The cyber threat landscape is evolving rapidly and organizations often struggle to keep up with the more sophisticated attacks being thrown at them every day. Yet business leaders still don’t understand the importance of ensuring systems security.
At a recent roundtable hosted by data analytics and organizational resilience company Splunk, cybersecurity experts from different industries discussed how despite constantly evolving threats, some things never change, like motivation. behind the attacks.
“Their motivation – financial gain – is still there, and they are willing to persevere,” says Simon Viney, cybersecurity financial services sector leader at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. “New groups will emerge and the police will experience some success (…) But this motivation will not disappear.”
Technology is now so complex that it can seem impossible to find a solution that can solve all of these disparate problems.
Another constant is that no matter how advanced threats become, the targets remain similar: from compromised emails to the weakest link in your supply chain. According to Mark Woods, chief technical advisor for EMEA at Splunk, “some things are just going to accelerate.” He says: “If you look at common compromises, it’s very likely that your business email or a low-level system is compromised, or someone is being extorted, or the supply chain has been disrupted. »
Of course, organizations can do a lot to strengthen security internally and with their direct suppliers, “but the second and third line supply chain is also vitally important,” says Rigo Van den Broeck, vice-president executive chairman for cybersecurity. and innovation at Mastercard.
“Fixing this problem is an increasingly important topic, both from a security perspective, but also from a compliance and regulatory perspective, because there are many regulations, particularly in Europe, to this subject in the financial sector”, adds Van den Broeck.
But the private sector is not the only one to face these indirect threats. Many public institutions are also at increased risk of cyberattacks, with criminals often targeting – or operating from within – businesses further down the supply chain – in what might be called the “underbelly”. slack” of an organization.
Facing threats
Perhaps surprisingly, a recent study released by Splunk found that many people believe it is actually getting easier to keep businesses cyber secure, with 4 in 10 security leaders saying that cybersecurity is much or somewhat easier in 2024 than the previous year.
On the one hand, this may reflect better technology and the fact that respondents find it easier to identify and neutralize threats. However, on the other hand, it is a finding that can be concerning, suggesting a possible lack of understanding of the threats and levels of disruption that can propagate within an organization.
“One of the biggest issues facing organizations today is that the threat landscape continues to evolve and technology is now so complex that it can seem impossible to find a solution that can address all of these disparate issues . This can cause companies to become confused about what to do and lead to decision-making paralysis within the boardroom,” according to Viney.
“The challenge is that you choose any (vendor), even with integrations, and then 18 months go by and you have to stay on top of the constant pace of change and redo your approach at any time. Even in large organizations, doing this effectively is a real challenge,” he says.
“I admit it’s surprising to see a suggestion that cybersecurity tends to get easier over time,” adds Woods. “However, it is essential to understand that it is those responsible for security who report that they are starting to find security more easily. This group will likely have a good foundation and a consolidated system – a company’s cyber posture will clearly benefit.”
Convince the board of directors
Business leaders tend to want a quick solution that will magically protect the entire organization – one that doesn’t require much thought. But cybersecurity is something you need to continually evolve on, Woods says. “So, you have a two-year transformation program to make yourself more cyber-resilient? Great. What happens after that? Well, the central budget suddenly disappears.
Security leaders say they are starting to find security easier (and are) more likely to have a good foundation and a consolidated system in place.
Executives may want to turn a blind eye to an increasingly complex environment, but boards need to feel like they can protect their organizations – and encourage this across the business. In effect, this means that the HR director should have as much to do with cybersecurity as the CFO.
One of the roundtable’s suggestions was to provide the board with more practical solutions to help them understand the importance of cybersecurity. This may involve giving them an idea of what they can do, such as increasing employee engagement so that everyone feels a part of the business they are protecting.
Encouraging this level of engagement is essential for the entire organization to be aware of potential threats.
The threat of AI
When it comes to artificial intelligence, there is concern that generative AI tools will help attackers stay ahead of the curve, forcing organizations to scramble to keep up. Some may believe that AI tips the scales in favor of the attacker rather than the defender – although others speculate that AI has not yet been fully used to defend systems, or to contribute to the governance or regulatory burdens.
According to Van den Broek, better collaboration between companies could help fight cybercriminals using AI. Without open data sharing, cybersecurity is limited to systems based on what comes in and out of an organization, rather than broader data sets that can be used to create predictive defense models driven by learning automatic.
“Cooperation between industries and between companies, both public and private, is crucial,” concludes Van den Broek. “Because if we don’t share data on the defense side, we can’t build AI-based systems to do the defense for us. »
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