BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT BATTLE CYBERTHREATS.

PositionCYBERSECURITY ROUND TABLE

Cybersecurity has emerged as a dominant issue in the business world. In this month's round table, our experts talked about the technology and training necessary to cope with today's threats.

The round table was moderated by Brooks Raiford, president and CEO, NC Tech Association. Support was provided by Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard LLP, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP and WorkSmart. Brooks Pierce hosted the event at its Raleigh office. The transcript was edited for brevity and clarity.

ARE THERE PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES OR SECTORS THAT ARE MORE HIGHLY TARGETED FOR CYBERSECURITY ISSUES?

MARSHALL It's across the board. But I do think it's worth noting that we see a good amount of breaches in the retail space, both malicious and human error. I think when you're looking at industries like health care, you're seeing a good number of breaches. Given the sensitive data and potential for exposure, that's an industry where you're always hearing about a lot about breaches.

MUNRO We're seeing adversaries going after higher value targets as opposed to focusing on a particular industry. They're going after infrastructure targets or high net worth individuals so that their take-down is much larger than it had been in the past.

HARRIS The biggest change over the last two years is the effectiveness of the spearphishing that happens to our clients. Bad actors have gotten much smarter about who to target and how to infiltrate the conversations of those people. It's across all industries.

WHAT ARE THE VULNERABILITIES FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR?

HOLSEY It's the spearphishing. It's the targeted phishing attacks.

TARTE We see it both at the county and state level. We saw Mecklenburg County deal with ransomware not too long ago. The state is getting hacked multiple times a day across different departments. They're going in through NCDOT and getting that kind of background information. At the Department of Revenue, people are trying to jump in front and determine whether you have a tax refund coming and have it sent to them before it's sent to you. We've got sensitive data in two major data warehouses. We're trying to do population health management and other things. We've got massive responsibility.

HOW CAN ORGANIZATIONS HELP EMPLOYEES COPE WITH CYBERTHREATS?

LARKIN Employees are our weakest link in an organization. We're really big on awareness training. The day the employee comes on board, they spend an hour with my team to go through all of the expectations. Then we stick ourselves out in every staff meeting. You've got 400...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT