A report commissioned by McAfee and authored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found more than half of 600 IT security executives from critical infrastructure enterprises worldwide have been victims of large-scale cyber attacks. The same proportion said they had been subject to “stealthy infiltration” of their network by such a high-level adversary “e.g. like GhostNet”—a large-scale spy ring featuring individualized malware attacks that enabled hackers to infiltrate, control, and download large amounts of data from computer networks belonging to non-profits, government departments and international organizations in dozens of countries.
A majority (59%) believed that representatives of foreign governments had already been involved in such attacks and infiltrations targeting critical infrastructure in their countries.
In the face of continuously escalating and more sophisticated attacks, cybersecurity experts predict the market for security products will continue to grow on all fronts. Market Research Media forecasts the federal government alone will spend about $55 billion on cybersecurity over the next six years, for a compound annual growth rate of 6.2 percent.
