- Hi, I’m Martin Rust with the Security and Policy Institute for Professional
Development, here, at the University of Ottawa.
Our guest today is Cheri McGuire.
Cheri is the vice president of Global Public Policy
for the Symantec Corporation.
Cheri, we’ve been talking about cybersecurity, and it’s
obviously a very hot topic today.
It’s in the media … It’s in the media today; it’s
in the media most days.
And people, I think, are beginning to have a better awareness of what
cybersecurity is, and they see those phishing emails and some of those things that they
come across their desktop.
My question to you today is where is this going?
Where is this all taking us?
Obviously, it’s evolved a lot over the last number of years, but where are we
headed?
What kinds of trends are we going to see in the future?
- Well, I think that one of the biggest trends we’re going to see in the future is a larger
number of attacks on devices, mobile devices, on Internet of things types of devices, as
we’re moving to fitness trackers, to refrigerators that are connected, to cars that are
connected and always connected.
That ‘that attack service’ is growing so much that as we
are locking down our traditional surfaces: enterprise networks and laptop, desktop
computers, the criminals will move to those new devices that may not have been built
with security in mind.
So, we believe we’re going to start to see that trend grow.
We’ve already seen that on the mobile space, year
over year … exponential growth in the mobile attack types, and we expect we’re going
to see that with the Internet of things soon enough.
- And are we seeing a change too in who it is that’s the propagator of these threats?
Who are the bad guys and why are they doing this?
- Yeah.
So the bad guys, again, they range from, you know, your basic hacker to your
organized criminal gang, to your hacktivist, to your nation state.
So ultimately, regardless of who is propagating the attack, the impact
is still the same and you still need to protect yourself in the same way.
- So, what kind of information are they going to be accessing versus the kind of
information that they have been in the past?
- Well, I think that what we are seeing is much more targeted attacks against personally
identifiable information so, credit card data, intellectual property, even things down to
the individual.
So, for example, if you were to get hit with one of these ransomware
attacks, and ransomware is a type of phishing attack where an attacker will send an email
… looks very official, could look like a local law enforcement, saying that your computer
has something on it that it shouldn’t have and that they’re going to lock the files
down until you pay a ransom.
And this has grown exponentially over the last couple of years,
this type of attack.
But if you think about the way in which you, as an individual, keep
your entire life, probably, on your computer at home: all your pictures, your media, your
songs, you name it, if you don’t have that backed up to the cloud somewhere, or to an
external device, some attacker … You click on that phishing email and they get access
to all of that, and they say: “We’re going
to lock it down until you pay us”, you’re probably
pretty inclined to pay because you want your data.
That’s your life online.
And so, these are the kinds of attacks that we’re seeing
today.
And we say basic practice is: backup, backup, backup.
- You mentioned the cloud.
I have to ask about the cloud because there is a lot of
misunderstanding about what the cloud is and whether or not it is safe.
Can you shed some light on what a cloud is and whether
or not you think they’re safe?
- So, you know, the term ‘cloud’ has evolved over the last several years and there are
different types of cloud offerings, but the cloud is essentially an off-premises or a
separate place, up in the cloud, where you would store your information.
So, there are many of these kinds of storage solutions that
are available out there.
Box … even iTunes, Google, Microsoft, they all have these clouds
for the general citizen offerings where you can backup and store your information.
Generally, they are safe, but it’s important to find
out if your data is encrypted when it is stored there because that way, at least, if that
cloud’s service provider were to get hacked, at least the information you’re storing
there would be unusable.
If it’s in the clear, you could be exposed.
- Very good questions to ask and to have answered.
My guest today is been Cheri McGuire, the vice president of Global Public
Policy for the Symantec Corporation, and I’m Martin Rust with the Security and Policy
Institute for Professional Development, here, at the University of Ottawa.