siliconindia | | April - May 20208IN MYOPINIONBy Ashok Banerjee, CTO & VP Engineering, Enterprise Security, SymantecTechnology brings the world closer and enhances convenience, however, the same technology brings the attackers closer too. Most of us in Silicon Valley think with the "mind of a maker", and yet there is the "mind of a breaker". Technology extends not only our reach but also the reach of the attacker for espionage, sabotage, and ransomware.While the "mind of the maker" and the "mind of the breaker" are co-evolving in adversarial relation, Fake news and real news are in a similar adversarial cycle as Cyberattacks and Cyberdefense. In regular Machine Learning, there is a static truth, and with Machine Learning, we approach it. However in Cyberattacks and Fake-News the cheese moves, as soon as defense catches on. These systems are far more of Game Theory and Adversarial Machine Learning than regular Machine Learning.Cyberattacks have become increasingly organized and sophisticated. The sophisticated attackers are well-versed in Cloud, Devops and Machine Learning. Every move begets a counter-move, so what matters is not the move but the equilibrium of the adverserial game. Another thing to note is that attackers look for the weakest link in the chain for maximum returns. So, cyberdefense needs to "protect it all, or not at all". In a passive system, e.g. a roof with a 1 percent leak in the roof surface, leaks only 1 percent of the rain hitting the roof surface. However in an active system like cybersecurity if there is 1 hole in the security, 100 percent of attacks come through it.Where are these deadly attackers? Are they terrible people? The cyber-educated attacker is usually located outside the jurisdiction of the victim, this makes consequences for the attacker less likely. Attackers do not like to be physically proximal to their victim and few things prove it better than regular household garage door openers. A standard garage CYBERATTACKS AND CYBERDEFENSE: ETERNALLY AT WAR AND YET ETERNALLY AT PEACE
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