“The medium-term goal is to integrate cybersecurity into all aspects of business operations”: Massimo Messina spoke about this for SCAI Group, when guesting at an event dedicated to Cyber Vulnerability
SCAI Group was among the guests at Cyberwarfare: a new digital economic war: how to react in case of attack and what to expect in the near future, an event on 23 March organised by Confindustria Pesaro Urbino, Geocom Italia and MAG Centrale, in collaboration with Fondazione Torino Wireless. An audience of entrepreneurs gathered to discuss cyber security and the main threats to companies’ data and infrastructure. From economically motivated cybercrime to cyber-espionage and attacks on servers to obtain confidential information.
As reported by the CrowdStrike Intelligence – 2022 Global Threat report, an 82 per cent increase in ransomware-related data breaches was observed in 2021 compared to 2020. This increase, together with other data losses, is a clear indicator of the value that attackers place on the data of those affected.
In its contribution, SCAI Puntoit intervened with a series of concrete examples on state-sponsored attacks and the ransomware explosion, highlighting how cybersecurity threats are affecting sectors vital to society and identifying the top five sectors affected by vulnerabilities, as observed by the European Union Cybersecurity Agency (Enisa) between April 2020 and July 2021: Public administration/government, digital service providers, general public, health/medical and financial/banking.
As Massimo Messina, Senior Advisor at SCAI Puntoit, explains: “The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly broadened the threat landscape, for instance with the massive shift to remote work creating greater cyber risks foridentity andaccess. It is therefore even more topical for companies to consider cybersecurity at the beginning of any changes to their operations, whether it is developing a new product or service or introducing a new way of working. Mitigating cyber risks, especially on sensitive data, can no longer be an ex-post reasoning as a reaction to attacks or threats.
The medium-term goal is therefore to integrate IT security into all aspects of business operations. This requires a clear vision of how security measures and investments should be made over time, regularly monitoring the protection/reaction path and the cybersecurity maturity achieved, through clear metrics and evaluations that enable the necessary changes to be identified and implemented’.
The speakers included Paolo Ghezzi, Director General of InfoCamere: “In an advanced society like ours, the PA is the biggest generator of data and it is the obligation of institutions to secure it. The digital transformation that we want – and that InfoCamere and the Chamber system are working on – cannot disregard a more mature culture of data security. To achieve this, we must start with the people, who remain the main protagonists of any system, especially at a time when organisations are changing under the impetus of working from home.
While waiting for the legislation to take on clearer contours and help protect everyone’s security in the digital dimension, we are committed to raising awareness that our identity is now digital and that we must learn to guard and defend it by relying on certified and verified services. As business institutions, the Chambers of Commerce have embraced this vision and are committed to helping in particular all those micro and small entities that risk not being reached by market solutions – such as sole proprietorships – by providing user-friendly and secure solutions’.
As explained by Commander Giuseppe De Donno, B.U. Integrated Security Officer Proger Spa, organised crime has long understood that there is more to be gained from digital and cyber crime than from drug dealing or arms trafficking, but with a much lower risk.
Mario Manzo, Vice President of Fondazione Torino Wireless, points out that all reports show a continuous increase in attacks. However, the same studies show that companies’ awareness of the risks they are taking is still too weak.
“Can the fight against cyber crime be won? In the meantime, it is essential to try to control and mitigate the phenomenon. Often the weapons used in the battle are anything but equal! The current serious situation confirms once again that cyber-crime has become part of the geopolitical strategy. This important event of Confindustria Pesaro, with speakers of solid experience, has allowed us to focus not only on monitoring and defence systems, on the reasons and causes of the phenomenon, but also and above all on the actions to be taken in the field in the event of an attack: how we should behave, whom we should turn to. There are few companies, even large ones, that are already capable of handling an attack on their own effectively and quickly: this is why the Fondazione Torino Wireless has created a competence centre for cybersecurity and data privacy dedicated to supporting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.”