Filly Intelligence, a comprehensive intelligence and security firm, suggests that the United States is not taking sufficient action in response to the serious cyber threat posed to our nation. Despite growing awareness of the risks associated with cyber and digital systems, broad swaths of the economy and individual players, ranging from consumers to large commercial enterprises, are still failing to take advantage of available expertise, processes, and technology. To protect your systems, neither are protection measures evolving as fast as threats. This general lack of investment puts businesses and consumers at greater risk, leading to economic losses on an individual and aggregate level and posing a threat to the national security of the US. Threats are growing at the speed of the network and the traditional static line of cyber defenses is no longer adequate to prevent the capabilities of malicious actors.
There is an unrecognized danger to commercial industries that do not achieve sufficient security programs. The danger that exists in the steady trend of the ongoing series of low to moderate level cyberattacks is that they impose cumulative costs on the economic competitiveness and national security of the US. Many of the ongoing trickle attacks are aimed at the proprietary intellectual property, business plans, and technologies (manufacturing, supply chain, etc.) that form the competitive foundation of many American companies.
There are potentially devastating long-term consequences of the cyber threat facing the industry today. This cybercrime trend harms US commerce, competitiveness, innovation, and the overall global economy. We expect US industry executives to continue to compete more aggressively for business in international markets and increase capital spending in the global economic environment.
The current trend of low-grade cyber theft of competitive IP, information and data from US commercial companies may create a theoretical “innovation tax”, which could seriously erode the incentive for US companies to engage in research and development.
Small businesses in the US are clearly under attack, not only for their information and technology, but also to use it as a vector to protect themselves from attacks on other partner systems. Last year, nearly half of global cyberattacks (43%) were against small businesses employing fewer than 250 workers. (Symantec Report) These cybercriminals are stealing from small businesses, they will steal a bank account by issuing fraudulent wire transfers by sending an email to the bank and posing as the owner of the account whose credentials they have also breached. Let’s face it: cybercrime is a big payer these days, it’s now profitable to steal customers’ personally identifiable information, request fraudulent tax refunds, commit health insurance or Medicare fraud, and even steal intellectual property.
