Cyber Security Insights for Resilient Digital Defence

90% of cybersecurity incidents could be avoided, survey reveals

Organisations are navigating a landscape of mixed emotions as the Network and Information Security Directive 2022/2555 (NIS2) enforcement date approaches. A regulation that's aimed at strengthening cybersecurity across the EU by expanding the scope and increasing the rigour of security requirements, NIS2 goes into effect on 18 October 2024. Veeam Software, the data resilience expert, commissioned a new survey from Censuswide that revealed that only 43% of EMEA IT decision-makers believe NIS2 will significantly enhance EU cybersecurity. This is despite an overwhelming 90% of respondents reporting at least one security incident that the NIS2 directive could have prevented in the past 12 months. Alarmingly, 44% of respondents experienced more than three cyber incidents, with 65% of those categorised as “highly critical”. The survey results, which encompass the views of over 500 IT decision-makers from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, revealed the state of play less than a month before this directive takes effect. Although nearly 80% of businesses are confident in their ability to eventually comply with NIS2 guidelines, up to two-thirds state they will miss this imminent deadline. Barriers to NIS2 compliance Achieving NIS2 compliance requires businesses to implement essential measures, such as defining incident response plans, securing supply chains, assessing vulnerabilities, and evaluating overall security levels. This includes all affiliated organisations, partners, and supply chains. However, several barriers to compliance persist. Key challenges cited by IT decision-makers include technical debt (24%), lack of leadership understanding (23%), and insufficient budget/investments (21%). Notably, 40% of respondents reported decreased IT budgets since the political agreement for NIS2 was proclaimed effective in January 2023, despite its stringent penalties, which are comparable to those of the EU's flagship data privacy legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 63% of respondents view the GDPR as strict, and 62% express the same sentiment about NIS2. Competitive pressures amid cyberthreats The slow pace of NIS2 adoption is likely due to the multitude of competing priorities and business pressures that face these organisations. Respondents rank NIS2 lower in urgency than 10 other issues, including the skills gap, profitability, and digital transformation. Worryingly, 42% of respondents who consider NIS2 insignificant for EU cybersecurity improvements attribute this to inadequate consequences of non-compliance, which has led to widespread apathy towards the directive. Additional key findings from the survey include: 74% of respondents see NIS2 as beneficial, but 57% doubt it will have any substantial impact on overall EU cybersecurity posture. Sceptics cite additional concerns such as NIS2's lack of comprehensiveness (35%), belief that compliance doesn’t guarantee security (34%), and overlap with existing regulations (25%). Other barriers include a lack of focus on NIS2 compliance (20%), tight timelines (19%), cybersecurity skills shortage (19%), directive complexity (19%), and organisational silos (19%). Despite conflicting views, most respondents perceive NIS2 positively in the context of their organisation's regulatory obligations, feeling optimistic (33%), confident (32%), and encouraged (27%). Andre Troskie, EMEA Field CISO at Veeam, states, “NIS2 brings responsibility for cybersecurity beyond IT teams into the boardroom. While many businesses recognise the importance of this directive, the struggle to comply found in the survey highlights significant systemic issues. The combined pressures of other business priorities and IT challenges can explain the delays, but this does not lessen the urgency. “Given the rising frequency and severity of cyberthreats, the potential benefits of NIS2 in preventing critical incidents and bolstering data resilience can't be overstated. Leadership teams must act swiftly to bridge these gaps and ensure compliance, not just for regulatory sake but to genuinely enhance organisational robustness and safeguard critical data.” For more from Veeam, click here.

