APTs expected to grow in volume and sophistication

Nation-state-sponsored advanced persistent threats (APTs) are only going to increase in volume and sophistication over the next few years, and the US needs to take the offense in countering these threats, argues Peter George, president and chief executive officer of network security firm Fidelis.

Because nation-states are well funded and organized, they are able to carry out very sophisticated, content-based attacks that are hard to detect and to stop, George told Infosecurity.

The Fidelis chief noted that APTs are often embedded deep inside content. So tools to discover and stop these threats need to provide content-level visibility. He estimated that 90% of the companies being attacked by APTs do not have this content-level visibility. “Nation-states are burying malware deep inside the content, and the companies can’t see that….We see the threat vector continuing and the amount of content-based malware going up dramatically over the next couple of years”, he predicted.