Organisations with sensitive data remain at risk from
increasingly cunning spies because anti-malware firms are not
interested in "low traffic" problems, a topNatoexpert said yesterday.
Suleyman Anil, head of the
Nato Computer
Incident Response Capability Coordination Centre, told an
e-crime conference that anti-malware suppliers had done a good job,
but said that it was hard to interest them in targeted,
social engineering driven attacks by foreign intelligence
agencies.
Nato uses commercial off-the-shelf products to protect its
business and administration network, he said. "I have little
sympathy for IT managers who complain about attacks because
affordable, deployable solutions are available." But they needed to
be applied properly and kept up to date, he said.
"The computer is almost the perfect weapon," he said. It is low
cost, low risk, multipurpose, locatable anywhere, easily deployed
and very effective, he said. That is why Nato rated cybercrime up
with missile defence, energy supply and terrorism as security
threats, he said.
Anil said Nato would publish its new plan that reflects this
assessment at its Bucharest meeting next month.