Summary

The challenges facing modern security teams are immense and rapidly evolving. As many security practitioners lament, the security team must be right 100% of the time and an attacker only has to get lucky once. While attackers can and do get lucky from time to time, assuming attackers are attacking organizations or individuals blindly is a misunderstanding of the current threat landscape. In most public cases, attackers are not getting lucky. They are launching their attacks using well-researched tactics against the weakest parts of an organization's security posture. Many times, the source of the breach is an employee who was not supported properly by training and technology and made a mistake, or a system that was left vulnerable long after a patch for a security vulnerability was available. It is true that no matter how well a security program is built and managed, it will not be impenetrable. However, there are many best practices and strategies available that will limit the likelihood and impact of an attack.

After reading this chapter, you now understand why cybercrime is attractive to criminals and the impacts it has on the global economy. You've learned about costs associated with identity theft and the different types of intellectual property, and how the proper protections for a piece of intellectual property vary based on the type of intellectual property and the associated legal protections. You have learned about how governments are responding to cybersecurity challenges around the world across data privacy, data sovereignty, and workers' councils. Finally, you learned about the foundational elements of security and the cybersecurity talent shortage that is making it so difficult for organizations to secure their environments. This knowledge will help form the basis of your understanding of cybersecurity and provide you with a framework to understand and articulate security concepts.

In the next chapter, we will specifically cover the human side of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is fundamentally a people problem where people are attacking people. Understanding the people behind the attacks and the tactics is a critical element to establishing a cybersecurity foundation.