RSA Conference,
the world's leading information security conferences and expositions,
today unveiled expert insights into salient issues around emerging
threats and security technologies.
Ahead
of RSAC 2019 APJ, which begins on Tuesday, 16 July, and runs through
Thursday, 18 July, at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Center in
Singapore, industry experts, including speakers and the program
committee of RSAC 2019 APJ weigh in on the evolving threat landscape,
and uncover what is hype, what is reality and what this means for
businesses and CISOs in the Asia Pacific region.
"RSA
Conference serves to be a platform that facilitates pertinent
conversations, while informing businesses of how to make actionable
decisions on all things cybersecurity. With the continuous emergence of
new technologies, enterprises now find themselves having an ever-growing
repository of security products that do not necessarily help in
providing strategic management of cyberthreats. We gathered industry
experts participating at RSAC 2019 APJ to share on what risks are
understated or overstated, so businesses and CISOs can distinguish
between hype and what should be genuine priorities," explained Linda
Gray Martin, Senior Director & General Manager, RSA Conferences.
Based
on industry observations and interactions with partners and customers
across the region, experts share their thoughts on four hotly contested
statements that impact regional businesses in 2019:
1. It is possible for a cybersecurity solution to be completely unhackable?
The
adoption of fraud detection and prevention solutions, including
multifactor authentication and biometric solutions have been on the rise
in Asia. According to Grand View Research, the Asia Pacific market will
witness the fastest growth rate from 2018-2025, as a result the
increasing emphasis on personal data security, stringent regulatory
compliances, and increased investments in connected devices and cloud
technologies. While such solutions buffer against attacks, experts
caution that businesses need to do more than just ensure that
technologies are in place.
"The reality is,
biometrics also brings with it some caveats and new risks, including
privacy concerns around how ‘Personal Identifiable Information' is
collected, shared and secured as this data can also be a target for
cybercriminals. As biometric technologies depend on probabilities and
confidence scores, there are also risks that the systems can be spoofed
by say, a photo. Therefore, it is always best for biometrics to work in
conjunction with other security measures," explained Vicky Ray,
Principal Researcher, Unit 42 Threat Intelligence, Asia Pacific.
An
executive advisor of a Fortune 100 company and member of the RSAC
Program Committee shared similar sentiments. "We have seen security
'silver bullets' come and go over the years - it used to be biometrics
and now, vendors are praising AI as the ultimate cyber defense weapon.
Unfortunately, the one constant is that hackers will resolve to
targeting the weakest link - people. While biometrics are good as
another layer of security, they are but just an additional layer of
security. If hackers can convince people to do something that they
should not do, no technology will help," he explains.
2. When IoT devices are embedded with security vulnerabilities, it puts users at risk
The
opportunities that the Internet of Things phenomenon has driven across
businesses and industries have been almost unparalleled, as ubiquitous
connected devices provide key physical data, unlocking further business
insights via the cloud. Yet, they have also turned into security
concerns with the emergence of distributed denial of service attacks and
a rising number of internet security breaches launched against servers.
Experts
warn that this is a valid concern, and that more needs to be done in
order to protect end users. Sunil Varkey, Chief Technology Officer and
Security Strategist, Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, Symantec,
said, "Even as IoT adoption is in a rapid phase and may soon touch our
everyday lives, security needs to be accounted for. Currently, it is not
a major consideration in the development lifecycle. As such, most
security practitioners are not yet familiar with security protocols for
IoT, and that needs to change. Else, any exploit on the vulnerabilities
or misconfigurations could lead to a huge impact on safety."
Srinivas
Bhattiprolu, Senior Director-Solutions and Services, Asia
Pacific-Japan, Nokia, elaborated on how threat vectors could potentially
take advantage of IoT devices, explaining that lateral movements to
compromise assets within the security perimeter has been on the rise.
"In order to secure an end-to-end IoT system, it is necessary to clearly
understand the vulnerabilities and exploits associated with specific
components as well as of the system as a whole," he explained.
3. Critical infrastructure owners should create separate networks to move essential operations off the internet
In
recent years, governments and organisations across the APJ region have
begun the introduction of separate networks, and have even cut off
internet connection from employee devices in order to prevent potential
leaks from e-mails and shared documents. The Singapore government's move
in May 2017 is one such example in a move to prevent attackers from
tapping the internet to plant malware in work devices. As for whether
this is essential, experts share differing views.
"The
challenges that security professionals have been facing with legacy
systems is their complexity and lack of security by design, which
necessitate off-network operations. This is still a common practice as
it reduces critical systems exposure, providing mitigating controls, by
limiting potential cyber-attacks through segregation," explained Magda
Lilia Chelly, Managing Director at Responsible Cyber Pte Ltd.
Varkey
however pointed out the increasing challenge of this practice. "While
isolation and separation of network segments were an active defense
strategy when systems and information were well within defined
perimeters and enterprise networks, this might not be enough to solve
challenges anymore. This is because heterogeneous multi-cloud
environments see users having multiple IT personas."
"Beyond
segregation, owners and operators of critical infrastructure should
make sure their systems are properly secure, patched, updated and
monitored. It is too easy for an individual today to go on one of
several search engines and easily find misconfigured or unpatched
critical systems," continued Varkey.
4. AI-powered systems are self-sustaining and secure by design
According to market research firm, Reportlinker,
the Asia Pacific region is expected to be the largest AI cybersecurity
market, as a result of the high adoption of advanced technologies like
IoT, big data and cloud computing. As for its ability to keep out
attacks, experts warn that AI has both exacerbated advances in
cybersecurity solutions and threats of cybercrime.
"We
have seen recent AI deployments across cyber security solutions, where
companies claim that they can detect attacks faster using the
technology. Academic research proves a success rate between 85% and 99% -
this all depends on the implementation, algorithms and data," Chelly
explained.
"In order for AI to be successful, it
requires the appropriate data input. If the data input is manipulated,
or biased, new security concerns can emerge very quickly. The data
inputs, and their integrity and availability present a crucial element
for the AI technology," she continued.