Global Efforts in Cyber Protection
Take a glance at the most discussed cybersecurity topics of the week.
Hackers attacking and defending utopian Lego city
ABC News on September 12, 2018
Lego is usually associated with a child’s play. What if to use it for cybersecurity?
In Canberra, more than 70 government and private sector hackers attack and secure a plastic brick city in a three-day event. The cyberattack simulation shows how authorities may react if an Australian city was hit by a cyber attack.
Estonia on the way to improve global cyber protection
The Wall Street Journal on September 7, 2018
The small Baltic country became known for prioritizing cybersecurity after a major cyberattack sabotage of 2017. The websites for Estonia’s government offices, banks, and media were put out of operation. A year after the incident, NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence opened in Tallinn. This center is intended to provide cyber defense training.
On Monday, Estonia’s first cyber ambassador took office, following several nations that were considering how diplomats can shape cybersecurity policy.
Self-assessed cybersecurity
IT World Canada on September 10, 2018
Students cannot self-assess and hate being graded, but IT pros can and do. What is more, Infosec experts from different companies around the world have been taken this chance. Report card grades have become better in 2018, and more infosec pros believe their security posture is improving.
Most respondents gave their cybersecurity programs “A” and “B”, according to the report. Automation, employee cybersecurity training and the increasing use of threat intelligence tools contributed to the boost in their confidence.
What would it take to get the “A” rate? Half said it would take a bigger budget, more staff, or more time to evaluate new technologies.
Cyber-physical risk
Property Casualty 360 on September 12, 2018
Sometimes there can be not only financial or reputational losses after a cybercrime. People’s lives can be at risk due to the unintended consequences of an attack.
Computers now control almost every process. Hacking the network of interconnected systems can grant access to all the devices connected to them. For example, a Ukrainian power plant hack of 2016 resulted in the sabotage of a regional electricity distribution network. This year, systems failures at fertility clinics in California and Ohio caused the destruction of thousands of human eggs and embryos. So, physical cyberattacks are considered a reality for many industries.
The most important things for a company to protect itself is supposedly to separate the networks used by operational technology and control systems, which should not be accessible on the Internet.