WATCH: The Chief Information Security Officer has a stark warning over cyber crime

Governments need to start working together to help combat cyber crime following an eight per cent surge in attacks, says a security expert.

Deryck Mitchelson, chief information security officer at cyber security firm Checkpoint, told CGTN Europe how there is now a commercial marketplace to buy access to breached accounts and this is playing a part in the rise in cases. 

This year the cost of cyber crime will be more than $8 trillion and it could hit $10 trillion by 2025 and international frameworks need to be agreed with governments working together as the criminals are crossing over borders and operating in groups, added Mitchelson.

"Governments need to do a lot more," he said. "It's exactly what we're looking to do. A lot of the increase we've seen in this eight per cent surge rating is in the critical infrastructure, in particular education sector and healthcare as well.

"Governments need to be working better at global level to make sure we've got international sharing agreements on threats, international frameworks around how we can assess ourselves better to understand the level of cyber risk that we've got. 

"Countries when they go alone to do this, I don't think they're going to tackle the problem because the threat groups attacking us are global. They work across borders, they work across regions. The ransomware gangs actually work together. We need to have an international response to this, not a response that stops at our borders."

He pointed out how easy it is now for criminals to get hold of data that has been breached with people not having to steal the information themselves.

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"It's very easy to carry out a cyber attack," he added. "You do not need to be technologically advanced. You can buy a service from a few hundred pounds. So in the old days, it used to be you who needed to have a lot of technical nous to do this. Now you can just go and buy these services, in particular ransomware gangs. Global ransomware gangs are making millions of pounds from cyber crime."

But as well as governments, Mitchelson, feels the public also can take steps to make it harder for the cyber criminals.

"Individuals just need to take some responsibility. So that means tightening up on their passwords, that means not reusing passwords across many sites. They can switch on what we call multi-factor authentication so that a single password doesn't let you get into any individual account," he said.

"We do that by default with bank accounts but we should do it across every account we've got, including email. As far as businesses, businesses need to tighten up in every area of security to make sure that there are no weak spots. So that's email security, security for mobiles, laptops, security for the client services and the commercial services. It's across everything that they do. They need to start to really understand that level of cyber risk.”

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