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COMMERCIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 DECEMBER 2019 16 MORE than 1.7 billion user records were leaked through 'Collection #1' data breach last January alone. Col- lection #1 is the name of a set of email addresses and passwords that appeared on the dark web around January 2019. The larger part included email ad- dresses and passwords in plain text. Last March, cybersecurity research- ers in Israel announced the discov- ery of a computer malware capable of adding tumours in CT and MRI scans designed to fool doctors into misdiagnosing patients and the list goes on. Computer malware is soft- ware developed by cyber actors with a malicious intent. Initially, the design of the internet did not take into account the nu- merous vulnerabilities which cyber criminals exploit to this day. Mikko Hyppönena, a global security expert, affirms that the problem with the in- ternet is that privacy and security has been 'bolted on', meaning that secu- rity is in most cases an afterthought rather than designed with security in mind – security by design. The internet was originally in- vented for the facilitation of com- munication in the military domain. However, over the years, similarly to any other tool, it has been abused for malicious intent. Therefore, the day-to-day challenge at the MITA Security Operations Centre (SOC) is to predict, prevent and detect any cyber threats, intended to exploit vulnerabilities within government infrastructure, ensuring a secure en- vironment for government's digital data, at rest and in transit. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a cyber threat is defined as the possibility of a malicious at- tempt to damage or disrupt a com- puter network or system. Cyber threats will possibly continue af- fecting computer users. It would be foolish to believe that any amount of security controls can certify an in- formation system to be immune to cyber threats, although it can dras- tically contribute in reducing the risks. In order for a solution to be 100% immune from cyberattacks it has to be isolated from any network and physically locked, working in an air-gap, in which case the solution might not be able to attain its in- tended objectives. All organisations must determine their willingness to expose themselves to risk - risk ap- petite - in order to attain the advan- tages brought about by technology. Risk appetite depends on many fac- tors such as nature of business, sen- sitivity of data, regulation and legis- lation. The level of security of data is as- sessed using the CIA triad, namely, Confidentiality, Integrity and Avail- ability. Confidentiality defines who has access to information, and integ- rity provides a guarantee that infor- mation is accurate and trustworthy, while availability reflects the reliable access to information. A new era of cyber threats Brandon Spiteri