Shane Varcoe, Channel Account Manager, Webroot
In 2015, analysts are united in the belief that one topic dwarfs all others to the point it has become the context for almost everything else: security.
But as the need to understand and prevent both external and internal breaches continues, will the ongoing stream of security threats continue to impact enterprise?
Ranging from anti-virus to network solutions, and every aspect of security in-between, a recent Reseller News Roundtable discussion - The Changing Face of Security - delved deep into the beating heart of the security market.
Housing veteran security minds from both sides of the Tasman, industry experts assessed the current state of play across the spectrum and how vendors can empower the New Zealand channel to help combat the rise of more sophisticated and collaborative attacks across organisations.
But perhaps crucially, as the events of the past 18 months have demonstrated not so subtly, there is no such thing as perfect security.
Executive decision makers at Sony, Target and JP Morgan will no doubt attest to such an observation.
Today, threats actors have continued to evolve, up their game, and utilise new tools and tactics to compromise organisations, steal data and cover their tracks.
“It’s always been an arms race and it will continue to be an arms race,” says Chris Barton, Regional Alliance Manager, FireEye - a cyber security company.
Barton’s on point observation of the market, as he accepts, “is not rocket science”, but it touches upon the wider issue of attackers growing in sophistication, deploying novel tactics to hold global brands such as Sony to ransom, or in the instance of Target, bring them to their knees.
“There’s a big picture to look at here,” adds Barton, alluding to the need for vendors and channel partners to "work together to gather greater intelligence.”
Recent FireEye findings report that, for example, the time it takes organisations to discover compromises continues to drop.
The median number of days attackers were present on a victim's network before being discovered dropped to 205 days in 2014 from 229 in 2013 and 243 in 2012; however, breaches can go undetected for years.
In an extreme case, FireEye research claims one organisation in 2014 had been breached for over eight years unknowingly.
“Organisations are finding it harder to detect breaches on their own,” explains Barton, backed up by figures in 2014 which highlight that only 31 percent of businesses discovered they were breached via their own resources, down from 33 percent in 2013 and 37 percent in 2012.
“There is a great need for vendors and the channel community to collaborate and join forces as attackers are becoming smarter, they are hiding in the most complex parts of the operating system,” he adds.
New attacks
In addition to FireEye findings, Shane Varcoe, Channel Account Manager of Webroot, an endpoint security company, cites the irregularity of threats occurring as a worrying trend for the industry.
“From an endpoint and antivirus perspective,” explains Varcoe, “we’re seeing a whole range of threats attack enterprise. They are taking IP, financial and commercial information and basically, anything they can get their hands on.”
Across the purpose-built Webroot Intelligence Network (WIN), Webroot data shows over 723,000 new files everyday, including 123,000 new pieces of malware, 6,000 plus phishing sites and around 25,000 new malicious URLs.
