The Dark Recruiter

Ian Bancroft, vice president and general manager, EMEA, Secureworks, gives an overview of how threat actors operate.

It’s no secret that 2017 was the year of high-profile cyber-attacks. From WannaCry to NotPetya to BadRabbit, cyber-attacks hit hundreds of businesses, crippled hospital networks and compromised the security of hundreds of thousands of devices around the world.

Unfortunately, the rise in cybercrime shows no sign of slowing as attacks are becoming more sophisticated and the number of cyber gangs continues to grow. Over the next three years in total, experts predict that the damage is set to hit $6 trillion, with cybercrime becoming one of the ‘greatest transfers of economic wealth in history’. With the advent of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the threat landscape is only going to continue to grow. Correspondingly, we’re seeing organisations investing heavily in cybersecurity, as nearly half of them were hit with a cyber-attack in the first half of 2017 alone.

The question is, do we have the right pool of cybersecurity talent available for organisations to dip into? On the one hand analyst houses like Gartner are predicting that the shortage of skilled cybersecurity workers will continue to rise – which is partly evidenced by the zero percent unemployment rate. On the other you have governments investing millions into tech initiatives and promising an increase in the number of teachers trained in computer science and coding. However, with all of the high-profile attacks of last year taking centre stage, there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of focus on what’s under the hood, e.g. how organised crime rings themselves operate and recruit; and what cybersecurity skills they prioritise for nefarious gain.

Down the rabbit hole