Gartner: Strategies for Dealing with the Increase in Advanced Targeted Threats

Advanced security threats are increasing, but simply adding more layers of defense does not necessarily increase security against targeted threats; security controls need to evolve, according to Gartner, Inc.

"Targeted attacks are penetrating standard levels of security controls and causing significant business damage to enterprises that do not evolve their security controls," said John Pescatore, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "For the average enterprise, 4 percent to 8 percent of executables that pass through antivirus and other common defenses are malicious. Enterprises need to focus on reducing vulnerabilities and increasing monitoring capabilities to deter or more quickly react to evolving threats. There are existing security technologies that can greatly reduce vulnerability to targeted attacks."

Gartner analysts said the term "advanced persistent threat" (APT) has been overhyped and is distracting organizations from a very real problem. APT was coined by the military to refer to a specific threat from another country. It was expanded to include other aggressive nation states, but has been co-opted by the media and by security vendors to hype the source of an attack, which distracts from the real issue — focusing on the vulnerabilities that the attackers are exploiting.

"The reality is that the most important issues are the vulnerabilities and the techniques used to exploit them, not the country that appears to be the source of the attack," Mr. Pescatore said. "The major advance in new threats has been the level of tailoring and targeting — these are not noisy, mass attacks that are easily handled by simple, signature-dependent security approaches."

Targeted attacks aim to achieve a specific impact against specific enterprises, and have three major goals:

         Denial of service: Disrupting business operations

         Theft of service: Obtaining use of the business product or service without paying for it

         Information compromise: Stealing, destroying or modifying business-critical information

The motivation for advanced targeted threats is usually financial gain, such as through extortion during a denial-of-service attack, trying to obtain a "ransom" for stolen information, or selling stolen identity information to criminal groups. Through year-end 2015, financially motivated attacks will continue to be the source of more than 70 percent of the most damaging cyberthreats. Most politically motivated attacks actually reuse techniques first seen in cybercrime attacks.

Gartner has identified some strategies that companies can implement to deal with advanced targeted threats:

Own the vulnerability; don't blame the threat: There are no unstoppable forces in cyberattacks. If IT leaders close the vulnerability, then they stop the curious teenager, the experimental hacker, the cybercriminal and the information warrior. Many attacks that include zero-day exploits often use well-known vulnerabilities as part of the overall attacks.

"Businesses and government agencies involved in critical infrastructure, high-tech or financial operations that are constant targets of cybercrime and other advanced threats need to add 'lean-forward' capabilities to have continual visibility into potential attacks and compromises." Mr. Pescatore said. "The use of specialized threat detection, network forensics and situational awareness technologies can be very effective in quickly detecting and reacting to the first stages of an advanced targeted threat, but require high levels of skilled resources to be effective."

Evolve defenses; don't just add layers: The best approach to reducing the risk of compromise is always "security in depth" — if the enterprise can afford it. Affording it means not just having the money to buy increasing numbers of security products, but also the staff and operations support to use and integrate everything together. Having more security layers does not automatically mean more security.

Focus on security, not compliance: There is a big difference between compliance and security. "Due diligence" from a compliance perspective is simply limiting the company's liability from legal action — it is never the answer to dealing with advanced threats or living up to customers' trust.

"A lean-forward approach to security is going beyond the due diligence level of the standard network security and vulnerability assessment controls, and using tools and processes to continuously look for active threats on the internal networks," Mr. Pescatore said. "However, IT leaders must be prepared to invest in and staff lean-forward processes — and they must be prepared to take action if they find something."

Additional information is available in the Gartner report "Strategies for Dealing With Advanced Targeted Threats" at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1760819. A Gartner Special Report on IT Security and Risk Management is available at http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/security-risk-management/

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,500 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,500 associates, including 1,250 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.

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