Veeam announces integration with Palo Alto Networks

Veeam Software, a data resilience expert, has announced a new integration with Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity specialist, to simplify security operations and strengthen data resilience. This integration addresses the pressing need for organisations to take an integrated approach to protecting their data backups and proactively respond to cyber threats through the capabilities offered by Veeam’s new apps and Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM and Cortex XSOAR. With this new integration, Veeam is the first Palo Alto Networks partner to independently design and develop a data collector, dashboards, and reports for Cortex XSIAM. Dave Russell, SVP of Strategy at Veeam, explains, "Cyber threats are a reality for every single organisation. It takes teamwork to fight this escalating battle against ransomware. We are excited to integrate with Palo Alto Networks to provide customers with capabilities to further strengthen their data resilience. This powerful integration enables our 550,000 customers to better protect their backups and respond to cyberattacks faster, tightening their security posture and helping to ensure reliable, rapid and trusted recovery.” In today's digital landscape, ransomware attacks are on the rise, with 96% specifically targeting an organisation's backups according to the Veeam 2024 Ransomware Trends Report. This alarming reality poses a significant challenge for IT and security leaders worldwide. Traditional tools struggle to scale for large enterprises, resulting in a high volume of alerts and overwhelming manual processes for security teams. To combat these challenges and fulfil customer demand, Veeam and Palo Alto Networks have integrated technology to centralise, scale, and automate data monitoring and incident response. By integrating Palo Alto Networks AI-driven security operations centre (SOC) platform with Veeam's recovery capabilities, organisations can identify and respond to cyberattacks faster, helping to ensure the resilience of their business-critical backup data. "We are thrilled to collaborate with Veeam, empowering organisations to respond and react more quickly to threats facing their critical data," says Pamela Cyr, VP of Technical Partnerships at Palo Alto Networks. "By combining the power of Palo Alto Networks' AI-driven SOC platform with data resilience capabilities from Veeam, we can help customers identify and respond to threats, ensuring the resilience of business-critical data. The new integration demonstrates our shared commitment to providing organisations with tools and technologies that help them proactively combat evolving cyber threats and strengthen their security posture." The integration introduces two new applications – the Veeam apps integrated with Cortex XSIAM and Cortex XSOAR that leverage a bi-directional API connection to monitor, detect, and respond to security incidents impacting critical business data and data backups. The Veeam app integrated with Cortex XSIAM brings data from Veeam Backup & Replication and VeeamONE environments into Cortex XSIAM, providing a centralised view of data and backup security-related activity. The Veeam app, integrated with Cortex XSOAR, enables regular API queries against Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE, monitoring for significant security events or alerts. Both applications are included at no charge to Veeam Data Platform Advanced and Premium customers. For more from Veeam, click here.

Custocy partners with Enea for AI-based NDR integration

Custocy, a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for cybersecurity, is to embed Enea Qosmos deep packet inspection (DPI) and intrusion detection (IDS) software libraries in its AI-powered network detection and response (NDR) platform. This integration will enable Custocy to improve accuracy and performance and support product differentiation through detailed traffic visibility and streamlined data inspection. Custocy uses layered, multi-temporal AI functions to detect immediate threats as well as persistent attacks. This approach streamlines the work of security analysts through attack path visualisation, improved prioritisation, workflow support and a radical reduction in the number of false-alarm alerts (‘false positives’). By integrating Enea software into its solution, Custocy will have the exceptional traffic data it needs to extend and accelerate this innovation while meeting extreme performance demands. Enea’s deep packet inspection (DPI) engine, the Enea Qosmos ixEngine, is the most widely embedded DPI engine in the cybersecurity industry. While it has long played a vital role in a wide range of security functions, it is increasingly valued by security leaders today for the value it brings to AI innovation. With market-leading recognition of more than 4,500 protocols and delivery of 5,900 metadata, including unique indicators of anomaly, Qosmos ixEngine provides invaluable fuel for AI innovators like Custocy. In addition, the Enea Qosmos Threat Detection SDK delivers a two-fold improvement in product performance by eliminating double packet processing for DPI and IDS, optimising resources and streamlining overheads. And thanks to Enea Qosmos ixEngine’s packet acquisition and parsing library, parsing speed is accelerated while traffic insights are vastly expanded to fuel next-generation threat detection and custom rule development. These enhancements are important, as demand for high-performing NDR solutions has never been higher. NDR plays a pivotal role in detecting unknown and advanced persistent threats (APTs), which is a challenge certain to become even more daunting as threat actors adopt AI tools and techniques. Custocy is well-positioned to help private and public organisations meet this challenge with a unique technological core built on AI that has earned the company a string of awards; the latest being Product of the Year at Cyber Show Paris. Jean-Pierre Coury, SVP Embedded Security Business Group, comments, “Custocy has developed its solution from the ground up to exploit the unique potential of AI to enhance advanced threat detection and security operations. AI is truly woven into the company's DNA, and I look forward to the additional value it will deliver to its customers as they leverage the enhanced data foundation delivered by Enea software to support their continuous AI innovation.” Custocy CEO, Sebastien Sivignon, adds, “We are thrilled to join forces with Enea to offer our customers the highest level of network intrusion detection. The Enea Qosmos ixEngine is the industry gold standard for network traffic data. It offers a level of accuracy and depth conventional DPI and packet sniffing tools cannot match. Having such a rich source of clean, well-structured, ready-to-use data will enable Custocy to dramatically improve its performance, work more efficiently and devote maximum time to AI model innovation.”

