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Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publisher
School of Computer and Information Science, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Abstract
Dramatic changes in the information security risk landscape over several decades have not yet been matched by similar changes in organizational information security, which is still mainly based on a mindset that security is achieved through extensive preventive controls. As a result, maintenance cost of information security is increasing rapidly, but this increased expenditure has not really made an attack more difficult. The opposite seems to be true, information security attacks have become easier to perpetrate and appear more like information warfare tactics. At the same time, the damage caused by a successful attack has increased significantly and may sometimes become critical to an organization. In this paper an extremely asymmetric risk is evaluated where a strongly motivated attacker unleashes a prolonged attack on an organization with the aim to do maximum damage. It is suggested that the probability of such an attack is increasing. The reason why preventive controls are unlikely to ever be effective against such an attack is discussed as well and proposals are made towards more advanced strategies that aim to limit the damage when such an attack occurs. One crucial lesson to be learned for those organizations that are dependent on their information security, such as critical infrastructure organizations, is the need to deny motivated attackers access to any information about the success of their attack. Successful deception in this area is likely to significantly reduce any potential escalation of the incident.
DOI
10.4225/75/57a7f620aa0c6
Comments
10th Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference, Edith Cowan University, Perth Western Australia, 1st-3rd December, 2009