Excerpt from Institutional Investor
By David X Martin
Companies can learn from the human immune system how to more successfully defend themselves against cyber attacks.
Another major breach of cybersecurity will soon be in the news. The only question is how dramatic and costly that breach will be, and whether the full extent of the damage will ever be made public. Worse still, should hackers gain access to the financial records of a major national bank or credit card issuer or an important defense contractor, the recent thefts of consumer information, such as those that occurred at retailers Target and Home Depot, may seem comparatively insignificant.
What accounts for the increase in cybercrime? Three broad new security challenges have emerged. First, there has been a previously unimaginable explosion in the amount of data, connections, transactions and communications that has overloaded traditional data systems. Think of the issues that arise when you have a cyberconversation with 1,000 people at the same time — all of whom can respond at warp speed to what you’re saying and are themselves connected with thousands of others. How do you detect potential risks among an ever-expanding constellation of connections and data?
Second, institutions have lost the ability to identify problems.