Key defensive strategies to combat cyber adversaries in a heightened threat environment

Threat actors and ransomware activity is evolving with greater sophistication which requires leaders in the private and public sector to constantly reevaluate their security strategies.

In a recent CyberScoop interview, Jim Richberg, Public Sector Field CISO and VP of Information Security at Fortinet discusses important strategies to counter today’s heightened threat environment.

Among the threats to be aware of, Richberg describes how ransomware activity is evolving with greater sophistication. In addition to classifying Advance Persistent Threats (APT) for nation state actors, threat intelligence organization are now classifying Advanced Persistent Crimes (APC), as well.

Since cyber criminals’ revenues have been relatively constant from ransomware, Richberg says that some cybercrime collectives are opting to now stay together.

“This persistence allows them to become more specialized and sophisticated,” he says, and “some of the criminal groups, not all, but some are now starting to take on the degrees of sophistication and clandestinity that we used to only associate with nation state activity.”

To combat this new level of organized cybercrime, Richberg details three of the most effective defensive strategies to thwarting attacks, including backing up and patching critical data and systems, using multifactor authentication and establishing a zero-trust security architecture.

Watch the full interview with Jim Richberg and learn more about how to defend your organizations from emerging threats.

This video interview was produced by Scoop News Group and CyberScoop and underwritten by Fortinet.