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July 2018
Marketing Material

Cyber-attacks: the invisible danger

Security and protection are at least as important in the digital world as they are in the physical world. The damage to business caused by cyber-attacks already amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Yves Kramer, Senior Investment Manager: 'I am always surprised at the speed at which the boundaries between the digital and the physical worlds are blurring. For example, hackers have already managed to remotely take control of a Jeep Cherokee while it was driving on the motorway. They were able to turn on the windscreen wipers, switch off the motor and block the braking function. While connecting a car to the Internet has undeniable advantages, it also involves security risks. This underlines why digital security is one of the driving forces behind the security theme.

Who is most at risk from the emergence of new digital threats?

For the time being, it is mainly the business sector that is being affected. According to industry organization NetDiligence, the average cost of a security breach last year was $349,000, while for a large company it was $5.9 million. The systems of the American health insurer NHS and the consultancy firm Deloitte, among others, were attacked in 2017. 

Biometrics and surveillance systems also help in the fight against crime and terrorism through the widespread use of data mining.

Yves Kramer, Senior Investment Manager
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimates the total damage to business at as much as $400 billion a year. Currently, more than 100,000 cyber-attacks take place every day (PwC, 2016). I expect a rapid increase in the number of attacks, all the more so because it is predicted that by 2020 there will be as many as 30 billion devices connected to the Internet (IBM, 2014). It is not only IT security products that offer protection against cyber-attacks. Biometrics and surveillance systems also help in the fight against crime and terrorism through the widespread use of data mining. This makes it possible to detect deviations and warn of threats in advance.

Can digital technologies help address physical security problems?

It is impossible to close a border watertight with purely physical security measures. We have to accept that sooner or later people will manage to cross a border. A good way to deal with this is to develop intelligent cyber systems that can continuously resolve vulnerabilities. Strategies and systems based on this approach to protect our society are still in their infancy. However, I suspect that our vision of border security in the coming years will be rapid
Change. Intelligent systems play an essential role in this, as we also see in IT security.