Chapter 1: Threat Landscape and Cybersecurity Incidents

Cyber attacks against organizations worldwide, regardless of their size or geography, are growing in a sustained way, and every day we see more news about security breaches.

According to a study of the Identity Theft Resource Center, between January 1, 2005, and May 31, 2020, there were 11,762 recorded breaches, and just in the first half of 2020, about 36 billion records were exposed according to a report from the company Risk Based Security.

In the ninth annual study of the cost of cybercrime, elaborated by The Ponemon Institute and the firm Accenture, security breaches have increased by 67% in the last 5 years, and according to the security company, McAfee, in their report entitled The Hidden Costs of Cybercrime, the monetary loss was around 1 trillion dollars.

The significant impact that cyber attacks have on a world in which we increasingly rely on technology to do business, keep the industry running, or in terms of national security, and our daily activities, is clear. Unfortunately, many organizations are not prepared to deal with a security incident and, in many cases, react when it is too late.

There is a whole ecosystem around cyber attacks and it will depend on the motivation and skills of the attackers so that they can be realized. That is why it is important to understand that beyond a conventional risk assessment, it is necessary to know the potential threats to which the particular organization is exposed.

A proactive posture on cybersecurity involves focusing on monitoring and detection by betting everything on the front line of defense and developing an ability to identify and respond early to a cybersecurity incident by minimizing its impact.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following topics.

• The current threat landscape
• The motivations behind cyber attacks
• The emerging and future threats