Veeam expands data resilience for Microsoft 365

Veeam Software, a data resilience specialist, has announced the release of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8, delivering comprehensive and flexible immutability for Microsoft 365 data. Organisations can now ensure their Microsoft 365 data is resilient by employing a zero-trust, multi-layered immutable strategy, ensuring that backup data is safe from potential changes or deletions so that its original integrity stays intact. Currently protecting more than 21 million Microsoft 365 users, Veeam safeguards customers’ critical Microsoft 365 data to ensure that their business keeps running no matter what happens. "Losing the critical data, files and communications housed in Microsoft 365 is a catastrophic scenario for any organisation," says John Jester, CRO at Veeam. "That’s why we’re protecting over 21 million users today, more than any vendor in market, making Veeam the number one data resilience solution for Microsoft 365. "Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 ensures that despite expected cyber-attacks and data disruptions, organisations have ready access to critical business information to ensure business continuity. Now with the most comprehensive backup immutability for Microsoft 365, this release includes new architecture designed for efficiency and scale, as well as added support which is based directly on customer requests.” Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 combines immutable backups with existing immutable copies, delivering total defence for organisations’ backups. It provides the flexibility to store backup data on any object storage, including Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, IBM Cloud Object Storage, or S3-compatible storage. In addition to enhanced immutability, Veeam enables increased enterprise scale and efficiency with Veeam Proxy Pools. This architectural update boosts backup processing speed by distributing traffic across multiple proxies. By intelligently sharing the load and staying under the radar of throttling, enterprises can achieve better backup performance and efficiently scale up large environments with tens of thousands of users. Responding to customers, Veeam has expanded its support with several new features. Organisations now have the ability to use Linux-based backup proxies, providing more choices and a lower total cost of ownership. Additionally, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 now supports private and shared Microsoft Teams channels, offering comprehensive protection for this popular communication and collaboration platform. Key features of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 include: • Comprehensive immutability: The most comprehensive backup immutability for Microsoft 365 on the market. • Enterprise scale: Purpose-built architecture designed to handle the largest enterprise datasets. • Added support: Private and shared Teams channels, Linux-based backup proxies, and MFA access to the UI. Learn more about the new Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 and discover how organisations of all sizes can keep their data secure, protected, and accessible during the VeeamON Data Resilience Summit, taking place virtually October 1 (AMER and EMEA) and October 2 (APJ). Register now for free by clicking here. For more from Veeam, click here.

Logpoint and Advitum partner to advance cyber defences

Logpoint has announced a new strategic partnership with Managed Service Provider (MSP), Advitum, with the intention of helping to boost security for organisations in Sweden. Advitum is creating a log management and security service based on Logpoint to offer log management, threat detection, investigation and response (TDIR), and compliance capabilities. “We’re thrilled to partner with Advitum to help Swedish organisations advance their defenses against cyber threats and demonstrate compliance,” says Fredrik Jubran, Logpoint Regional Manager MSSPs. “Advitum is a very capable MSP with great customer satisfaction, and we’re proud to join forces with it to alleviate Swedish organisations of pressing cybersecurity challenges, such as expanding data and cybersecurity regulations and the shortage of qualified experts in the field.” Founded in Kalmar in 2010, Advitum is an MSP with dedicated security services, ensuring customers have complete control and the ability to combat cyber threats. Adding Logpoint Security Information Event Management (SIEM) gives Advitum the resources to add more value to customers with a service built around log management, TDIR, and compliance. Advitum can manage the solution locally to increase data protection. “We work with several critical infrastructure organisations, facing high requirements for visibility and the ability to report IT incidents,” says Markus Persson, Advitum CEO. “Currently, small and medium-sized Swedish organisations are struggling to either build a SOC or buy a SOC or Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service. Combined with regulations and how cybercrime is accelerating, our partnership has a lot of potential to help address that. “Logpoint has a flexible solution, working across premises, which means that our customers can have certain parts in the cloud or go with a completely on-prem-based solution. In addition, Logpoint is a supplier that can adapt and is very close to its customers and partners, which is crucial for us.” Logpoint is Europe’s largest SIEM vendor, offering solutions to collect and analyse security data to help organisations detect, investigate, and respond to cyberattacks faster and comply with NIS 2, GDPR, and other data and cybersecurity regulations. Logpoint is the only European SIEM vendor with a Common Criteria EAL3+ certification, demonstrating high data protection and robust systems geared to withstand current and emerging threats. For more from Logpoint, click here.

