Kaspersky: We Live in the Middle Ages of Internet Security
Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of the Russian security company Kaspersky Lab, stated at the NCSC One conference in The Hague that we are currently in the middle ages of internet security. However, it would be possible to achieve a decent level of security.
With his comment, Kaspersky refers to the cycle of innovation, which also applies to security. The cycle means that an innovation first takes place, in this case the development of the Internet, after which the fruits of the new development can be used. At the same time, however, there is a need to solve problems associated with the new technology.
At this point, it would be a top priority to fix widespread security vulnerabilities. “We have to secure everything,” Kaspersky says in his presentation. “It is feasible to develop perfect security,” he adds. “To achieve that, it has to become financially unattractive to carry out an attack on a system.” At this point, it would still be too easy to use vulnerabilities to penetrate a network. Even vulnerabilities in a coffee machine could have serious consequences.
Kaspersky continues that all operating systems are at risk. There are, however, significant differences between the different versions. For example, there are 328 million malicious files targeting Windows, making this system number one. It is followed by Android with 16 million files, followed by OS X and Linux with 41,000 and 18,000 files respectively. According to Kaspersky, the low number in OS X is due to the difficulty of finding Mac developers. IOS counts the lowest number of malicious files, of which there would be only 1000.
According to the Russian CEO, solutions can be found in securing current systems and re-developing future systems, based on a secure platform. Current systems also require regular penetration tests, in addition to introducing air gaps. This would help to counter attacks such as BlackEnergy in Ukraine. Kaspersky notes that that attack was solved relatively quickly, because the systems could be restarted manually. However, in more modern power plants in Europe, such an attack would have much more serious consequences, as they do not have this capability.
Eugene Kaspersky at the NCSC One conference in The Hague