Cyber threats have become increasingly sophisticated in spite of increasing cyber security measures taken by the government and organizations alike. There is an inherent need to figure out why threat actors outsmart cyber security measures even though they are updated on a regular basis by organizations.
The prime reasons being
- Brain-Drain – They get paid more than what the organizations are paying their employees having similar skill set
- Continuous Learning – They keep upgrading their skills with continuously evolving technology
- Infrastructure – They keep investing in high-end infrastructure to support their malicious activities
- Persistent Effort – The will to win keeps improving with each threat attack launched
- Technology – Relying more and more on artificial intelligence (AI) and not on manual effort, aka human intelligence (HI), is a plus point for threat actors
Deciphering cyber threats is a difficult option altogether. This is mainly because organizations identify loopholes in their network only after a cyber attack has happened in their or their line of organizations. If only organizations focus more on SWOT (Strength Weakness Opportunity Threats) analysis and implement those fixes before threat actors figure out their loopholes, there might be some respite against threat attacks for those organizations. Dedicating a separate team for a SWOT analysis could reduce the frequency and severity of threat attacks.
The more and more we rely on technology for our daily needs, the greater the attack surface becomes for threat actors to play on. Organizations should opt for manual re-validation, at least for the most critical assets. Doing both – relying on both AI and HI could prove to be an advantage for organizations to stay ahead in this threat race.
Organizations should inspire their employees to not remain stagnant and rely on what they have learned earlier but also to focus on updating their skills with the growth of cutting-edge technology.
Organizations should invest in creating a virtual environment of the cutting-edge technology that they would like to specialize in and use it for penetration testing to find any loopholes in the same and see how it can be patched to avoid any security breaches. The virtual environment that is being set up should be near to the real-time setup, such as real-time architecture and the infrastructure being used should be as in real-time.
