Cyber Defense eMagazine July 2021 Edition

The Loud Clarion Call:
As a former linguist and HUMINTer in U.S. Army intelligence with U.S. Special Forces Command during
Operation Enduring Freedom and former cyber-intel initiative contributor at Lockheed, this news jumped
out to me on several levels.
First, NATO is acknowledging that Russia, China and other nation-states pose major cybersecurity
threats, both because of direct actions and because of the third-party threat actors operating on their soil,
presumably with tacit permission.
The first half of 2021 has seen both an increase in commercial/industrial critical infrastructure
cyberattacks, and a dramatic escalation of their potential impact - Colonial Pipeline, food processor JBL,
as well as commercial sector corporations such as Fuji being just the latest example.
New findings from researchers with Check Point show that ransomware attacks have increased 93%
year over year. Moreover:
• The number of organizations impacted by ransomware has risen to 1,210 in June 2021 alone,
• Check Point Research sees a 41% increase in attacks since the beginning of 2021, contributing
to the aforementioned 93% increase, and
• Surprisingly, despite the high-profile U.S. entities attacked, Latin America and Europe saw the
largest increase in ransomware attacks since the beginning of 2021, marking a 62% and a 59%
increase, respectively.
Elena Elkina, JD, CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPT, and Partner with corporate privacy consultants Aleada, noted
that we live in a world where cyber defense is imperative for companies and countries. “In the light of the
frequency, complexity, and destructive power of the most recent attacks, the only surprise is that it took
NATO up to this point to make public this decision and take assertive action. The time for delicacy is
over, and it is time for NATO to reaffirm its position and request other countries to act respectfully and
responsibly.”
Help Wanted in The Hunt for Premium Talent: This communique makes clear that the U.S. and her
allies must change the urgency and economics around finding the undiscovered cyber geniuses whose
innate aptitudes make them among the potential best and brightest, and then train them at a new pace
and price point, and get them into the fight as soon as possible. This is a clarion call for the best talent
on defense, repelling attackers at the cyber borders, and on offense, deploying cyber weapons against
adversaries.”
As Garret Grajek, CEO of YouAttest, observed, the open nature of the democratic nations’ networks
forces the West to apply pressure on the points of origin of such attacks. “NATO’s message is a strong
sign to the nations that either harbor or turn a blind-eye to attackers on its soil that these malware
campaigns will be taken very seriously.”
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