Page 49 - Cyber Warnings August 2017

As organizations prepare to defend themselves in a new era of ransomware threats, one of the
most significant hurdles will be to make the mindshift away from traditional antivirus and

perimeter security solutions. While these technologies often provide a layer of security defense,
they are rapidly becoming obsolete as reliable standalone solutions against a new wave of
sophisticated ransomware attacks.

For many organizations, making this mindshift will require viewing malware from the perspective

of the cyber criminals – as a numbers game. Trend Micro, for example, has certification for
99.48 percent protection against zero-days, “compared with a vendor average of 97.77 per
cent”. Mimecast and Symantec claim 100 percent effectiveness, while McAfee, asserting that

most zero-day threats come from the web, says it can achieve 99.5 percent effectiveness by
adding in-line file and code emulation technology to its web gateway solution.

Yet, hackers only need to get lucky once and in light of massive volumes of emails transmitted
by every business on a daily basis, they have ample opportunity to do so. If anything,

WannaCry demonstrated that anti-virus defenses are no longer useful against these attacks.
Antivirus solutions only detect code already known to be a threat – not the new threats and
zero-day attacks being devised by phenomenally well-resourced, state-sponsored hacking

groups on a daily basis.
As zero-day threats continue to mutate and target businesses and industries in new and
unknown forms, businesses will need to first let go of their death grip on legacy security

solutions with the understanding that today’s threats are stealthier and more sophisticated than
ever before, and will likely evade their standard defenses. But what might be vastly more

difficult for enterprises going forward will be accepting that cyber attacks aren’t inevitable, but in
fact preventable, and then not giving them the chance to enter the network in the first place.

About The Author
Simon Taylor has worked in Information Technology and Security for
over three decades, with extensive experience across product
innovation, business development, business transformation and IT
operations management. He has held senior positions at leading
technology and financial services companies across Europe, Asia,
Latin America and North America; with the last ten years at HSBC,
where he most recently ran IT Operations across the Americas. Simon
is currently VP of Product and Consultant to the Board of Glasswall
Solutions Ltd, the award-winning UK cyber security innovator.

49 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – August 2017 Edition
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