Frequency, cost of cyberattacks on the rise

[Audrey McNeil <audrey () riskbasedsecurity com>]

http://fcw.com/articles/2013/10/08/cyberattacks-frequency-costs-rise.aspx

The cost of a U.S. cyber attack increased 78 percent over the past four
years -- 26 percent in the past year -- and the occurrence and
sophistication of such attacks also are on the rise, according to a new
report.

The cost of cyber crime averaged around $11.6 million in 2013 at 60
organizations, including federal agencies, that participated in a new
Ponemon Institute study. The organizations averaged 122 successful attacks
per week, including viruses and other malware, denial-of-service attacks
and data exfiltration.

"You can't argue that cyber attacks are rare event," said Larry Ponemon,
chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. "These are common and
organizations need to have a way to deal effectively with these problems.
Deploying the right technology and having the right, smart people are
essential in governance."

Malware such as trojan viruses and worms are the most common types of
attacks, according to the report, which was sponsored by HP Enterprise
Security Products. But a particular concern for the government is the
growing trend in more serious crimes.

Denial-of-service attacks, for example, overwhelm networks with
communications requests, to the point that online services and even simple
access to targeted websites becomes impossible. The best-known example was
when Estonian government websites were attacked in 2007, but it has
happened to governments worldwide in recent years.

"It's not just an interruption to IT, but also to the business process,"
Ponemon said. "It's a very costly ordeal for a government organization." He
noted that one unnamed U.S. federal agency "had a fairly significant cost
of disruption because when the system was down, their business processes
failed. They had significant idle time and couldn't perform their mission
for days or weeks."

Another serious and increasingly common type of attack involves the
outright theft of data. It could be intellectual property or, in the case
of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, state secrets, and it is a top
concern for the government.

"In government agencies, if there's one concern of consequence it's around
data exfiltration. In general we see it as a pretty pervasive problem,"
Ponemon said. "The government is just as susceptible as the private sector
to most types of attacks, but especially to data exfiltration, the theft of
confidential, sensitive or classified information – those with the highest
costs."

These stealthier, more-advanced cyber crimes also are more difficult to
detect than simpler types, which means the attacks go on for longer and
therefore cost organizations more money. According to a Verizon data breach
report from April, 66 percent of cyber attacks took months or longer to
discover, and they also take significant time to remediate.

Often, attacks are found accidentally, and frequently are not found by the
victim organization.

"In 60 percent of breaches, the organizations were notified by a third
party, such as a government agency, a customer or a partner," said Dan
Lamorena, senior director of product marketing for HP Enterprise Security
Products. "The reality is only 48 percent of the companies surveyed had
technology intelligence tools."

Those advanced security intelligence tools include those that can look at
patterns of data and draw on big data analytics, as well as employ
encryption, data loss prevention tools and protections at the human,
application and data layers. Those tools provide better visibility into the
network, but they are not yet broadly enough implemented, Lamorena said.

"Network security still gets the lion's share of budget dollars, and other
areas where agencies can get better value aren't getting that yet," he
said. "There are ways to look at investment in security and get the best
bang for your buck. Security intelligence tools, software and application
testing, better people and training, and better data protection tools –
these all offer higher return on interest, but they're not getting enough
investment so far."

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