In July 2017, Black Hat information security conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In Black Hat Network Operations Centre at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, 15,000 cyber-security professionals were present from the companies like FireEye and RSA. The attendees were present there to learn how to get secured in the cyber realm, as they were well aware of the threat of being hacked.
Haiyan Song, senior vice president and general manager at a cyber company Splunk, said,
“In security, there’s a general belief we all have – it’s not whether or not you will be breached or attacked, it’s a matter of when,”.
Identity Theft Resource Center reported that U.S Data breaches, hit a half record of 791 this year, and it is 29 percent higher from this time last year. And experts are likely today have a bleak view of the state of information security amid the mentioned figures.
60% of the top leaders, according to a survey at the Black Hat conference, believe a successful cyber attack on US critical infrastructure is to occur in the coming two years. US critical infrastructure includes power grids, dams, nuclear power plants and traffic signals.
Industry watchers are of the opinion that applying digital technology to operate critical infrastructure as such utilities, energy, or telecom can prove to be a cyber hazard.
Carson Sweet, co-founder and chief technology officer at cyber security startup CloudPassage, says,
“When you combine old tech with new tech, it almost always creates vulnerabilities,”
The increasing potential of the hackers was opened by the experts to be the reason for the pessimism in the industry.
According to Steve Wylie, general manager of Black Hat, the effectiveness of the hackers is the cause of increased cyber attacks. While he personally doesn’t think that enterprises have the necessary tools to handle them.
The former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff opines that with the great risk of a cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure, his belief is not associated. He says that companies are fighting back by elevating the top IT leaders to the C-suite, in the Chief Information Security Officer ( CISO ) position.
He also termed,
“I think as we’ve seen an elevation of some of these attacks, and serious impacts on businesses, there’s an understandable desire from the board of directors and CEO’s to have somebody who owns the responsibility of security,”.
For now, companies need to go ahead and doing further hygiene checks of their networks and assisting CISO’s with large teams to battle those digital predators.
