GPSJ Autumn 2024 ONLINE - Flipbook - Page 45
IT & IT SECURITY
Cyber-criminals targeted the
institution’s central computer
system. Fortunately, despite
handling the data for 40 mainly
small, affiliated museums, the
incident didn’t cause any disruption
to the Olympic events. Reports
suggest that the cyber-criminals
had demanded a ransom payment
within 48 hours, “threatening to post
online the financial data they had
obtained if they did not receive the
unspecified sum of money,” writes
Vidalon.
for organisations that used security
AI and automation extensively in
prevention versus those that didn’t.”
Also, CNN reported that ‘French
rail lines [were] disrupted by
co-ordinated sabotage ahead of
Paris opening ceremony.’ Cyberattacks and physical attacks on
a country’s infrastructure can be
even more debilitating when they
are co-ordinated from a financial
and organisational perspective
– potentially, when it comes to
international events, requiring the
need to work with state security
services and public or private
companies that provide and
manage the infrastructure to get
everyone to an international event
such as the Games. After all, the
management rail infrastructure is
outside the remit of the Olympic
Committee, and so is national
security – whether physical or cyberrelated. A co-ordinated response is
therefore needed.
Wider threats
‘Phishing for Gold’
The threat extends beyond the
Games. Further to the Paris
Olympics cyber-security concerns
that have been expressed in the
media for at least the last couple
of months, the Australian and New
Zealand Institute of Insurance and
Finance (ANZIIF) warns insurers to
protect their clients against cyberthreats.
“Cybersecurity is and should be
on the minds of every business.
Between 2021 and 2023, data
breaches rose by 72%, surpassing
the previous record. These statistics
highlight the importance of having
the right protections in place.” says
ANZIIF CEO, Katrina Shanks in a
recent article in AdviserVoice. With
the advancement of technology, the
importance of cyber-safety and even more critical – requiring robust
measures against digital threats.
IBM’s ‘Cost of a Data Breach Report
2024’ puts the global average
cost of a data breach in 2024 at
$4.88M—”a 10% increase over
last year and the highest total ever.”
Michelle Cantos and Jamie Collier,
in their article for Google Cloud,
‘Phishing for Gold: Cyber Threats
Facing the 2024 Paris Olympics’:
“Olympics-related cyber operations
could impact a variety of entities.
For some organisations involved
in the Games, such as sponsors,
this could expose them to statesponsored actors and destructive
campaigns that are not typically
active in their sectors. Other threats,
such as cybercrime and extortion
operations, will be more familiar, yet
will likely become more prolific and
persistent against entities involved in
the Games.”
They identify the potential targets
as being: The International Olympic
Committee; athletes, their teams
and support staff; Olympic-related
entities; physical infrastructure linked
to the Games; Paris infrastructure;
payment and ticking systems; high
profile individuals travelling to and
from the event; and tourists.
IBM’s report adds that while artificial
intelligence – mostly in the guide
It says there is a “1 in 3 share of
breaches that involved shadow
data, showing the proliferation of
data is making it harder to track
and safeguard, and that the
average cost-savings is $2.22M
of generative AI - is proving to be
a blessing in terms of helping to
prevent cyber-attacks, it can also be
used by cyber-criminals to launch
them. It also warns that there has
been a 75% increase in average
‘French police probe
ransomware attack on
Olympic venue,’ says a Reuters
headline. The investigation
is into a cyber-attack that
concentrated on the Grand
Palais exhibition hall in Paris,
where Olympic events such as
fencing and Taekwondo are
being held, reports Dominique
Vidalon.
breach cost, “due to the cost of
lost business and post-breach
response activities. The lesson:
investing in post-breach response
preparedness can help dramatically
lower breach costs.”
Obfuscate cyber-attacks
Another lesson, says David Trossell,
CEO and CTO of award-winning
WAN Acceleration company
Bridgeworks, is to try to obfuscate
cyber-attacks. This can be achieved
in several ways. This includes
organisations backing up data in at
least 3 dispersed locations, outside
of their own circles of disruption.
The most sensitive data should
ideally be air-gapped. However,
there is also a need to educate
people to ensure that phishing –
including ransomware – attacks
aren’t successfully launched in the
first instance.
Organisations – including banks
and fintechs – can protect their
customers, despite the surge in data
breaches that are occurring globally.
Traditionally, from a data compliance
and data protection perspective,
they would use technologies, such
as WAN Optimisation or SD-WANs,
to back up and restore data to
maintain their operations.
Now, they’re great technologies,
but they don’t win gold in the way
that WAN Acceleration can. Firstly,
WAN Optimisation can’t send or
receive encrypted data. Secondly,
SD-WANs often benefit from having
a WAN Acceleration overlay. In
contrast, WAN Acceleration can
send and receive encrypted data
and it is completely data agnostic. It
uses artificial intelligence, machine
learning and data parallelisation
to mitigate the effects of latency
and packet loss. It also increases
bandwidth utilisation by up to 98%.
GPSJ
Mobile UK, Nationwide, NatWest,
Starling Bank, Three, UK Finance,
Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone.
Together they have called for better
intelligence to detect fraud and
protect the law-abiding public.
As well as supporting the British
Olympic team, and hoping they
will bring more gold medals home,
Trossell says it’s also important to
support STEM education – like he
and Bridgeworks do. Cyber-security
is a growing threat, and so industry
needs to recruit talent to enable
organisations to stay ahead of the
criminals.
Invest in talent
After all, cyber-threats will continue
to persist long after the Games are
over, and so organisations need
to invest in existing and future
STEM talent and in technologies
that can keep themselves and their
customers safe. There is also a
need to invest in our sporting talent
for future Games, and Bridgeworks
does that by supporting the Royal
Lymington Yacht Club’s youth
programmes. In doing so, including
its proud sponsorship of graphic
artist, Alishia Hoyle, Bridgeworks
and its WAN Acceleration
technology wins gold. The latter
enables data to be kept safe and
secure.
By Graham Jarvis,
Freelance Business and
Technology Journalist
Lead Journalist- Business and
Technology, Trudy Darwin
Communications.
Fraud prevention
nterestingly, while the norm is to
protect consumer data or pay a
huge fine that could cost much
more than investing in technologies,
such as WAN Acceleration and
three disaster recovery sites, some
banks, financial institutions, and
mobile network operators ask the
new Labour government to permit
them to share more data to prevent
fraud. They include Barclays, BT,
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL AUTUMN 2024
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