Kiteworks Private Content Network vision validated by investment

Kiteworks, a provider of secure content communications, has announced a $450 million (£348m) growth-equity investment from global software investors, Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth. The investment, a partial liquidity event, will reportedly strengthen Kiteworks’ market position in secure data transfer and collaboration as the only security platform authorised by FedRAMP to provide unified support for file sharing, managed file transfer, and email data communications to meet a broad range of global compliance requirements.Jonathan Yaron, CEO and Chairman of Kiteworks, states, “This minority stake investment affirms Kiteworks’ role in providing a revolutionary solution to the world’s growing challenge of tracking and controlling sensitive data in motion and use. With recent ground-breaking innovations such as Next-Gen Digital Rights Management, combined with the growing industry and regulatory focus on tracking and controlling the data layer, the road to realising our vision has never been clearer. We’re excited to accelerate our growth and continue innovating to meet the evolving needs of our customers with the support of Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth.”The new investment comes as organisations face an expanding cybersecurity risk due to complex third-party ecosystems and an increasingly stringent compliance landscape. Cybercriminals are targeting sensitive content in growing numbers, with supply chains offering significant opportunities for malicious actors. Meanwhile, compliance regulations such as CMMC, NIS 2, and HIPAA demand robust data protection measures.The Kiteworks PCN addresses critical cybersecurity challenges facing organisations worldwide by unifying the primary content communication channels of file share, file transfer, managed file transfer, email, APIs, and web forms into a dedicated secure platform. The investment from Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth not only validates the company’s vision, but also signals a broader recognition of the essential role that secure content communication plays in today’s digital landscape. As cyber threats evolve and regulatory environments become more complex, Kiteworks stands ready to help organisations worldwide safeguard their most valuable digital assets.Eoin Duane, Managing Director at Insight Partners, comments, “We were immediately impressed by Kiteworks’ exceptional growth and innovative approach to securing content communications. In today’s complex digital landscape, Kiteworks addresses a critical market need and stands out as a leader in providing effective solutions that significantly improve risk management. We’re excited to partner with the Kiteworks team as they continue to help shape the future of cybersecurity.Alex Katz, Managing Director at Sixth Street Growth, adds, “Jonathan and the Kiteworks team are proven innovators and have architected a platform which is purpose-built to meet the challenges of the most secure and compliance-sensitive organisations. We’re excited to support their continued success and help Kiteworks capitalise on the significant market opportunities ahead.”Eoin Duane and Peter Sobiloff from Insight Partners and Alex Katz from Sixth Street will join the Kiteworks board of directors. For more from Kiteworks, click here.

