Cybercrime by another name smells just as rotten

By Zak Khan, Advanced Cyber Defence, Trend Micro

The effect of cybercrime on the global economy is massive.  In 2015, malicious data theft left corporations and consumers nearly $500 billion worse off. That’s serious money. We’ve all heard about Sony, Target and Anthem. We think Australia is immune. This is an American problem, right?

On our shores, retailers like David Jones and K-mart have been breached. There are Australian financial institutions whose confidential company and customer data has been stolen and put up for sale on the Dark Web. Indeed, in 2014 the Australian Defence Signals Directorate noted more than a billion dollars’ worth of damage from cybercrime affecting hundreds of local organisations. That’s from the data breaches that were reported to the Feds. 70% of breaches go unreported or worse – unknown. This translates to serious dollars. Yet some feel this is not material and more suited to the latest James Bond flick.

So let’s put hacking and data breaches aside. Let’s talk about the same topic under different guise. Ransomware. Cryptolocker. Australia is a disproportionate target of this malaise. Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents or limits users from accessing their system. This type of malware forces its victims to pay the ransom through certain online payment methods in order to grant access to their systems, or to get their data back.

This type of malware morphs rapidly, making defence via reputation and signatures difficult. This limits the efficacy of traditional mail gateways. Trend Micro’s Deep Discovery Email Inspector works with your incumbent mail gateway adding intelligence, emulation and sandboxing to help defend against this new menace.

Come listen to me at JuiceIT to learn more.

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