Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies - Second Edition

By : Tim Rains
3 (2)
Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies - Second Edition

3 (2)
By: Tim Rains

Overview of this book

Tim Rains is Microsoft's former Global Chief Security Advisor and Amazon Web Services’ former Global Security Leader for Worldwide Public Sector. He has spent the last two decades advising private and public sector organizations all over the world on cybersecurity strategies. Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies, Second Edition builds upon the success of the first edition that has helped so many aspiring CISOs, and cybersecurity professionals understand and develop effective data-driven cybersecurity strategies for their organizations. In this edition, you’ll examine long-term trends in vulnerability disclosures and exploitation, regional differences in malware infections and the socio-economic factors that underpin them, and how ransomware evolved from an obscure threat to the most feared threat in cybersecurity. You’ll also gain valuable insights into the roles that governments play in cybersecurity, including their role as threat actors, and how to mitigate government access to data. The book concludes with a deep dive into modern approaches to cybersecurity using the cloud. By the end of this book, you will have a better understanding of the threat landscape, how to recognize good Cyber Threat Intelligence, and how to measure the effectiveness of your organization's cybersecurity strategy.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
13
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Index

How organizations get initially compromised and the cybersecurity fundamentals

The foundation of an effective cybersecurity strategy is what I call the “cybersecurity fundamentals.” A solid foundation is required for a successful strategy. The cybersecurity fundamentals are based on decades of threat intelligence that I discuss in detail later in this book. After performing hundreds of incident response investigations and studying Microsoft’s and other vendors’ threat intelligence for over a decade, I can tell you with confidence that there are only five ways that organizations get initially compromised. After the initial compromise, there are many, many Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that attackers can use to move laterally, steal credentials, compromise infrastructure, remain persistent, gain illicit access to information, destroy data and infrastructure, etc. Some of these have been around for decades and some are newer and novel.

The...