Kathy Gibson reports from Gitex – Cybersecurity is arguably the biggest challenge facing all organisations around the world, and global co-operation will be needed to mitigate the threats.
Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of Kaspersky, points out that, while states have borders, cybercriminals don’t. “So, to fight against the gangs, there has to be closer co-operation.”
Geopolitical issues are eroding global co-operation, although companies like Kaspersky still partner with Interpol and in-country law enforcement bodies where possible.
In the current geopolitical environment, Kaspersky concedes that Russian companies could find themselves ostracised, with trust eroded
“We see this issue in some regions and not in others,” he says. “But we still do the world’s best cybersecurity solutions, and customers around the world are happy with our products.
“When it comes to trust, we have been talking about this for many years,” he adds. “Cyberdata is getting more and more critical, and states understand the importance. This is why so many countries don’t allow certain data to move outside the national borders. And, with the geopolitical situation now, this is more important.
“Now and in the future, states will pay more and invest more into data localisation. We are ready for that: we have a transparency centre in Switzerland, and the source code of our data is available for inspection at any time.
“”We are a company that believes in transparency and openness.”
On the technology front, the biggest cybersecurity issues facing companies are advanced persistent threats (APTs) and attacks on critical infrastructure, Kaspersky says.
The number of daily malware updates is growing year by year, with about 400 000 new and unique malicious files – that we have never seen before – identified every day.
While many of these are low-level threats that are easily dealt with by automated systems, Kaspersky says it is noticeable that highly complex, professional attacks have become massive in their scale.
“Never forget that cybercrime is a business. The architecture of cybercrime is an industry, with people using one another’s tools and trade systems. The businesses the cybercriminals run have different departments that could even be in different countries.
“They are developing highly complex, professional attacks that are being used by both criminal and espionage groups.”
The average cybercriminal is male, in his 30s and highly competent technologically, he points out.
Knowing what we are dealing with in terms of cybercrime is a good start to dealing with it. “We can protect ourselves with multi-layered protection, and intelligence from multiple, global sources,
“Threat intelligence is vital,” Kaspersky says.
“In 2021, attacks on the industrial sector, government and financial sector grew – with the industrial sector the hardest hit. This is worrying, he points out, because these attacks are against both IT and SCADA systems.
“In the case of physical infrastructure, and especially critical infrastructure, cybersecurity solutions may not be good enough. The potential damage to these systems is unpredictable and could be enormous.”
Kaspersky advocates for cyber immunity. “With immunity the cost for hackers to breach your systems is more than you would lose if they do.”
But the complexity of making systems immune is huge. “We can do this with a security layer that sits on top of the micro kernel of the operating systems. It isolates all modules and lets through only transactions that exhibit trusted behaviour.
“We believe the only way to achieve cyber immunity, you have to build it on a security layer that is ready for existing systems and Internet of Things (IoT).”
Kaspersky today launched its IoT Secure Gateway 1000 cyber immune product, connecting IoT devices and controllers with business applications and cloud platforms. It then ensures the security of these interactions and the data transferring through them due to the secure KasperskyOS in the gateway’s core and its network attack protection capabilities. Customers operating smart city systems, including utilities, street lighting and road infrastructure, or in manufacturing or energy production and distribution projects, get a secure IoT system and visibility across all connected devices.
IoT continues to grow: according to Gartner, 61% of organisations already show a high level of IoT maturity. According to Kaspersky telemetry, from January to September 2022, there were 67 000 infected IoT across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. These devices were responsible for 11-million attacks. There was a spike in attacks coming from the region in the third quarter of 2022: from July to September the number of attacks increased sevenfold – by 659%.
The new Kaspersky IoT Secure Gateway 1000 is a hardware appliance with firmware based on KasperskyOS and Advantech UTX-3117 device. It ensures the security of the entire IoT system at the gateway level thanks to its secure-by-design approach and built-in protection capabilities.