October 17, 2019 By BlueAlly
By Adeline Chan, Threat Prevention Product Marketing, published October 17th 2019
Hardly a week goes by without news of a breach or a cyber incident being reported. The cost and frequency of cyberattacks have increased compared to previous years, and where hackers formerly focused mainly on larger companies, small- and medium-sized firms are now equally vulnerable.
Cyberattacks and data theft are now two of the top five risks CEOs are most likely to face, according to the latest World Economic Forum report on global risks.[1] The number of major attacks grew to 145 in 2018, representing a 67% increase in attacks over the last five years.[2]
This steady rise is understandable given that the number of reported vulnerabilities also exploded during this period, largely due to the cloud, mobile devices, and internet of things (IoT) devices, which give hackers more attack surfaces to exploit.
Changing cybersecurity rules
Despite this growing risk, most organizations are not protected because they are not using the appropriate technology or approach to deal with today’s cyberthreats. The rules of the game have changed dramatically over recent years. Both the sheer number and level of sophistication of attacks have increased.
Cybercriminals exploit how most organizations rely on security solutions that aren’t designed for today’s sophisticated attacks. Most organizations are using second and third generation technologies even though we are now in the fifth generation of cyberattacks. These Gen V[3] attacks are large in scale, hitting targets across countries and industries; multi-vector, impacting networks, cloud instances and mobile devices; and frequently state-sponsored. Many of these Gen V attacks take advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities which are security flaws that do not yet have a fix or a patch.
Winning the cybersecurity battle
Only organizations that focus on preventing unknown, zero-day threats can win the cybersecurity battle. Organizations need to adopt a proactive battle plan to stay ahead of cybercriminals and prevent attacks, not merely detect and remediate them.
Effective protection against unknown, zero-day attacks require the following:
- Comprehensive real-time threat intelligence: Up-to-the-minute information globally aggregated from different industries will enable companies to anticipate unknown attacks and uncover new vulnerabilities.
- Advanced threat prevention engines: Behavioral detection and machine learning algorithms identify and block exploits on networks, cloud and endpoint before they execute.
- Consolidated security architecture: Single unified security architecturethat centrally correlates all security events and provides complete, unified control across networks, cloud and mobile will make it easier to deliver security and compliance.
Check Point combines the power of shared threat intelligence and advanced threat prevention engines with a consolidated security architecture that uniformly prevents attacks across all attack vectors to help organizations win the cybersecurity battle. In the most recent NSS Labs Breach Prevention Systems (BPS) Group Test, Check Point achieved a 98.4% overall security effectiveness score, the highest of all vendors. The NSS Labs BPS Group Test is significant because it compares solution suites based on how well they protect from multiple attack vectors. Check Point’s strong performance in this test is testament to its effective approach to identifying and blocking attacks.
Winning the cybersecurity battle depends on businesses preventing unknown zero-day threats.
[1] WEF Global Risks Report, 2019.
[2] The Cost of Cybercrime (9th annual study), Accenture Security, 2019.
[3] Preventing Fifth Generation Attacks, 2018