The comment comes on the back of a report from cybersecurity provider FireEye, which claims that organisations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa are taking 175 days to detect an intruder on their networks, compared to just 76 days in the Americas.
According to a report in the Register, the findings are especially worrying with the imminent introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, which provides tougher guidelines on disclosing breaches for organisations that hold European citizens’ data, and fines of up to 20m euro or 4% of global turnover. The report also records a growing trend of repeat attacks by hackers, and an increase in attacks from Russia, North Korea and most recently, Iran.
But ceo of High-Tech Bridge, Ilia Kolochenko, says there’s no reason to panic about the findings:
“Compared to all other countries, the US has always pioneered the cybersecurity industry with the highest budgets and willingness to invest into disruptive information security technologies.
“Technically speaking, these alarming numbers reflect the reality. However, I don’t see any reason for panic – numerous previous reports have stated even longer breach detection periods and more disastrous unpreparedness of the victims. Additionally, many of the detected security incidents impact a very limited number of external stakeholders (e.g. clients or other third parties) or are inconsequential in terms of negative outcomes for the victims.
“Nowadays, the majority of large companies have a great wealth of unprotected shadow IT systems that are continuously breached as organisations are not even aware of their existence. But the ‘crown jewels’ systems are usually well protected and isolated.”
Kolochenko went on to say that a rise in machine learning solutions, capable of proactively detecting various anomalies, will greatly reduce breach detection times if properly installed and configured. Emerging cyber deception systems would also help to quickly identify intrusions. “I rather see a positive trend and new exciting opportunities for the market,” he concludes.
