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2021 News-EN

CYBER SECURITY AND DIGITAL REPUTATION

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CYBER SECURITY AND DIGITAL REPUTATION

Cyber attacks are always on the rise and they are growing not only in frequency but also in criticality.

In fact, cyber criminals continuously evolve their attack techniques, finding all the possible weaknesses of their victims or exploiting hot topics (as happened for the Covid-19 themed attacks at the beginning of the pandemic).

So what do Cyber Security and Digital Reputation have in common?

First of all, hiding a cyber attack becomes more difficult.

If it is not the company that admits it openly, in some cases, particularly in the case of ransomware, it is the criminal himself who communicates it on dedicated websites or even to journalists, in order to increase media pressure and multiply the chances of obtaining the payment of the ransom.

On one hand, we are now all more exposed to cyber attacks, and therefore the reputational damage due to the admission of having been victims of them is less than in the past.

But on the other hand, managing the emergency badly can have important repercussions.

Denying the attack and then colliding with the evidence, such as a data leak from the attacker, can be much worse.

Therefore, it is better to learn how to properly manage communications in the event of cyber attacks, rather than denying or taking time.

How then to prevent an attack?

As for prevention, however, things get complicated.

We are in fact exposed to different types of cyber attacks.

While most of the attacks (about 40%) are now perpetrated through Malware, and in particular Ransomware, a good part (about 25%) is carried out using techniques that remain unknown.

Furthermore, Vulnerabilities (known but also unknown, as in the case of 0day, or problems not yet in the public domain for which there is no patch to be applied to the systems) and techniques such as Phishing and Social Engineering continue to have some success.

But how to defend yourself?

In the case of generic Malware, antimalware solutions can offer an effective defense.

But, in the case of ransomware, the phenomenon of double extortion, i.e. the second ransom asked by criminals in order not to disclose stolen data before encrypting corporate systems, complicates things.

The choice for the victim is between paying a criminal or facing the media pillory for failing to adequately protect sensitive data entrusted to them.

To defend against known Vulnerabilities, the only solution is to periodically check the systems in search of problems or mis-configurations that must be found and resolved promptly.

The attack surface of a company can be very large and it would be good to carry out checks of this kind at least once a year, or even better, every 6 months.

Against Phishing and Social Engineering, on the other hand, we can find an effectively defense only through awareness courses for employees and collaborators.

In fact, by constantly refining their attack methods, criminals sometimes make it difficult to recognize threats.

Developing a cautious attitude, being aware of these types of risks and knowing the latest threat examples is the only effective way to decrease the success rate of these attacks.

Finally, it is important to understand that the threats are different, there is no single type of cyber attack.

Who are the victims?

In the same way, the victims are not all the same, but they differ by product sector, size, geographical distribution, attack surface.

For this reason, there cannot be a single universally valid solution, but the organizational and technological solutions must be targeted and customized in order to multiply their effectiveness.

 

Thanks to the cyber attack classification activity that Hackmanac has been carrying out for 10 years, we can help companies understand which threats they are most exposed to and how to optimize security budgets to manage them more effectively and cost-effectively.

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2021 News-EN

HOW AND WHY WE HAVE TO SOLVE THE CYBER SECURITY GENDER PROBLEM

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HOW AND WHY WE HAVE TO SOLVE THE CYBER SECURITY GENDER PROBLEM

In Italy, women working in IT are only 14% of the total.

In Europe, 17%, but this value has unfortunately been decreasing for 10 years.

It is better in America where the value is 29% and the situation is slowly improving (it was 26% in 2019).

In Cyber Security, things seem to work a little better: in 2021, women represent about 25% of the global workforce.

In 2013 they were only 11%, while they were already 20% in 2019.

Therefore, a situation that is evolving, but still far from the numbers we would expect.

Yet it is now clear that the skills needed in the present and, above all, in the future will be those in the technological field.

Information Technology is now an integral part of our lives, both on a personal level, but even more so on a professional level.

We have reached the point where being able to understand the digital world has become and will increasingly be a distinctive element on a professional level, able to distinguish between those who will be able to undertake successful careers and those who will be cut off from this constantly evolving world.

On the other hand, the unemployment rate in Cyber Security has been 0% since 2011.

Cyber Security jobs grew by 350% from 2013 to 2021 and 3.5 million vacant jobs were expected globally (up from 1 million in 2014).

The good conditions are therefore not lacking.

But what could help the women of today and tomorrow to get closer to STEM technology and disciplines?

In my opinion, it is important to foresee interventions in three main areas:

1. EDUCATION

Interest in the STEM disciplines must be aroused in the smallest ones right away.

It is important to propose educational games with a scientific and technological background and to allow girls to freely dispose of tools normally reserved for boys.

It is much more educational to play with lego or to learn how to use a screwdriver than to spend time with the usual dolls!

2. EDUCATION

Science subjects should be introduced to children from kindergarten instead of reserving them for secondary school.

