Assume your network has been hacked, says Cisco

Report shows the situation is so ‘bleak,’ says the company, organizations need to assume the worst

Another security vendor has issued a report looking back on the previous 12 months with gloomy words and predictions. “The threat picture in 2013 was pretty bleak,” Levi Gundert, technical lead at Cisco System Inc.’s Threat Research Analysis and Communications (TRAC) group, looking at the figures.

The number of vulnerabilities and threats catalogued by the company was the highest since it began counting in 2000, he said. Threats were up 14 per cent over 2012. Hackers are increasing attacks on the core of the Internet – servers of Web hosting providers, nameservers and data centres – to spread exploits.