Page 21 - Cyber Defense eMagazine - November 2017

3) Isolation technology: According to studies, no fewer than 95% of data breaches start
with an e-mail phishing campaign, according to SANS Institute, with malware attached to
a message in the form of a document, or including a link to a rogue site, where victims
experience a drive-by malware attack. So it stands to reason that keeping users away
from these files will go a long way towards improving security. The problem, of course, is
that phishing messages are often designed to look like the real thing, with socially-
engineered messages that claim to be from the boss or from colleagues that seem to
require the attention of recipients. Some of these messages and documents may be
caught by filters or sandboxes, but not all, as is clear from the ongoing and increasing
number of data breaches (one could assume that companies like Equifax had the latest
and greatest cybersecurity technology at its disposal).

In a virtual container scheme, security systems check files and connections for activity in a “safe
zone,” with all aspects of the file or connection tested to ensure that it behaves as it is supposed
to – that a file does not seek to query areas of the registry that it ostensibly has no business with
or tries to execute code that should not be associated with it, or that a connection does not try to
hijack a user to another, rogue site. If the file/connection does try that, the system will keep it
away from the rest of the network, but still display the contents of the document or the site.
These ideas are certainly not the “silver bullet” that will eliminate cyber-insecurity – one would
think that with $90 billion spent on cybersecurity, we would have found that by now – but they
are likely to make organizations, and the workers who make them thrive, safer and more
productive, whether they are in the office or out of it.

21 Cyber Defense eMagazine – November 2017 Edition
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