PwC’s global bi-annual economic crime report has shed new light on what the latest fears are over online crime.
As it turns out, over 50% of UK organisations expect an economic crime to be committed against them in the next 24 months. These organisations are living in fear because it’s so difficult to ascertain where cyber-threats originate , who’s behind them and what their motives are.
It’s not all doom and gloom however, since Palo Alto Networks’ recent research has found attacks can be mitigated by increasing the time it takes for an attacker to breach a system.
It’s common knowledge in the industry that the low hanging fruit (i.e. the least guarded targets) are those most often targeted by cyber-crims. Therefore it’s key to stop your data being seen as such by hackers. With that in mind, Palo Alto found making a system take longer to penetrate by 40 hours, using whatever measures necessary to delay the attacker, can eliminate as much as 60% of attacks. The fact that hackers are such opportunists is something security teams can capitalise on – make your data look like a lot of hard work to access and, in theory, you’re less likely to face a data breach.
This shift to prevention, rather than focusing on detection and incident response, is a grownig trend in the cybersecurity industry. Greg day, CSO of EMEA at Palo Alto Networks said: “A prevention-first attitude can slow down a cyberattacker enough for them to abandom the attack in favour of an easier target; ultimately, the adoption of a prevention-first mindset will make it economicall unviable for criminals to attack a business”.
Check out our case studies page to find out more about what steps organisations around the world have taken to stop their data being seen as ‘low hanging fruit’.
