Everpure preparing for new era of cyber resiliency

AI-driven cyberattacks are now one of the biggest threats facing companies.

Traditional perimeter-based security is no longer enough because attackers are increasingly using AI agents, stolen credentials and automated lateral movement to breach systems.

As these attacks become more frequent, companies are not only fending off humans with nefarious intentions, but also increasingly sophisticated AI agents that have been trained to penetrate even the strictest of defences.

It's becoming so frequent that it's a matter of when, rather than if, companies will be compromised, with attention turning to how they can respond when the inevitable occurs.

The consequences of suffering a cyberattack can be wide-ranging, with Everpure statistics showing ransomware damage is projected to hit just under $75 billion in 2026, representing a 30 per cent increase year on year. 

But eclipsing the fallout of ransomware is the downtime companies face as a result, potentially reaching as much as 50 to 75 times higher than the ransom demand itself, with downtime lasting over three weeks in some cases.

This new paradigm going to be the catalyst for the shift from cybersecurity to cyber resiliency, according to Matt Oostveen, Everpure CTO & VP, APJ.

"We can see countless examples of how this is propagated in the marketplace," Oostveen said.

"The world's changed, especially if you think about an AI attack. We need to start approaching resiliency by removing human banks from the web. We need to get to what we're calling an active defender strategy.

"It means that the only way to protect against AI is to defend with AI. In the past, we had active defender strategies in the marketplace. But there was a problem with them because what we saw happening was that a lot of organisations were using an AI product where the agent may make very poor decisions.

"There's examples where an agent has decided the best way to protect against an attack is to wipe out your production data. Therefore, there's nothing to steal and nothing that can be leaked. Probably not the best path forward.

"Or, quite often, it'll execute functions that negatively impact the overall system. So what's the right way, we asked ourselves? What's the right way to do an active defender strategy? What we did is we thought about it from a historical perspective. When we had humans in the loop, when we were backing up data, what are the key metrics? I don't think that necessarily changes."

Known for its reliability and proven record of sustained uptime, Everpure's security solution is relied upon for critical infrastructure.

One in two transactions between financial firms in the UK via the Bank of England is supported by Everpure, as is the IoT system that maintains the dykes and canals in the Netherlands, keeping out the sea water from low-lying communities.

As well as significant infrastructure support on Earth, Everpure's reach also extends beyond our home planet's exosphere, as NASA celebrates the success of Artemis II, and continues preparations for the first manned mission to land on the Moon in over five decades.

"Just recently, we had some awesome news about the Artemis mission around the Moon," Oostveen said.

"So nothing goes into orbit unless it's via our enterprise data cloud. It controls the firing rooms. 

"Those Artemis countdowns, we were crossing our fingers and holding our breath as well. But let me tell you, nothing goes into space unless it's through Everpure. We're at the centre of a lot of mission-critical things."

The company's recent acquisition of OneTouch will allow for extending further value into Everpure's data management capability for customers, as well as ensure enterprise data is inherently AI-ready at the source, solving a key problem Australian companies are now facing, both at board and CEO level.

Executives are now facing more scrutiny from regulators than ever, with ASIC focusing on cyber resilience as a key enforcement priority.

"There are three core things that are important (with the acquisition)," Oostveen said.

"OneTouch is able to scan and network continuously. It can find data sources, multiple sources, and do that in real time. Secondarily, it has an ability to ascribe a personality to data.

"It can utilise AI to classify what that data is. It can determine how it should live, how it should be treated, what performance metrics it needs, as well as how to protect that data, of course, is a big part of it. And, of course, data doesn't sit in isolation.

"We need to connect it to our business and to our processors. That's an ability to wrap around a semantic search layer. So it provides us with a great knowledge map, and it lays a foundation for when we're going to start to do more advanced things in AI and certainly into securities. 

"We're really happy that it's closed. And it's starting to eke its way into our portfolio. There's lots of integration in the future to go."