[BreachExchange] Cyber security is a risk management game

[Audrey McNeil]

http://www.theguardian.com/sap-partner-zone/2016/feb/29/cyber-security-risk-management-hack



As the internet has pervaded all aspects of business and personal life, so
has the list of cyber threats that could impact your enterprise. It’s not
just rival companies looking to steal ideas. Currently an attack on your
network could come from a wide range of sources. Your company could find
itself under siege from organised crime, terrorist groups, and even foreign
governments.

State and commercial interests are merging, with the networks of private
companies now seen as key targets when countries are in conflict. For this
reason, many corporations are adopting the same cyber security strategies
as our national security organisations.

The enemy within

A data breach event could potentially cost millions of dollars, leaving the
reputation of your corporation in ruins. With so much at stake, how do you
protect your organisation and its intellectual property from all attacks?

This is the challenge. Technological developments have moved so fast in
recent years that few networks could ever claim to be 100% impenetrable. As
fast as IT security experts establish barriers to their systems,
technologically advanced hackers find ways around them.

Rapid detection, nimble response

So, how can commercial companies respond to the evolving cyber threat?

What we need is an entirely new approach when it comes to cyber security.
We should assume that hackers can and will access our networks. To
complement the evolution of perimeter defences, we need to shift our focus
to detecting and acting on attacks as quickly as possible.

If this approach is to be successful, speed is essential. It is not enough
to look in the rearview mirror to understand what happened yesterday. We
need a “front windshield view” to analyse, understand, and respond to
threats as they occur.

A shift in paradigm

With traditional computing approaches, companies simply cannot react fast
enough to respond effectively to cyberattacks as they take place. These
organisations are often only able to determine that a cyberattack has
already occurred, and attempt to limit the damage to their operations and
customers. The prevalence of this can be seen in the number of companies
issuing reports about data breaches and offering credit monitoring to their
compromised customers. Corporations need a way to detect attacks as they
are happening, and before the attacker has an opportunity to cause damage.

Sophisticated in-memory computing solutions such as the SAP HANA platform
are enabling this revolution in the way we approach cybersecurity. In an
environment where there will never be one, single cyber product answer, we
need to bring the best of all worlds together in an integrated,
high-performance manner. For example, with our strategic partners SS8,
ThreatConnect, and Babel Street, we are leveraging SAP HANA as a
high-performance hub to integrate real-time cyber-situational awareness and
threat context. This enables the enterprise to understand the threat, find
it, and act on it in real time.

This high-performance computing platform can achieve speeds many thousands
of times faster than traditional data architectures. This enables the
processing of huge data sets in seconds rather than days and allows
analysis at the pace of the incoming threat. Companies using this
capability can detect and stop cyber attacks while they are underway and
before their data can be compromised.

Identifying high-value vulnerabilities

>From the outset, we need to understand that breaches are possible and not
all targets can be protected equally. Instead we must identify the
high-value targets that are most likely to be attacked and prioritise the
areas where a security breach would be most damaging.

For example, finance operations and critical infrastructure are key for
most organisations. In addition, personal information is a high-value
commodity that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting.

Managing cyber security risk

The internet has given us the greatest opportunity for economic expansion
since the industrial revolution. And when you consider the fact that
e-commerce accounts for trillions of dollars each year, losses due to
security breaches seem minimal.

However, cybercrime is evolving and the threat is growing.

There is no absolute solution or quick fix. The imperative for CIOs is to
deploy their available resources effectively to close the aperture of risk
as much as possible, and re-evaluate their strategy on an ongoing basis.
They need solutions with speed to detect and stop attacks while they are
underway. And they must use the latest in-memory technology innovations to
stay one step ahead of the cyber-criminals.
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