Infosec 2010: Experts Overlook Motivation For Cyber-Attacks

More attention should be focused on the motivation behind cyber-attacks to better understand the interplay of organised crime, terrorism and even corporate espionage, experts warn.

Speaking at the Infosecurity Europe event in London this week, Marcus Alldrick, chief information security officer (CISO) for Lloyds of London insurance market, admitted that too often the focus was on recovering from an attack rather than tracing the reasons behind it.

“I think a lot of the time we don’t understand the motivation behind attacks. A lot of the attacks have similar signatures but we don’t know who is behind it, who is sponsoring it,” he said.

Alldrick was responding to a question from eWEEK Europe UK at a mock data auction held at the show. Audience members were invited to bid, using electronic voting devices, on the potential worth of various items of stolen data.

Motivation sidelined

One item was the data relating to a fictional flu vaccine, which the panel believed had a high value providing the buyer had the right capabilities to make use of it. When asked by eWEEK Europe UK how prevalent he believed corporate espionage was in the theft of such data, Alldrick admitted there wasn’t sufficient focus on motivation for crimes.

“You could have organised crime being sponsored by a nation state. We see reports of cyber-terrorism where the motivation is political but actually it has been conducted by organised crime,” he said. “For me I would like to understand the motivation of what is behind it but usually everyone’s effort are on fixing the problem and recovering the data and the motivation gets lost.”

Also taking part in the panel hosting the mock auction was Michael Paisley, head of information security and business resilience for financial services company Santander. Asked about whether he would use different tactics to defend against a hack attack from a competitor – corporate espionage – versus a criminal gang, Paisley said that the same tactics worked whatever the motivation of the perpetrator.

“The person doing it is not an ultimate concern for us as how they are doing it and our ability to prevent them from doing it,” he said.

Other bids in the mock debate event included the fresh credit card details of 100,000 people, the personal photographs of an MP, and the customer database of a UK High street retailer.

Offers on the data from the audience ranged from a few pounds into the millions. Estimates from the panel for instance put the price of a single stolen credit card record at around £3.

Also speaking at the Infosecurity show this week was David Smith, deputy commissioner for the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). He outlined how the data watchdog would wield new powers to fine companies which came into force earlier this month.