Why is a global collaboration in cybersecurity the need of the hour?
Cybersecurity is an effort to save ships sailing on tumultuous waters. Several organizations from various sectors have been targeted by cybercriminals resulting in heavy losses.
The cost of cybercrime is expected to reach a sum of about $10 trillion by 2025, each year. The question is whether cybersecurity in silos is enough to protect enterprises when hackers innovate to hack any device.
Would collaboration in cybersecurity create an undefeatable framework?
Cybersecurity spending and collaboration in cybersecurity
According to a survey of companies by Deloitte, it was found that the IT budget set by small organizations was under $5 million, while mid-sized organizations allocated between $5 million to $20 million. Larger enterprises dedicated an IT budget of at least $20 million, per year.
Boards and the management set standards for reaching the best cybersecurity with the following interests:
With the money and aspirations of the boards put together, there remains the challenge of a collaborative effort to find corroborative proofs.
In the ideal situation, global cybersecurity teams forming collaboration for cybersecurity would be essential for it to create the best defensive mechanisms.
Several underground forums have been seized by a collaborative effort including RaidForums, BreachForums, and Hive.
Data breaches and leaks from organizations across nations were made on these forums by cybercriminals most of whom were nabbed by the police together from several nations.
We have seen an 18-year-old hacker collaborate with a 17-year-old to hack Uber, the sophisticated security walls of Nvidia, and others. It is high time nations mover towards collaboration in cybersecurity.
There are several direct benefits of a global collaboration in cybersecurity:
- Information: Having an expansive range of proofs and data about cybercriminals, their IPs, tools, and next move.
- Planning: What one nation knows about say LockBit need not be of use to its security but to another whom the hackers are planning to target. Global collaboration in cybersecurity can help share intel to prevent cyber attacks.
- Create defenses: Preventing a cyber attack needs sophisticated tools teamed with experts who know what the attack entails. A global alliance for cybersecurity could enable sharing of resources for the best mitigation and preventive framework for a set cost.
Just like most joint efforts, collaboration in cybersecurity is bound to generate some friction. When vested interests join the fray, this could bring undesirable consequences to the security of nations.
Investment, workforce, time adjustment, mission, profit, and end goal are critical to a global collaboration in cybersecurity.
A joint effort could bring in more information however, there may be differences of opinions, choices to make, consensus to reach, and results nations would want to be equal and fair to them.
Regardless of the size of the nation, its infrastructure that is unsafe could be bigger than a nation with a larger number of organizations and assets to protect.
The cybersecurity budget of a nation or firm offering solutions on its behalf may not be at par with the member nations, which may not help create better security infrastructure. Finding a ground rule that ensures parity is crucial in collaboration in cybersecurity.
Some of the factors to consider are as follows:
- Setting the number of attacks on a nation that will be mitigated with the collaborative effort.
- Number of attacks planned and aimed at an organization may be more than other nations. How will all the threat intelligence be shared in a balanced number and paid for?
- The location of the cyber criminals may be traced to a nation that is a member of the collaboration. Friction and doubt among each other and losing solidarity might result in weakened interest.
Time for a collaboration in cybersecurity
The fear of losing classified data to leaks or insider threats must be addressed first by choosing members of the collaborative team cautiously, checking their digital footprint.
How much of a nation’s information is shared, and with whom is critical to the security of participating nations.
Trust is essential in collaborative efforts, however, a zero-trust model with transparency in sharing intelligence that could help the larger good is essential.
Australia suffered a series of data breaches from Optus to Medibank which caused a stir among people and governments alike.
The impact of breaches that took place years ago is felt even today which is making the top management of organizations and legal agencies work towards tools and security in a new light.
Keeping numbers, and costs on the agenda is unavoidable however, what is the need of the hour for any nation today to stop cybercriminal groups is to collate data, and weaken threat actors.
Global collaboration in cybersecurity and cost to companies and cyberciminals
Nations often feature in the cybersecurity news for having support from cybercriminal groups that go after organizations from countries that they fight against.
Apart from the geopolitical intentions, state-sponsored groups and hacktivists find ways to make money and name social causes as reasons behind offensive attacks.
This is leaving companies with no option but to spend and develop software that detects, defends, and prevents better than before.
This is like a never-ending battle with the average cost of a ransomware attack to an organization reaching $4 million. All while malware subscriptions are advertised for $1000 per month to hackers.
Instead of focusing on preparing the best cybersecurity defenses around your nation, it is important to share intelligence with others to detect what has gone undetected.
Based on threat intelligence from various sources several attempts could be prevented. And the resulting issues of interest among the collaborating teams of cybersecurity can be addressed just like any other issue.