Secureworks. The company, owned by Dell since 2011, states "We protect enterprises and fight adversaries at scale", and they are one of the companies among the army of good guys fighting on the front lines of this cyber war.

Stating it is "100% focused on cybersecurity", and stating "in fact, it’s all we do", the company has, for nearly two decades, been "committed to fighting the adversaries in all their forms and ensuring that organisations like yours are protected."

Now, with cyber security an ever growing threat, with at least 15 zero day vulnerabilities across iOS 14 and 15 that Apple has had to close this year, and more besides in Google Chrome, Windows, various enterprise applications, in SolarWinds, Exchange and seemingly everywhere else, cyber security has never been more important.

So, we had an opportunity to talk to the Senior Security Researcher at the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit, Alex Tilley, and to learn more about the company, the latest stats, the evolution of malware, crypto ransomware payments, how security companies are fight back and plenty more, as befits an expert from a Counter Threat Unit, so please watch the video embedded below, and a larger summary of the topics we spoke about thereafter!

• I started by introducing Alex, welcoming him to the program, and asked him to tell us about Secureworks today, and how busy he has his team and colleagues have been in 2021.
• Alex took us through the evolution of viruses and malware, through to the ransomware, zero-days, phone-based malware and more that is so prevalent today.
• We then spoke about the various stats on losses Australian businesses suffer from a variety of scams each year and whether those losses can ever be recovered.
• Alex shared where there is a typical profile of a business that becomes a victim of cybercrime these days, or whether it is any business these days.
• I noted how I had seen the evolution of Flubot to send messages telling you the link to click on was a patch to remove Flubot, when instead it was a link to infect you, and Alex shared how sophisticated he has seen cybercriminals becoming in late 2021.
• We then discussed ransomware and crypto, and how else cryptocurrency has changed cybercrime.
• After this came the topic of AI and ML being used by the good and the bad guys in the endless cat and mouse game that is the ever raising stakes of cyber security and cyber attacks, after which Alex shared how businesses should today be better prepared to protect themselves against relentless cyber attacks.
• I then asked my set of closing questions, asking Alex to share his memory of his first computer, the first piece of malware he ever came across, a bit about his own history in the world of tech and cyber security, how he thinks cyber security will evolve over the next couple of years and what it might look like by 2030, great advice has received in life, and his final message to iTWire viewers and readers, and to his current and future customers and partners.

So, please watch the video interview above to learn more!

You can also download Secureworks' "2021 State of the Threat: A Year in Review" complimentary report here.