Protecting against cyberattacks by mastering its computer system

The dream of any organization is to be able to permanently stop cyberattacks that continue to annoy them.

But it may be possible. They should simply be able to have more control over their computer systems, and their business networks. Because there have been several cases, and there will surely be cases where cyber criminals have managed to penetrate corporate networks and even computer systems, and they have stayed there for a very long time to carry out certain actions without the knowledge of the system managers. And this without even being detected.

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Regarding the impacts of cyberattacks, all know there are some that pose huge problems to businesses. And the costs of rehabilitating systems are often enormous. This is still possible simply because information system security managers are not yet fully in control of their infrastructure. "This is what people often misunderstand about attacks – they don't happen at the speed of light, it often takes months or years to get the right level of access in a network and ultimately to be able to push the trigger and cause a destructive act," notes Dmitri Alperovitch, executive chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator , also co-founder and former technical director of CrowdStrike.

In other words, having a better understanding of the composition of its computer network and the very structure of its system could facilitate the detection of suspicious behaviors and even intrusion attempts that could later cause huge problems. "Defence can work if you have time. If you look inside your systems, search for opponents and apply information, you are able to discover them even if they enter, before they do any damage," explains Dmitri Alperovitch.

In recent years, this mastery of its computer network has become increasingly essential. This is because of industrial and even sanitary environments that become mostly connected. It is the explosion of the Internet of Things, which today occupies a large part of our professional habits the same individuals. While this shift has brought some efficiency in service management, system maintenance and repair. But of course who says connected says exposed. 

"We need proactive testing," said Annessa McKenzie, vice president of IT and CSO at Calpine ( a U.S. power company). "We need to develop this capacity to go with that confidence so that before there is a breach, we have at least a basic understanding of this environment," the official said. She added: "Because when we go blind, it takes days to react takes weeks, sometimes months – and we never really understand what happened."

For some of the experts, companies need to learn to think like cyber criminals. The way they initiate their computer attacks and exploit vulnerabilities. With such an approach, IT teams will be able to discover new ways to defend their computer systems. "A lot of companies are putting in place segmentation, surveillance, anti-virus – they're not bad things – but I think too few are focusing on what the attack is going to look like," says Rob Lee, CEO and co-founder of Dragos (an industrial security company). "Let's work backwards. What kind of answer do we want? Do we want to get the factory back on track? So we're going to have to understand the root cause analysis." Add the latter.

In addition, companies' control of their IT environment is an essential point in the fight against cybercrime. This can only be effective and definitive if organizations are able to develop strategies to build on their knowledge of their infrastructure. This same knowledge that will allow them to always be one point ahead of cybercrime. "The biggest advantage of defenders is that they know their environment better than an opponent – which is not always true, unfortunately if the right tools and abilities are not in the organization.But if they do, then they have the upper hand and they detect an opponent and eject him before the damage is done." Concluded Dmitri Alperovitch.

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