Because nation-states are well funded and organized, they are able to carry out very sophisticated, content-based attacks that are hard to detect and to stop, George told Infosecurity.
The Fidelis chief noted that APTs are often embedded deep inside content. So tools to discover and stop these threats need to provide content-level visibility. He estimated that 90% of the companies being attacked by APTs do not have this content-level visibility.
“Nation-states are burying malware deep inside the content, and the companies can’t see that….We see the threat vector continuing and the amount of content-based malware going up dramatically over the next couple of years”, he predicted.
Fidelis works closely with federal government customers, George noted. “We are seeing an increasing desire from the national security leadership to be more overt about delivering the news to the world that we have technology and capabilities to not only be world-class in defense, but more important to be world-class in offense”, he said.
China “needs to know that we are going to be very aggressive on the offensive side to deal with their offensive attacks on our national security. It is not acceptable to steal classified information. It is not acceptable to attack our intellectual property and use that for profit”, he said.
In a recent blog, George wrote: “While the Cold War may be over, the reality is that our country is under cyber attack on a daily basis by world powers such as Russia and China. The difference being, they are invading our data centers and networks, rather than our shores.”
George wrote that “whether you are in the camp of going on the offensive or employing a strong defense as a way to defeat cyber attacks, it’s hard to argue with the logic of making sure that other countries know that if they are going to take a shot at US interests, they are going to get hit back. And hit back hard.”
The Fidelis chief concluded: “I often speak to security analysts and business leaders, and I explain to them that security companies who deal with these types of advanced persistent threats (APTs) are becoming the defense contractors of the future. We have become to the cyber world what the likes of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin were to the aerospace industry throughout the 1980s. Alone, we can’t win the war for you. But we can equip you with the best weapons to help fight against the bad guys. And if the past is any indicator, the arms race is just beginning to heat up.”