organisations with an online presence must put in place the necessary technology, processes, and people in order to protect their digital assets. Moreover, organisations, businesses, intelligence agencies, and security vendors must collaborate in the global arena in order to effectively fight against this global threat. Without such collaboration, it is hard to see how the Internet can be made a safe place for all. 

---------------------------------------------------

About the Author:

Marco Essomba is the Founder & CTO of BlockAPT. A leading edge UK-based cybersecurity firm empowering organisations with an advanced, intelligent cyber defence platform. The BlockAPT platform allows organisations to Monitor, Manage, Automate & Respond (MMAR) to cyber threats – 24/7. Marco’s passion, expertise and knowledge over 15 years of providing cybersecurity solutions has culminated in the design of our unique BlockAPT platform. Developed over time as a toolkit to help small and large enterprises with business security issues, BlockAPT’s platform brings together threat intelligence, vulnerability management, device management and proactive incident response management to help fight the war against cyber attackers.

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/marcoessomba/

Twitter: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/marcoessomba/

Company website: https://www.blockapt.com