DDoS attacks have surged by 106%, data reveals

Zayo Group, a global communications infrastructure provider, has released its latest bi-annual Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Insights Report, which includes details of a 106% increase in attack frequency from H2 2023. The report also found that an average DDoS attack now lasts 45 minutes - an 18% increase from this time last year - costing unprotected organisations approximately $270,000 (£210,000) per attack at an average rate of $6,000 (£4,700) per minute. It takes very little time, expertise or investment to run a DDoS attack, and with the AI boom, bot-based attacks have made it even easier to attack more often, in a more sustained manner, and with more requests per second. Beyond intensifying frequency and duration, AI is also driving the increased pervasiveness of DDoS attacks across many industries. In fact, for the first time in this report’s history, HR and staffing, legal and consulting, and transportation firms surfaced as victims of the top 10% of the largest DDoS attacks seen. Tema Hassan, Senior Product Manager at Zayo Europe, says, “Recent trends in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in Europe reveal a significant escalation in both frequency and sophistication. The number of attacks has surged, driven largely by geopolitical conflicts. This has led to an increase in attacks on critical sectors like financial services, telecommunications, and internet service providers, which are vital to national infrastructure. “New attack techniques, such as those exploiting vulnerabilities in modern web protocols like HTTP/2, have emerged, adding complexity to the threat landscape. Traditional methods like DNS-based attacks also remain prevalent and have grown in scale. In response, countries within Europe are implementing stricter cybersecurity regulations to bolster defence mechanisms against these evolving threats.” Max Clauson, SVP of Network Connectivity at Zayo, adds, “As we predicted last year, DDoS attacks in the age of AI have become more persistent and frequent across all industries, and our latest report confirms this heightened level as the new norm. What’s worse, if this trend continues, we expect attacks could increase another 24% by the end of the year. The only way to fight back is to add protection to your tech stack. When your business is protected, attackers have no other option but to move on to find an easier target.” Key findings by industry: • Telecommunications companies are still the most-targeted industry, making up 57% of all attacks. Other familiar industries experiencing the most frequent attacks include education (19%), manufacturing (5%), and cloud/SaaS (5%).• Manufacturing has replaced retail as the industry facing the largest DDoS attacks, followed by healthcare (up 128.5% compared to H1 2023). Not only did this industry experience a 308% increase in attack duration from 2023 to 2024, these companies also suffered a 200% increase in DDoS attack size.• Government entities continued to be the victims of the longest duration attacks, with an average attack time of over six hours. This is up 41% from the H1 2023. For nearly 30 years, DDoS attacks have been effective and the introduction of AI to deploy and elevate these attacks is only allowing them to evolve, growing more powerful, subversive, and frequent. Zayo says that every business must understand that it is a target, regardless of industry or size. The financial and reputational damage caused by DDoS attacks can be devastating, leading to significant revenue losses and long-term harm to brand trust. Additionally, the cost of mitigating attacks and restoring services is substantial, draining resources that could be better spent on growth and innovation. The only fighting chance businesses have is to implement a proper network protection strategy, Zayo tells us. To view the full report and learn more about how Zayo can help protect your business from cyber attacks, click here. For more from Zayo, click here.

DTX + UCX London is back for 2024

DTX London, the UK’s leading digital transformation event, has announced its doors will open on 2-3 October 2024, for what is set to be one of the most exciting technology exhibitions of the year. To maximise the experience, DTX will be co-located with Unified Communications EXPO (UCX) - the UK’s biggest show for colleague and customer communications, plus Digital Commerce Expo - which explores the technologies revolutionising customer experience. DTX + UCX will welcome decision makers from the biggest brands in the UK, including Lloyds, BT, Microsoft, DWP, Booking.com and Deliveroo. These forward-thinking organisations will take centre stage, offering insights into how they are harnessing technology and data to drive forward their digital agendas whilst putting trust and security at the heart. The event will be a hotspot to get involved in and learn about today’s most important digital conversations, with exclusive panels, workshops, technical deep-dives and community meetups. Whether it’s AI, cyber security, DevOps or cloud, DTX provides insights across the entire technology stack, with UCX covering unified communications and collaboration tools for both colleague and customer experience. The events combined will provide visitors with ideas, case studies and unrivalled knowledge from those at the forefront of digital transformation - all under one roof. The event has been designed around today’s most topical issues and its audience will gain unique insight around how to: • Master the art of continuous reinvention to keep up with tech advancements• Modernise IT tool stacks, maximise legacy infrastructure and reduce tech debt• Cut through the noise and identify the AI use cases for your business• Architect your way to next-gen software engineering and delivery whilst improving DevX• Establish responsible frameworks for data and AI through effective governance and architecture• Build a secure ecosystem that is responsive to today’s threat landscape• Educate and empower colleagues with the latest communications and collaboration tools• Meet changing customer demands for interaction and engagement• Streamline your IT service desk for faster and more intuitive responses• Attract and retain the best and diverse tech talent DTX + UCX helps organisations stay ahead of the competition, offering insight to help them rethink their current operational strategies, reimagine their future possibilities and realise their potential for change. Tackling this year’s event theme – 'The Road to Reinvention' – DTX + UCX will also present a series of case studies, roundtables, hacks, debates, and workshops. To guarantee a front-row seat and join the game-changers and tech pioneers at this year’s most exciting digital event, get your free pass by clicking here.

