FireEye, a globally renowned, U.S.-based cyber security company last week engaged senior officials from Sri Lankan businesses about the risks of advanced cyber attacks and how organizations can defend themselves.

The three-member FireEye delegation, including Technical Director Steve Ledzian, Regional Sales Director for Vietnam, Indonesia and New Markets Terrance Maximus Tangit and Regional Channel Manager Serene Goh, met with officials from across the financial, government and telecommunications sectors during their five-day visit.

According to FireEye Cyber Security Technical Director Steve Ledzian, 96 per cent of companies globally are compromised, often times because they rely on legacy security infrastructure which is not effective against the latest advanced attacks. When breaches occur, many companies are unprepared for them and often company leadership cannot answer basic questions about the breach's impact to their business.

“Cyber attacks can have many ramifications, including loss of the intellectual property, customer data or security information, or it may cause a steep drop in a company’s stock price or its brand equity. It’s important for leaders to be fully aware of the risks they present.”

He said such a situation even leads to the dismissal of senior executives in companies.

Here are the excerpts of the interview

Question-What is the objective of FireEye?
Answer-Today 96 percent companies, industries, business establishments in the world are not adequately protected from cyber attacks. At FireEye we help enterprises and governments across the world prevent and respond to advanced cyber attacks.

Q-Are global cyber attacks currently increasing or decreasing?
A-In many parts of the world, we see cyber attacks continue to escalate and become an even bigger concern for business. In 2015 cyber attacks have risen to be a top business risk. Corporate boards are paying much more attention. We see large firms fall prey to cyber attacks. They are often not prepared to protect their organizations from these advanced attacks.

Q-What are impacts come due to cyber attacks?
A-All industries are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Companies can lose intellectual property, customer data, drop in stock price, loss of company reputation, etc. In addition cyber attackers could get the information of customer credit cards, information of customer medical reports, etc.

Q-How does your company help to get rid of from cyber attackers?
A-Businesses are growing increasingly reliant on digital assets. These assets are of value and are under constant threat of being stolen by advanced persistent threat actors. We work to prevent these types of attacks and to keep cyber attackers out of companies’ network or to help remove the attackers out of the network after there has been a breach.

Q-What is the objective of your visit to Sri Lanka?
A-Cyber attacks are global in nature and Sri Lanka is not excluded or immune to these type of attacks. We are here to raise awareness about the risks of these cyber threats and meet organizations to help improve their security and protect their digital assets. We are also here to speak at the 8th Sri Lanka National Cyber Security Week.

Q-What is Sri Lanka’s response in this regard?
A-The Sri Lankan organizations we have met with have been receptive to our recommendations.

Q-In addition to your headquarters in Singapore, in what are the other countries do you have branches?
A-We have customers in 67 countries. In Asia, we support customers across the region, including in India, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Q-Currently, what is the strength of your group all over the world?
A- FireEye has more than 3000 employees.

Q-How do you recruit personnel?
A-We are always seeking out the best and brightest in the industry to join the FireEye team. We have a deep bench of expertise across Asia. Individuals with deep experience reverse engineering malware or conducting forensics are among the most in demand.

Q-What have you to say at last?
A-We are collaborating with partners to help Sri Lankan organizations improve their security. One of those is eCybersec Pvt Ltd.