The number of cyberattacks continues to rise and organisations need to come to terms with the fact that traditional approaches to mitigating the effects of malicious attacks may no longer be viable. One of these approaches is to harness the power of big data technology to help companies improve their proactive and reactive cyber-defence capabilities. David White and Annie Tu examine how old approaches may be found wanting and a paradigm based on new defence models can help companies not only stop hackers, but also help to better identify and respond to malicious activities.
Cyber Security
Cyber criminals, state-sponsored hackers and even the occasional disgruntled employee are constantly looking to gain unauthorized access for a variety of purposes: theft of money, cyber espionage, personal information for sale or for use in scams, and damage to critical infrastructure for just a few of the most common.
So how does an organization mitigate an entire world full of continual cyber attacks? Just as buildings have a number of necessary elements of physical security: access control, cameras, alarms and so on; there are similar key elements of cyber security that are absolutely vital for just about any modern business.
It starts with identifying and closing the most common doors that attackers use. For example, phishing attacks on employees are far and away the most common initial point of entry. The breach of even a low-level employee account can quickly turn into an escalation in access privileges and the ability to reach sensitive information. This is also true of smart devices, which are generally more poorly secured than computers and phones.
As the world becomes more complex non-traditional approaches to ensuring data security and protection must be evaluated. In this article Wei Chieh, the founder of SWARMNETICS draws a parallel between how we treat open source software and the Asian organisational attitude toward White Hat hackers (or ‘independent security researchers’) as assets that might help to stem the tide of security breaches that Asian companies face today.
Last year, cyber security breaches wreaked havoc on some of the biggest financial institutions, retailers and governments in the world, causing data and financial loss and even corporate embarrassment for a certain entertainment powerhouse. In 2016, we can likely expect more - more advanced attacks including targeted industry espionage, ransomware, and social engineering.



