The Importance of Attribution Against Today's Cyber Adversaries

Without the right context and perspective to a situation, you cannot make an unbiased and fair decision. Any decision maker needs a 3D view of a situation to make informed decisions and opinions. It is similar in the security industry, if you have no context and you are not aware of the who, what, why and when in terms of a cyber attack then how do you know what to prioritise and where potential gaps maybe. This has never been more prevalent than during todays cyber threat landscape, attacks are becoming so sophisticated and specifically targeted that the right threat intelligence is absolutely key in surviving and being able to attribute correctly in your security strategy. So why is attribution so important? With the sophistication of todays cyber attacks its is almost impossible to expect a security manager to be able to stop all of them, so in the event of a breach it is important to have the intelligence to allow the security manager to establish the depth of an attack. With so many alerts that organisations have to deal with on a daily basis, how do you know which ones ones are false positives and which ones to pay attention too? How do you differentiate in the crowds to find that one alert that should be stopped. Should you "trust thy neighbour" in the world of cyber? Having the right technology, intelligence and expertise in place ensures you know exactly who is attacking you and why and how you can ensure you and your organisation is not a target again.