(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Nature of cyber-security attacks is becoming more dangerous
the world is not 100 per cent secure against cyber attacks so it’s better to build strong defence and respond quickly to any attack by cyber criminals.
these views were expressed by mikko hypponen chief research officer at f-secure during an interview with khaleej times on the sidelines of the second gulf information security expo and conference (gisec) 2014 in dubai last week.
hypponen who tracked down the authors of the first pc virus ever recorded was the keynote speakers at the gisec. he mentioned that the nature of cyber-security attacks is becoming more dangerous and the threats on business and government are becoming more disturbing.
cyber-crime syndicates are always on the lookout for weak points in the security system and organisations are always forced to take new more open approaches to it systems.
“at least the cyber criminals have an upper hand as they can move first” he replied to a question if cyber criminals are smarter than security providers.”
he added: “they can move first. they can analyse our defences. they can spend all the time they want to come up with attacks that penetrate current defences. that’s why defense is so hard.”
“there is no 100 per cent security. you can compare computer security to a lock. there are different kinds of locks. some are easy to pick. others are hard to pick. if we put lots of effort can we create a lock that could never ever be picked by anyone? no we couldn’t. even the most secure lock can be picked because it’s built by humans. what one man can build another man can break apart” said hypponen who has assisted law enforcement in usa europe and asia on cybercrime cases.
responding to another question he said: “quick response is most important as you can’t keep all the attackers out always. you need to be resilient.”
he repeated three times that ‘backups’ are also the most important to save the data in multiple ways. “make sure you can recover even if you get thoroughly hacked or if your office building burns down.” it’s also equally important to keep update the operating system apps on computers phones and on embedded system he informed.
last but not least he said: “then — and only then — you start to think about security software and things like antivirus and firewalls.”
organised by dubai world trade centre gisec offered exhibitors and visitors several opportunities to dissect debate and discuss the challenges of the regional it sector.
during his keynote address hypponen revealed that when it comes to criminals the information security industry is more than capable of tracing and locating them. however even after initially having these criminals detained getting a sentence and putting them behind bars for their crimes remains as a big challenge.
“we are able to find these guys but are unable to get them convicted” hypponen said as he identified some of the most serious malwares that these criminals use. these include banking trojans ransom trojans credit card key loggers bitcoin miners ddos botnets and clickfraud.
as far as hacktivists are concerned these groups only attack specific websites based on what a person or group advocates. on the other hand governments like the us infect computers and smartphones for the purpose of surveillance.
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