In business terms, you could think of them as mergers and acquisitions.
Now, the "M&A" activity is underway in the worldwide hacker market.
Criminal hackers and governments working together
More and more individual hackers are being scooped up by nation-states.
“We are seeing an emergence of that kind of collaboration which used to be two separate things—nation-state actors and criminal hackers,” said FBI Director Michael Wray. “Now there’s this collusion, if you will.”
News of this disturbing cybersecurity trend came out in Congressional testimony this week as leaders of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security updated Congress on the state of physical and cybersecurity in the United States.
Cybersecurity now a household word
DHS Acting Secretary Elaine Duke also testified. She said that 2017 is when cybercrime and cyber threats became something more clearly understood by Americans.
"The past year marked a turning point in the cyber domain, putting it in the forefront of public consciousness. We have long faced a relentless assault against our digital networks from a variety of threat actors. But this year, Americans saw hackers, cyber criminals, and nation states take their attacks to another level."
She also testified that technology is changing the way the Department of Homeland Security views threats.
"We sometimes speak of the 'home game' and 'away game' in protecting our country, with DHS especially focused on the former. But the line is now blurred."
InfoSec leaders have known this for a long time, of course.
The idea that many threats are no longer based on geographical boundaries is something we heard about repeatedly this year at SecureWorld conferences.
Now that is starting to hit home for the rest of the country.
