Page 43 - Cyber Defense eMagazine April 2021 Edition

he menace of cyber attacks and data breaches have become increasingly common, as
Tbusiness around the world wake up to the idea of remote working since the outbreak of COVID-19. Yes,
the pandemic has pushed many brick and mortar businesses into a black hole type situation with immature
security and IT tools and processes leaving them vulnerable to
attacks.

According to a report on cybersecurity breaches, more than 40% of businesses experienced a
security breach between Q2 2019 and Q2 2020 with an average breach attempt made every week. In an-
other report by IBM, it was found that the average cost of a security breach is
anywhere around USD 3.86 million with healthcare being the most affected. The report also
revealed a startling finding i.e. it took an average of 280 days to detect and contain such a breach.

The pandemic provided the bad actors with a rapidly burgeoning corporate attack surface to exploit and
carry out network and system breaches. These attacks grew by leaps and bounds as businesses try to
bounce back in the post pandemic world. The sophistication of SolarWinds attack took everyone by sur-
prise with the attack going undetected for so long.

RISE IN ATTACKS EVERY YEAR
(CREDIT: CYBEREDGE GROUP 2020 CYBERTHREAT DEFENSE REPORT)

Why threat intelligence has become the need of the hour
Attackers are tailoring world-class exploitation capabilities to target network and security systems. Such
breaches unlock a hotbed of opportunities for cybersecurity professionals to reevaluate every aspect of
their security strategy including people, processes, threat detection rules, tools and research methodolo-
gies. Today, without a comprehensive threat intelligence model, it is more like a fire dousing effort than a
preventive effort. This is why businesses ought to wake up to the idea of cyber threat intelligence. In fact,
threat intelligence has to sit at the core of an organization’s overall cybersecurity strategy to keep such
sophisticated breaches and attacks at bay.
“In addition to preventing network attacks that expose businesses to intellectual property, monetary and
compliance related risks, threat intelligence also gives the organization a bird’s eye view of its security
teams overlooking sophisticated attacks that may take place through emails, social media, enterprise/mo-
bile applications, etc.,” said Mr. Sheetal Pansare, President & Global CEO for Futurism Technologies, Inc.,
a leading and global digital transformation advisor and consulting partner.

43 Cyber Defense eMagazine – April 2021 Edition
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