October 10, 2014 By Rick M Robinson 2 min read

“Set a thief to catch a thief,” goes the old saying. In fact, some former black-hat hackers have gone legit and built successful careers as cybersecurity consultants. However, organizations do not need to depend on reformed cybercriminals to improve their network security measures.

What organizations, their leaders and security teams do need to do is learn to think like the enemy and test their systems by attacking them. The military has traditionally assigned “red teams” to do just this: probe for vulnerabilities in order to identify and correct them.

White Hats Challenge Cybersecurity Complacency

According to Roy Wenzl at Government Technology, not all white-hat hackers are former cybercriminals. Many are serious computer enthusiasts who are drawn to the challenge of breaking into systems — not to steal or cause disruptions, but to help organizations improve their cybersecurity measures.

In a variation on this theme, major technology organizations such as Google regularly pay bounties to white hat hackers who identify vulnerabilities in their code and systems.

Safely Navigating Toward a Safe Haven

However, bringing in outside consultants or rewarding freelance white hats is not the only way organizations can learn to think like the enemy.

As Erik van Ommeren, Martin Borrett and Marinus Kuivenhoven write in Chapter 8 of their e-book “Staying Ahead in the Cyber Security Game, “the only way to find your weak spots is to really want to find them.”

For some organizations, this may mean setting up a full-blown red-team operation devoted to challenging and testing the organization’s security measures. All organizations can benefit from taking on the white-hat role by looking at their systems the way an attacker would.

The white-hat thinking process has many of the elements of a game (which is why so many hardcore computer gamers are drawn to the cybersecurity profession). Organizations can capitalize on this by emphasizing game-like features such as awarding points to work groups that find vulnerabilities in code or identify files that should not be readily available.

Another part of learning to think like the enemy is self-examination. What would cyberthieves look to steal? Customer account information? Proprietary technology secrets? What might rouse the ire of ideologically motivated “hacktivists?”

Vulnerabilities are inevitable. The best way to identify and correct them is to start by actively looking for them.

More from Intelligence & Analytics

X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2024 reveals stolen credentials as top risk, with AI attacks on the horizon

4 min read - Every year, IBM X-Force analysts assess the data collected across all our security disciplines to create the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, our annual report that plots changes in the cyber threat landscape to reveal trends and help clients proactively put security measures in place. Among the many noteworthy findings in the 2024 edition of the X-Force report, three major trends stand out that we’re advising security professionals and CISOs to observe: A sharp increase in abuse of valid accounts…

Web injections are back on the rise: 40+ banks affected by new malware campaign

8 min read - Web injections, a favored technique employed by various banking trojans, have been a persistent threat in the realm of cyberattacks. These malicious injections enable cyber criminals to manipulate data exchanges between users and web browsers, potentially compromising sensitive information. In March 2023, security researchers at IBM Security Trusteer uncovered a new malware campaign using JavaScript web injections. This new campaign is widespread and particularly evasive, with historical indicators of compromise (IOCs) suggesting a possible connection to DanaBot — although we…

Accelerating security outcomes with a cloud-native SIEM

5 min read - As organizations modernize their IT infrastructure and increase adoption of cloud services, security teams face new challenges in terms of staffing, budgets and technologies. To keep pace, security programs must evolve to secure modern IT environments against fast-evolving threats with constrained resources. This will require rethinking traditional security strategies and focusing investments on capabilities like cloud security, AI-powered defense and skills development. The path forward calls on security teams to be agile, innovative and strategic amidst the changes in technology…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today