Ireland can benefit from industry collaboration against cyber attacks

Businesses are facing an unprecedented level of cyber risk but, with many of the world’s leading technology companies here, Ireland is in a strong position to draw on the expertise of global multinationals in the fight against cyber attacks.

As a leading global cybersecurity company, Palo Alto Networks has a significant understanding of the threat landscape. Carla Baker, senior director, Government Affairs UK and Ireland, explains that not only do they employ this to build better defences to protect its customers from the proliferation of threats, they also use it to work with the wider industry to address threats.

When it comes to drilling down into what exactly these threats may entail, close collaboration among industry is essential, Baker says: “we all have something to bring to the table.”

For Palo Alto Networks, one important example relates to ransomware. “Cybersecurity providers have robust threat intelligence about ransomware actors’ online activities, and cloud and telecommunications providers own the infrastructure ransomware actors use to propagate attacks,” Baker explains. “Both are equally important to disrupting successful ransomware attacks and imposing real costs on our adversaries.”

By its very nature, this problem necessitates international collaboration and cooperation. Palo Alto Networks has been co-chairing the international Ransomware Task Force since its inception in December 2020. The ground-breaking coalition of over 60 members from software companies, government agencies, cybersecurity vendors, financial services companies, non-profits, and academic institutions (many of which have headquarters or bases in Ireland) is working together on a comprehensive framework of solutions.

Recommendations

One of the outcomes of collaboration is that industry coalesces around agreed actions, Baker notes. “This provides a clear set of recommendations from industry to governments and it also highlights industry best practices for tackling the threats that organisations can learn from.”

Palo Alto Networks is playing a key role in prevention – particularly the role technology can play – and disruption, Baker says.

“Organisations must prepare for and prevent ransomware attacks, and we are demonstrating in various venues how existing security technologies can play a powerful role in preventing most of the ransomware attacks that we are seeing today. On the operational disruption position, we believe there is a strong role that private industry, including cybersecurity companies, can play in terms of partnering with government and law enforcement to actively disrupt ransomware actor operations.”

As a result, Palo Alto Networks is putting its money where its mouth is and is heavily engaged in various partnerships both with governments and industry to contribute to specific disruption efforts by sharing relevant threat intelligence.

“Recent attacks have focused the attention of senior management boards across the the public and private sector. They recognise that more must be done to prevent and mitigate the impact of ransomware and other attack vectors.”

Zero trust mindset

Raj Samani is a chief scientist with McAfee Enterprise & FireEye, which has a base in Cork. He highlights what he sees as a “significant challenge” when it comes to defence against cyber attacks.

“We have asymmetry of information. In other words, cybercriminals benefit from full access to the information that enables them to carry out further attacks, but for companies trying to defend against the growing threats there is considerably less information afforded.”

Fire Eye’s technology and services encourage a “zero trust” mind-set, meaning organisations don’t trust anyone when it comes to security, both outside and inside their networks. This provides a more comprehensive approach to IT security and network defences, by allowing them to restrict access controls to networks, applications and environment, without sacrificing performance and user experience, Samani explains.

“This approach and type of protection has become increasingly important, given the shift to hybrid working, with employees accessing networks across personal and business devices. Though organisations cannot guarantee that they won’t be hit by a cyber-attack, making use of the services on offer can go a long way to protecting an organisation.”