The Age of Attacktivism: It’s Here, and It’s Only Just Begun

Summary Bullets:

• Recent attacks signal a new ‘attacktivism’ era, in which cyberattackers seek to destroy target businesses.
• To survive an attack, at-risk enterprises must conduct advance cybersecurity, business continuity and disaster recovery planning.

Just a few months ago, the November 2014 cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) seemed like a one-of-a-kind event. This attack was perpetrated by an alleged state-sponsored group that gained unauthorized remote access to SPE’s computer network, obtaining and publicly releasing many terabytes worth of sensitive intellectual property, including executive emails, employee information, salary spreadsheets, sales tallies and even unreleased motion pictures. The attackers also used “wiper” malware to destroy more than 3,000 computers and 800 servers, a crippling move that placed SPE’s survival in jeopardy.