Recently I looked at the ten largest data breaches that happened in the first half of 2018 compiled by the Identity Theft Resource Center. I expected to see a heap of massive organizations with head spinning data breaches.
I was surprised.
Yes, we’ve seen the likes of Facebook and SunTrust and yes there were eye opening numbers (150m in the case of Under Armour). But many were not the massive businesses we’re used to seeing and even government agencies made an appearance.
It made me think. Are we seeing as many big breaches?
So I looked at the number of breaches and cyberattacks for September. It gave me all the proof I needed that the cybercrime industry is alive and kicking: almost 1 billion records have been leaked this month. There have also been 600 breaches this year (by the time you read this it will have risen).
It says to me the problem is getting broader not smaller.
70% of US organizations have had at least one data breach, and in the UK over 40% of businesses reported a cybersecurity breach or attack in the last year. Many cannot afford cyber specialists, the depth of protection the mega corporates can, or the regulatory fines that are being dished out for non-compliance these days. So what do they do?
One answer may just be full network packet capture.
How could it help?
Total network history
When organizations have 100% network history, rapid and accurate detection of breaches can happen. Network sniffing and metadata give a partial picture, but capturing and storing all network IP packets, even the busiest network traffic, with the best lossless capture rates gives the full one. These high-fidelity traffic records are logged and stored, making detection easier and faster.
Extended packet capture timeline
To make detection realistic the network history must go back 140 days+ from the discovery of a breach. Most organizations store 4 days, which means no visibility of when the breach occurred. New full network packet capture tools can now store petabytes of data on premise, making 100s of days of data constantly available for search.
Powerful and fast search
Detection and remediation speeds of these massive data stores is fast. Now petabytes of network traffic can be searched in minutes, smarter logging further accelerates discovery, as does on premise storage.
Lower cost data storage
100% network history extended over months even years and searchable in minutes, sounds costly. It isn’t. Full network packet capture tools can now store petabytes of data at up to 80% less than other solutions.
Whether it’s full network packet capture or one of what seems to be a million cybersecurity solutions, the threat is not getting any less – more organizations are being hit, more attacks are happening at a lower level that makes them more undetectable, and more countries are seeing more threats.
As a customer experience professional and a customer, it worries me in equal measure.
What are you doing to protect your business against data breaches?
