Reimagining Cybersecurity In The Age Of Organised Threats

Uploaded on 2025-05-12 in TECHNOLOGY--Resilience, FREE TO VIEW

For years, cybersecurity strategies have largely evolved in silos. Understandably, most enterprises tend to concentrate their defence efforts inwards - focussing on safeguarding their critical infrastructure as effectively as possible with the resources available to them.

However, as the cybersecurity landscape continuously evolves, such an approach is increasingly missing a fundamental new truth: cybersecurity is no longer a challenge that can be solved in isolation.

By contrast, cybercriminals are operating with a growing sense of unity, scale, and precision. Gone are the days of lone hackers. Today’s threat actors function more like well-run enterprises, forming sophisticated alliances to coordinate attacks, share tools, and monetise stolen data. According to a recent study by IBM and Google, many of these groups now mirror legitimate business structures - employing CEOs, project managers, HR-style recruitment strategies, and even subcontractors.

Their operations are highly organised, with criminals working typical 9-5 hours and clocking in and out like regular employees.

This evolution demands a strategic rethink. It’s no longer feasible - or responsible - for defenders to act alone. Cybersecurity must evolve into a model of collective defence, where organisations proactively share intelligence, coordinate responses, and treat an attack on one as a threat to all.

From Fragmentation To Shared Responsibility

The biggest challenge with today’s cybersecurity approach lies in its fragmentation. With so many enterprises still focussing exclusively on their own risk posture, valuable intelligence stays trapped within individual systems and opportunities for early warnings or coordinated responses are lost.

Meanwhile, adversaries are increasingly operating with speed and synergy. They share malware variants, test new tactics in real-time, and move laterally across industries, exploiting common vulnerabilities. This level of collaboration gives them a decisive edge that defenders cannot counter without similar unity.

Encouragingly, the foundation for a more integrated model does already exist. Initiatives like the Open-Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA) are working hard to foster shared standards and interoperability across security tools and platforms. These alliances have laid important groundwork by promoting open ecosystems and reducing barriers to collaboration.

But foundational collaboration is not enough. To truly shift the balance, organisations must move beyond technical interoperability and embrace a broader strategic commitment to shared cybersecurity outcomes.

Building The Framework For Collective Defence

True collective defence involves more than cooperation - it calls for a redefinition of what cybersecurity means in today’s hyperconnected world. It’s about embedding security into the fabric of partnerships, ecosystems, and entire industries.

Imagine an operating model where businesses, governments, and critical infrastructure providers treat a cyberattack on one as a collective concern. Threat intelligence would be shared in real-time, playbooks would be aligned, legal and operational frameworks would be in place to support swift, coordinated responses.

This is not a theoretical concept. It echoes the principles of mutual defence that underpin global alliances such as NATO.

Thankfully, we’re beginning to see early signs of this approach in action. A standout example is the recent collaborative legal action led by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, Fortra, and Health-ISAC to disrupt malicious use of the Cobalt Strike tool. This unified effort successfully dismantled infrastructure used to distribute ransomware and malware - demonstrating how cross-sector coordination can neutralise threats at scale.

Technology Is A Key Enabler

For collective defence to be actionable, organisations need the tools and platforms that support secure, real-time collaboration.

Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs) are a key enabler - consolidating insights from internal logs, external feeds, and community sources into unified dashboards. These platforms reduce noise, streamline analysis, and ensure that intelligence is transformed into operational action quickly.

More advanced still are Hyper Orchestration platforms, which extend the benefits of TIPs beyond the organisation. They facilitate secure collaboration across business units, supply chain partners, vendors, and external communities. With built-in automation and secure communication channels, these platforms allow organisations to form collective defence networks capable of sharing IOCs, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and incident response plans in real-time.

When threat intelligence is actively exchanged and response plans are executed in tandem, security teams can shift from reactive firefighting to proactive resilience-building.

A Strategic Imperative for Leadership Teams Around the World

The move toward collective defence is not just a technical transformation - it’s a strategic imperative that demands leadership from the top. Boards, CISOs, and executive teams around the world must champion this shift by investing in collaborative capabilities and prioritising partnerships as part of their security strategy.

Critically, collective defence must also be underpinned by trust. Organisations need legal frameworks, governance models, and shared standards to facilitate transparent information sharing without compromising competitive interests or data privacy. This is not without challenges. But the cost of inaction is far greater.

Cybercrime is no longer a lone-wolf endeavour - it is organised, global, and relentless. To combat it effectively, defenders must adopt the same level of coordination and scale. By shifting from fragmented strategies to a collective defence model, we can fundamentally change the rules of engagement.

The future of cybersecurity isn’t about individual companies protecting their own assets, it’s about organisations around the world working together to secure the digital world we all depend on - and the time to act is now.

Dan Bridges is Technical Director - International at Cyware

Image: Evgeny Ozerov

You Might Also Read:

Five Key Lessons For Building A Resilient Cyber Security Department:

If you like this website and use the comprehensive 6,500-plus service supplier Directory, you can get unrestricted access, including the exclusive in-depth Directors Report series, by signing up for a Premium Subscription.