14 DAY TRIAL // The Information Security Forum (ISF), a leading authority on information risk management and cyber security, has published its Threat Horizon 2015 report. The annual report is designed to help organizations in laying out a strategy to manage and mitigate risks.
“Threats such as hacktivism and malware have been around for some time, but it doesn’t mean that they are less dangerous and that we can relax – quite the opposite. Older threats, because they’ve matured, are more dangerous and pose more risk,” said Steve Durbin, global vice president, ISF.
“Known threats remain dangerous and will pose greater risk to our organizations moving forward as their sophistication multiplies and they become even more effective at compromising our information security.”
Threat Horizon 2015 focuses on five main aspects. First of all, the study highlights that it’s challenging for an organization to understand and address cyber risks.
Secondly, cyberattacks are beginning to focus more and more on targeting a company’s reputation, regardless whether they’re launched by insider activists of hacktivist collectives who change their targets each week.
Another noteworthy thing mentioned in the report is that information is valued by cybercriminals and they’re highly motivated to obtain it.
The risks posed by the bring your own cloud (BYOC) and bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives, and other technological advancements are also highlighted.
Finally, ISF emphasizes that while governments play a key role in cyber security, organizations should not rely on them to manage the risks and prevent information and systems from being compromised. That’s because governments expect these tasks to be accomplished by organizations.
“Research for this year’s report found a number of familiar offenders such as organized cybercrime, social engineering, mobile devices, social networking, cloud computing and malicious software,” Durbin added.
“What’s new this year is the increasing sophistication of these known threats as they mature. While some threats diminish with time, others have become even more dangerous.”
The Executive Summary of the Threat Horizon 2015 report is available here.