Page 15 - index

This is certainly not the first time that attacks originating from foreign nation states have been
launched against the U.S. to infiltrate government networks and pilfer classified data. And
looking ahead, it’s clear that foreign nations will continue to develop and refine these attacks as
part of larger cyber espionage efforts against government systems. This imminent threat to
national security calls for the Obama administration and our Commander-in-Chief to
dramatically improve response efforts by accelerating response times and significantly investing
in next-generation cyber security infrastructure designed to detect and eliminate these threats.

And finally, the attack underscores the need for strong proactive solutions that result in faster
detection of threats and vulnerabilities. While the OPM breach was discovered in April, the
attack likely dates back as early as a year prior. In short, the attack’s perpetrators enjoyed
unimpeded access to users’ highly sensitive personal data for at least a year or more. For
organizations, a year-long window between the onset of the attack and its discovery is
unsustainable – and unacceptable. We are now living in a new age of attacks, one in which we
should expect foreign hackers and political hactivists to continuously attempt to penetrate our
networks and attack our critical information. As such, both the private sector and government
organizations will be required to bolster their security infrastructure with next generation cyber
defenses designed to proactively detect attacks in real time and identify threats early on with
solutions that operate around the clock. Only then can they hope to protect their most critical
assets and prevent theft and damage before millions of records, including the irreplaceable
social security numbers.

About the Author:

Dr. Muddu Sudhakar is an entrepreneur and a three-time CEO in the Silicon
Valley. Sudhakar combines decades of experience that spans Big Data,
virtualization and security. He has held leadership and management roles within
companies including Caspida, VMWare and Pivotal. Dr. Sudhakar holds a PhD
and MS in Computer Science from University of California, Los Angeles and
holds more than 20 patents including information security.

15 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2015 Edition
Copyright © Cyber Defense Magazine, All rights reserved worldwide