Leading Up to the Cybertech Conference: CEO of Imperva Israel Shares Key Cybersecurity Trends
The cyber threat landscape is becoming increasingly complex, necessitating integrated defense solutions
Ami Rojkes Dombe
| 07/04/2024
Ahead of the 2024 Cybertech Conference, Imperva CEO Moshe Lipsker granted an interview to IsraelDefense, during which he explored the current cyber threat landscape. Lipsker emphasized six key trends:
- Artificial Intelligence: This technology lowers the entry barriers into the hacking world, allowing any enthusiast to become a hacker. The expression of this trend is evident in various aspects, one of which is a significant increase in bot attacks.
- The Supply Chain: Many organizations rely on third-party software, open-source code, and API interfaces, exposing them to supply chain attacks.
- Business Process Compromise via APIs: Sophisticated hackers target business logic processes through API interfaces, aiming to extract sensitive information from applications. This is one of the most significant changes in recent years in the realm of application security.
- Bad bots and DDoS attacks: About half of network traffic is generated by bots, with around 30% of network traffic being malicious bots used by attackers for fraud, data theft, and more. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks increased by 16% in 2023, with a focus on the telecom sector.
- Data theft from organizations: In recent years, particularly in 2023, we have witnessed a significant increase in data breaches (mega breaches).
- Market correction in mergers and acquisitions: In 2022, following a significant wave of investments in the cybersecurity sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CISO had to contend with no fewer than 70 different cybersecurity products on average. "Today, two years later, we are witnessing a market correction through mergers and acquisitions, with giant companies acquiring smaller organizations," Lipsker explains. "As a result, we are witnessing a decrease in the number of different products on average, and a transition to end-to-end solutions from a single provider, which facilitates information security management.”
Lipsker also emphasizes the impact of modernization processes in large organizations that directly influence the cybersecurity industry, including the multi-cloud strategy that organizations have recently adopted; the transition from monolithic applications to API-based microservices and changes in data storage; the shift from traditional databases to modern data stores (such as data lakes); and more.
Imperva’s merger with Thales
In July 2023, Thales acquired Imperva. The acquisition expanded Imperva’s existing capabilities in information security and applications to additional areas such as data encryption, key management, and access management through identity management.
Lipsker explains that one of the challenges is tracking down a hacker who stole legitimate credentials. In such a case, it's about a seemingly legitimate user accessing the network, and now one needs to monitor them to understand whether their actions are suspicious or legitimate.
"Defending against such a scenario becomes extremely complex since the majority of users are legitimate, and there's a need to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. This is where the integration between the various products of Imperva and Thales comes into play, enabling the detection of non-legitimate users with maximum accuracy while minimizing false positives," Lipsker explains.
What is Imperva’s main market advantage? "The merger of Imperva with Thales provides an end-to-end solution that enables organizations to cope with the ever-changing threat landscape," Lipsker states. "Starting from network defense by thwarting volumetric attacks (DDoS / volumetric attacks), through access control via identity management, continuing with the protection of all types of applications (Apps & APIs), and finally, data security, which is the organization's most valuable asset, the crown jewel.”
The cyber threat landscape is becoming increasingly complex, necessitating integrated defense solutions
Ahead of the 2024 Cybertech Conference, Imperva CEO Moshe Lipsker granted an interview to IsraelDefense, during which he explored the current cyber threat landscape. Lipsker emphasized six key trends:
- Artificial Intelligence: This technology lowers the entry barriers into the hacking world, allowing any enthusiast to become a hacker. The expression of this trend is evident in various aspects, one of which is a significant increase in bot attacks.
- The Supply Chain: Many organizations rely on third-party software, open-source code, and API interfaces, exposing them to supply chain attacks.
- Business Process Compromise via APIs: Sophisticated hackers target business logic processes through API interfaces, aiming to extract sensitive information from applications. This is one of the most significant changes in recent years in the realm of application security.
- Bad bots and DDoS attacks: About half of network traffic is generated by bots, with around 30% of network traffic being malicious bots used by attackers for fraud, data theft, and more. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks increased by 16% in 2023, with a focus on the telecom sector.
- Data theft from organizations: In recent years, particularly in 2023, we have witnessed a significant increase in data breaches (mega breaches).
- Market correction in mergers and acquisitions: In 2022, following a significant wave of investments in the cybersecurity sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CISO had to contend with no fewer than 70 different cybersecurity products on average. "Today, two years later, we are witnessing a market correction through mergers and acquisitions, with giant companies acquiring smaller organizations," Lipsker explains. "As a result, we are witnessing a decrease in the number of different products on average, and a transition to end-to-end solutions from a single provider, which facilitates information security management.”
Lipsker also emphasizes the impact of modernization processes in large organizations that directly influence the cybersecurity industry, including the multi-cloud strategy that organizations have recently adopted; the transition from monolithic applications to API-based microservices and changes in data storage; the shift from traditional databases to modern data stores (such as data lakes); and more.
Imperva’s merger with Thales
In July 2023, Thales acquired Imperva. The acquisition expanded Imperva’s existing capabilities in information security and applications to additional areas such as data encryption, key management, and access management through identity management.
Lipsker explains that one of the challenges is tracking down a hacker who stole legitimate credentials. In such a case, it's about a seemingly legitimate user accessing the network, and now one needs to monitor them to understand whether their actions are suspicious or legitimate.
"Defending against such a scenario becomes extremely complex since the majority of users are legitimate, and there's a need to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. This is where the integration between the various products of Imperva and Thales comes into play, enabling the detection of non-legitimate users with maximum accuracy while minimizing false positives," Lipsker explains.
What is Imperva’s main market advantage? "The merger of Imperva with Thales provides an end-to-end solution that enables organizations to cope with the ever-changing threat landscape," Lipsker states. "Starting from network defense by thwarting volumetric attacks (DDoS / volumetric attacks), through access control via identity management, continuing with the protection of all types of applications (Apps & APIs), and finally, data security, which is the organization's most valuable asset, the crown jewel.”
