Dmitry Samartsev, CEO of BI.ZONE, spoke at Cyber Initiative Tokyo 2019 cybersecurity conference about the results of the Cyber Polygon online exercise. He emphasised that cybercriminals are in constant cooperation, exchanging information and tools, therefore it is likewise important for us to stick together when standing up to them. Dmitry also participated in a panel on cyber-resilient infrastructure.
The latest data from the World Economic Forum estimate the total losses caused by cyberthreats to amount to roughly $90 trillion by 2030, which exceeds the global GDP. The Forum’s analysts consider cybercrime to be one the main global risks that can potentially cause more damage than man-made ecological disasters and infectious diseases. Critical infrastructure security is especially important for Japan right now, because Tokyo is set to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. The challenge of protecting such an enormous international event was one of the conference’s central themes.
To help businesses and government structures learn to cooperate when responding to cyber incidents, BI.ZONE has created an annual online exercise Cyber Polygon, with support from the World Economic Forum and INTERPOL. Among the participants this year were companies from the financial sector — Sberbank PJSC (Russia), New Development Bank (Shanghai, China); telecommunications companies — Transtelecom JSC (Kazakhstan), MTS PJSC (Russia); and government agencies — The Department of Information and Communications Technology of the Philippine Government. IBM and Fortinet have made their contribution to the event as technological partners. Participating organizations have trained to respond to the three most common cyberthreats: a DDoS attack, a ransomware infection, and an attack on a web application. BI.ZONE ThreatVision data exchange platform was used during the exercise, and Cyber Polygon’s results have shown that exchanging information drastically raises general cyber resilience and reduces the time needed to repel an attack by a factor of 7. The exercise was streamed online and followed by an audience from 24 countries. Next Cyber Polygon will take place on July 8, 2020.
“Cybersecurity is important to people all across the world: in Russia, in Japan, and in other countries. Government agencies everywhere face common challenges,” said Dmitry Samartsev. “Modern governments for the most part understand that global problems, among which are ecological problems and international terrorism, need global solutions. The same can also be said about fighting cybercrime. The results of Cyber Polygon have demonstrated yet again the importance of collaboration, and expanding on this collaboration is the project’s main goal. BI.ZONE plans to continue working in this direction, sharing our expertise, and working to develop worldwide cyber resilience.”
Cyber Initiative Tokyo 2019 was attended by cybersecurity experts, government employees, business representatives and international organizations. Among the speakers were Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Keisuke Suzuki, former Secretary of US Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Intel Director of Product Assurance and Security Policy Jun Takeuchi, and Head of Ben-Gurion University Cyber Security Research Center Yuval Elovici.
