Cyber security gets better, but more needs to be done

Slowly but steadily, Saudi Arabia is becoming less vulnerable to cybertattacks as compared to a couple of years ago, but figures show that a lot still needs be done.
Among the vulnerable countries in the world for overall cyber security, the Kingdom was at the 36th position in 2013, but it climbed down to the 42nd position in the following year, that is 2014.
This shift indicates a lower number of source-based security threats, including malicious code and spam.
Eyas Hawari, Symantec’s country manager for Saudi Arabia, told Arab News on Monday that the Internet security threat report shows a tactical shift by cybertattackers. They are infiltrating into networks and evading detection by hijacking the infrastructure of major corporations and using it against them, he said.
Attackers don’t need to break down the door of a company’s network when the keys are readily available, Hawari said. “We’re seeing attackers trick companies into infecting themselves by Trojanizing software updates to common programs and patiently waiting for their targets to download them — giving attackers unfettered access to the corporate network.”
Elsewhere, there was an increase in cyber criminals exploiting other vulnerabilities, he said, adding that the Kingdom’s ranking for Web attacks shifted from 56 in 2013 to 39 in 2014 and threats in phishing hosts shifted from 91 in 2013 to 73 in 2014.
As compared to the security threat profiles of the top 10 countries analyzed in the Middle East and Africa, Saudi Arabia remained unchanged from 2013 with a ranking of four.
In 2013, the top industry that received spear phishing e-mails in KSA was finance, insurance and real estate (79 percent of all incoming e-mails were targeted), and large organizations sized 2501+ experienced the highest volume at 72 percent.”
In a record-setting year for zero-day vulnerabilities, Symantec research reveals that it took software companies an average of 59 days to create and roll out patches— up from only four days in 2013.