Partner Article

Playing Cybercriminals At Their Own Game

Hacking back has been the subject of much international debate recently, as the US looks to legalise ‘revenge strikes’ for the very first time. Hacking back has always been a controversial topic in cybersecurity and government circles. Some believe companies should be allowed to do something when hackers go after them, while others think it would open a can of worms with unpredictable consequences, such as causing a diplomatic incident, or impeding a legitimate law enforcement investigation. But what do UK organisations think about being allowed to hit back at their attackers, should the law be considered here and would it have the support of British consumers if passed?

As cybercriminals increase in both sophistication and prevalence, Fidelis Cybersecurity has commissioned a study to evaluate whether organisational defence strategies adapting to stay ahead of the game, or simply running to stand still.

Traditional, cyber defence strategies have been reactive, often focused exclusively on the perimeter to keep intruders out. However, that is changing as IT teams realise the damage that can be done by hackers left to roam unnoticed on the network, and the true value of proactive network defense becomes clear. Those who continue to focus on just putting the barriers up and policing them, will inevitably have to deal with the breaches caused by the evolving threat and the porous perimeter.

As such we are seeing the emergence of automated detection and deception technology, that act as the modern-day canary in the mine, alerting when your decoys/traps and lures have been triggered, allowing you to move from a defensive to offensive security posture.

In the US, the Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act (ACDC) seeks to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to make limited retaliatory strikes against cybercriminals legal in America. As US Congress debates such legalities surrounding so-called ‘revenge hacking’, it has become a significant, topical issue worldwide.

Highlights of the research include:

• Almost half (43 percent) of the surveyed consumers and approaching two thirds (57 percent) of organizations believe hacked organisations in Britain should be allowed to hack back – however, there are concerns around our technical and ethical preparedness for such legislation.

• One in three business respondents lack the technical ability to identify an intruder, infiltrate their systems and destroy data. This could lead to mistaken identity of hackers – which around a quarter of business professionals (26 percent) cite as the most worrying risk of hacking back – closely followed by vigilantism (25 percent) and collateral damage (27 percent).

• The introduction of hack back laws could lead to a new generation of methods and tools to more effectively retaliate against cyber-attacks, according to almost 70 percent of business professionals – with 77 percent citing deception technology as one of the critical first steps.

• Also, with 54 percent of British consumers believing that the government must do more to protect their sensitive information, we are likely to be watching what happens in America with great interest.

Full results: https://www.fidelissecurity.com/sites/default/files/Fidelis-UK-Survey-Stats-1711.pdf

Fidelis Elevate is a fully-integrated, network-and-endpoint automated detection and response (ADR) platform. Interestingly, this survey found that 41 percent of organisations manage their security provisions in-house, and of those, more than 80 percent agreed that they could benefit from automating their detection, prevention and response capability. Through automation, Fidelis Elevate delivers significant improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of security operations capabilities for its customers

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dave Barnes .