Summit Homes enhances operations courtesy of Macquarie

Macquarie Telecom, part of Macquarie Technology Group, has announced it has signed a new agreement with Summit Homes Group, a Perth-based leading residential builder. The deal has enabled Summit Homes to enhance its operations, decrease costs, and improve customer service as it delivers modern builds for Western Australia’s growing population. As Summit Homes’ business expanded from 280 to more than 500 staff in the last few years, with multiple additional sites, the company sought to enhance its operations with a more integrated and efficient telecommunications solution. It was vital to Summit Homes to maintain focus on delivering exceptional customer service while also looking to improve cost control and security as cyber risks expand in Australia. Recognising the limitations of its provider and dissatisfied with the high cost, lack of customer service, and lack of understanding of Summit Homes’ growing business needs, the company engaged in a tender process to find a comprehensive networking upgrade that would replace its existing environment and streamline infrastructure management, enhance security, and improve bandwidth across current and future sites. Surrounded by reports of the Western Australia housing crisis, many residential builders struggled with increased demands and soaring costs. “In the residential construction industry, embracing change and prioritising customer experience is crucial,” says Summit Homes IT Manager, Fabio Fusari. “We prioritise building strong relationships with our clients and understanding their unique requirements for traditional homes, unit developments, renovations, modular and ‘innovative tiny’ homes. “When it comes to people’s homes, personalised interactions and proactive communication aren’t ‘nice-to-have’, they’re critical.” Having partnered with Macquarie Telecom in 2003 for a mobile fleet of over 200 services, Summit Homes made the decision to rely on its trusted partner once again. The Australian telco rolled out a robust, secure, multi-carrier access wide area network (WAN) to all sites. The choice of best access type in each site, between NBN, Telstra, and other major carriers was pivotal in balancing cost reduction with quality of performance, and networks are made resilient with 4G/5G backup. “The dedicated project management team at Macquarie Telecom ensured the rollout of the network to all sites, including our showcase head office and new regional offices, was smooth,” Fabio adds. “If we had an issue, our call would be answered immediately by someone local, and we knew the problem would be fixed.” The new agreement has considerably improved network infrastructure which resulted in improved connectivity and efficiency across all sites and primed the company for continued expansion. Summit Homes has also seen cost savings and a reduction in administrative overhead, allowing the company to focus more on its core business of building quality homes and providing exceptional customer service. “Summit Homes has seen astonishing success in a difficult sector which is currently under the microscope, and this is largely due to the company’s ingrained passion for innovation, adaptability, and customer service,” comments Aaron Tighe, Western Australia State Manager, Macquarie Telecom. “Macquarie Telecom has built its business on customer experience, and we place a high value on forging meaningful connections with our customers, so they are better able to achieve their goals.” “Macquarie Telecom’s customer-centric approach has ensured we receive personalised support and tailored solutions to meet our exact needs,” Fabio notes. “The customer service has been fantastic throughout the whole process. We’ve worked with different providers and partners in the past and although customer service is often excellent during the sales process, once you sign on the dotted line, you don’t hear from anyone ever again.” For more from Macquarie Telecom, click here.

New bill protecting public services from cyberattacks

In yesterday's King’s Speech (17 July 2024), the new Labour government pledged to strengthen the UK’s cybersecurity and resilience, promising to introduce new legislation designed to protect critical infrastructure and the digital services businesses rely on from highly damaging cyberattacks. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will expand the remit of existing regulation to cover a broader range of digital services and supply chains, put regulators in a better position to ensure best practices are implemented, and mandate increased reporting so that better data on cyberattacks, and their impact, is available. This comes following a series of cyberattacks against public bodies throughout the year, including attacks targeting the NHS and MoD. Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Security at NETSCOUT, comments on the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, and the best practices for organisations to implement to improve their cyber resilience: “The existing regulations in the UK, introduced in 2018, have helped to ensure that critical national infrastructure and the services it delivers are defended from cyberattacks. As we’ve seen recently though, attackers are targeting these services indirectly by going after elements of their supply chain. We’re also seeing the nature of the threats we all face evolve, with more sophistication and broader, as well as increasingly persistent, activity from nation-state affiliated actors. Given this, broadening the scope of regulation, and giving the regulators more powers to ensure best practices are followed, can only be a good thing. “Equally important is the ability to mandate increased incident reporting. A broader, deeper and more timely view into the nature of the incidents that organisations experience can help to both refine best practices and ensure that companies can move quickly to prevent attackers repeating their success. Bad actors share tools and techniques – organisations delivering critical services, and those involved in their supply chains, should follow suit, working with one another, or via industry and government institutions that can aid communications. “What’s key in delivering better reporting capability, from a technology perspective, is that organisations have consistent visibility across their increasingly diverse infrastructures, without blind spots at internal or external technology borders. Consistent broad and deep visibility helps to ensure comprehensive threat detection, but also speeds up investigation and delivers the forensic capability required.” For more from NETSCOUT, click here.