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Hack victims urged to turn from helpless prey to proactive hunters

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By John Glenday, Reporter

June 8, 2016 | 2 min read

Victims of data breaches and hacking are being urged to stop being helpless victims of crime and incompetence and start to actively hunt down digital miscreants instead, according to security firm Mandian.

In research timed to coincide with Europe’s largest cybersecurity event Mandian is calling on firms to shake their passivity and assume a more aggressive role in seeking out intruders.

It calculates that hackers may assume control of up to 40 machines in an average breach but that only a handful of servers are typically cleaned up in the aftermath – potentially allowing hackers to continue pilfering data months after the initial breach.

Speaking to the BBC Mandian executive Bill Hau explained that the root of the problem relies in firm’s reliance on outdated security tools, saying: “That old-style technology makes them think they have remediated a breach but they might never have kicked the bad guys out in the first place.

“Companies do not understand that they have to move to a different methodology to get these guys out. They need to go and look for trouble and they will find it. They have to hunt them out in their own networks."

A key issue facing businesses is that traditional security measures have focussed on securing external connections, leaving internal servers largely unpoliced, allowing any hacker to operate largely at will once access has been gained.

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