Cyber attacks are increasingly becoming a norm in our world which is hooked to the digital realm. However, not many companies wish to report when they face a cyber attack, primarily because if such a cyber attack puts their data at risk, they wouldn’t want their repute to be at stake by making that information public.
It’s been months since U.S. securities regulators had issued guidelines stating that if a company faced a cyber attack, it must report it. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had given the companies clear injunctions as to when and how they may report if they face any cyber attacks. However, despite that, many companies continue to keep the cyber attack they face under wraps and choose not to report it.
This has now been revealed by notable security experts in U.S. according to whom, they are aware of many such cyber attacks on many organizations which are never reported to the securities regulators. Shawn Henry, who was among the main members of FBI’s cyber team, says, “There have been lots of breaches in every industry that have never been publicized.”
Henry formerly worked with FBI and now works with a cyber security company. According to him, when he worked with FBI, his team had only a few cases to work on since most cases never got reported. One of the notable reasons for this is that some companies simply do not care if their information is stolen by, say, the Chinese. According to a company whose data was hacked by Chinese hackers, these hackers couldn’t really use their intellectual property in a way that may harm the company. And that’s why the company chose not to report it.
In Japan, it is compulsory for a company to report a cyber attack to the authorities, even if it may not reveal it to the public. In U.S., however, this is voluntary so far and that is why companies tend to take advantage of this relaxation. Many companies have lost millions of dollars due to these cyber attacks and some have been unaware of their data being stolen until FBI informed them so. Such behavior, on the part of these companies, is quite appalling.
Source: Reuters
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