On the other hand, computer science should become a normal subject from the very beginning of school.

3. TRAINING

Technical training courses should be much more widespread and should be encouraged to give young people the opportunity to enrich their studies with specific skills.

In the same way, it is important to foresee retraining courses in the technical field for those who have to return to the world of work or want to change their path.

Women For Security, the Community of professionals working in the world of IT Security in Italy, of which our CEO Sofia Scozzari is a member of the Board, brings together Cyber Ladies with very varied profiles, from research to technical, legal, marketing and sales.

At this point, the Community has various activities under its belt in order to provide continuous training, awareness and updating on issues relating to the cyber world.

Among these, the Italian Cyber Ladies Lab (ICLL) is the work group with the aim of creating a permanent laboratory for monitoring female presence in Italian cyber professionals.

Among the main objectives of the Lab, to identify how many women currently operate in the world of cybersecurity in Italy, since this data is still lacking at national level.

We have therefore created a survey to identify current or future professionals (including students) interested in the world of Cyber Security in Italy.

The survey, available here, is totally free and takes only a few minutes to complete.

A small effort that will help us to photograph the situation of female Cyber Security in Italy and to better understand how to intervene to better target the Community’s activities.

Help us by filling out or sharing the survey as much as possible among colleagues!

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Categories
2021 News-EN

CLUSIT REPORT OCTOBER 2021 EDITION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

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CLUSIT REPORT OCTOBER 2021 EDITION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Security Summit Streaming Edition 2021 ended last week.

Organized by Clusit, the Italian Association for Information Security, and Astrea, an agency specializing in the organization of events in the field of Information Security, Security Summit is the event dedicated to promoting the culture of Cyber Security in Italy.

The November edition focused on current events: between data and analysis of new threats, the Clusit experts also explored the new role of the Intelligence and Defense of the Country System, with some of the protagonists of the political and security world that accompanied the birth of the National Cyber Security Agency.

In particular, during the plenary session on the first day of November 9, 2021, the Clusit Report on ICT Security in Italy in its October 2021 Edition was presented with our data on cyber attacks.

In the first half of 2021, we analyzed 1,053 cyber attacks, 24% more than in the same period of 2020, for a monthly average of 170 serious attacks (it was 156 in 2020).

Attacks carried out for Cybercrime purposes increased by 21%, which today represent 88% of the total.

Attacks related to Information Warfare are also growing (+ 18%), the so-called “information war”, while those related to Cyber Espionage activities apparently decrease (-36.7%), after the extraordinary peak of 2020 mainly due to espionage related to the development of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19.

Among the victims, the “Government” category represents 16% of the total and is confirmed in first place, as in the previous semester, while in second place we find Health, (13% of total attacks).

Attacks on the Transportation / Storage (+ 108.7%), Professional, Scientific, Technical (+ 85.2%), News & Multimedia (+ 65.2%), Wholesale / Retail (+61, 3%), Manufacturing (+ 46.9%), Energy / Utilities (+ 46.2%), Government (+ 39.2%), Arts / Entertainment (+ 36.8%), Healthcare (+18.8 %).

Attacks towards the “Multiple Targets” category decreased (-23.4%), which makes us understand the change of strategy by the attackers who at this point prefer targeted attacks and towards well-identified targets.

In the first half of 2021, attacks on European-based realities increase significantly: a quarter of the attacks are in fact directed towards this area (+ 9% compared to 2020).

The percentages of victims in the American area (almost half of the classified attacks) and those belonging to Asian organizations remain substantially unchanged.

On the other hand, serious attacks on targets with offices distributed in different countries decrease in percentage (16% in the first half of 2021, compared to 24% in 2020), which, once again, makes us understand how much attackers prefer to target more defined targets.

Malware is the most used technique, accounting for 43% of the total (up 10.5% over the previous year).

Unknown techniques (“Unknown” category) are in second place (+ 13.9%), surpassing the “Vulnerability” category, which is growing worryingly (+ 41.4%), and “Phishing / Social Engineering”, which is slightly down (-13%).

In essence, attackers can still rely on the effectiveness of Malware, produced industrially at decreasing costs, and on the exploitation of vulnerabilities, to hit two thirds of their targets (59% of the cases analyzed).

Furthermore, in the first half of 2021 attacks with very important and critical effects are 74% of the total (they were 49% in 2020), while 22% have a significant impact and only 4% low.

Basically, from the trends highlighted in the first 6 months of this year, it is evident that cyber attacks are constantly increasing, both in terms of frequency, criticality and impacts.

The situation can be defined as a global emergency: the losses due to damages caused by Cybercrime amounted to $6 trillion in 2021 and now account for a significant percentage of world GDP.

We hope that the new investments for the digital transition will represent an opportunity for Italy to catch up and fill its gaps also in the Cyber Security field, to lead to a significant reduction of the surface of the country’s attack.

Otherwise, the risk is to introduce new but insecure technology, with the result of worsening the Italian situation overall.

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