During the Komsomolskaya Pravda Invest Day conference, one of the sessions was devoted to the practice of combating cyber threats. In recent years, information security has become one of the most pressing issues in Russian society, both for companies facing hacker attacks and for ordinary citizens terrified by telephone scammers. Participants touched on various aspects of this topic.
AI AT THE SERVICE OF ATTACKERS
Alexey Pleshkov, Deputy Director of the Information Security Department of Gazprombank, shared the latest data on the strategies used by cybercriminals:
“In the second quarter of 2024, we identified more than 50 fraudulent schemes to influence potential victims,” he noted. – We see that the trend associated with cyberattacks through federal numbers and mobile operators is declining. But against this background, the number of cyberattacks carried out via instant messengers is increasing, in particular via Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram and TamTam. Also, trends related to email phishing – sending messages to potential cold emails with calls to action for potential victims – remain quite high, over 12%. Social networks remain inactive, but continue to be used by scammers, especially those that are not controlled from the territory of the Russian Federation.
Alexey Pleshkov, Deputy Head of Information Security Department at Gazprombank.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO. Go to Photobank KP
The expert noted that the number of scams using artificial intelligence technologies has increased significantly recently. We are talking about fake videos and photos, fake audio messages.
THREE PROBLEMS
In his speech, the director of the Informzashita anti-fraud center, Pavel Kovalenko, focused on the main problems of the domestic cybersecurity market. These include large fines for turnover that exist for companies that leak personal data as a result of a cyber incident:
“For many companies, it is cheaper to pay money to scammers than to report a breach,” said Pavel Kovalenko.
Pavel Kovalenko, director of the Informzashita anti-fraud center.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO. Go to Photobank KP
Among other current challenges, he mentioned the situation of the “brain drain” from Russia and the shortage of personnel in the labour market, as well as the technological lag following the departure of major foreign players from the country.
“Cybersecurity investments in Russia have potential, including in terms of startups, of which there are now many,” added the director of Informzashita.
ITS OBJECTIVE IS TO COMPLETELY PARALYZE THE WORK
Recently, experts are increasingly seeing a change in the approach of hacker attacks against large companies. If earlier they were carried out with the aim of obtaining a ransom or publishing certain political manifestos, now the task is often to completely destroy the IT infrastructure and paralyze the company’s work, Vladimir Dryukov, director of combating cyberattacks at Solar Group, said in his speech.
Vladimir Dryukov, Director of Cyber-attack Control at Solar Group.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO. Go to Photobank KP
– There have already been quite a few serious targeted attacks in Russia, after which large departments and large telecom operators stood up because their infrastructure was completely wiped out. There were also cases of blockchain operators who, due to the actions of hackers, lost entire wallets without being able to recover them. This is a serious blow.
Other interesting cases include the story of the American company CrowdStrike. It hired an employee, two hours later he decided to update the Windows module, and as soon as possible, Windows stopped. In this case, the cause was a programmer’s error, but a hacker can do exactly the same. Therefore, when choosing an asset for investment, seriously think about its level of cybersecurity,” Vladimir Dryukov recommended.
THE MARKET WILL GROW
The Russian information security market will continue to grow in the coming years, said Igor Dusha, Director of the Information Security Ecosystem Solutions Portfolio at NOTA KUPOL, in his speech.
– The main factor is the withdrawal of foreign suppliers from the market. The percentage of foreign business representatives in 2021 was quite high – almost 40%. Currently, it has reached 6%, meaning that most of the solutions are presented by Russian developers,” said Igor Dusha.
