When security researcher Brian Krebs recently broke the news that a large number of French critical infrastructure firms had been hacked, he was also able to identify the source of the malware using a database provided by 4iQ Inc.

The company maintains a service that indexes account information exposed in website data breaches. This kind of information has become more important as the cybersecurity world is increasingly starting to focus not just on what was breached, but the actors responsible for the attack.

“It’s not just what’s happened; it’s who’s behind it,” said Luke Wilson (pictured), vice president of intelligence at 4iQ. “You have to start figuring out what entity is behind these attacks and what they’re going after so you can start protecting that.”

Wilson spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. They discussed 4iQ’s expertise in identifying threat actors and the need for information sharing throughout the cybersecurity community.

Protection from nation-state attacks

4iQ has built a specialty around breached identity intelligence. Staffed by community analysts, infosec experts, and former law enforcement officials such as Wilson, the company leverages information about cybercriminals and nation-state hacking to give clients a more complete picture around database threats.

“There’s no one tool, no one company that can protect itself from a nation-state attack,” Wilson said. “In order to get the entire typology of the attack that’s affecting you, you’re going to have to share information.”

Exchange of breach information within the enterprise cybersecurity community has been an ongoing challenge, partly for competitive reasons and also due to concerns about accurate intelligence. As seen in Krebs’ most recent disclosure, companies such as 4iQ can have an impact in keeping channels of communication open.

“Quite frankly, we’re kind of late in the game in sharing, and the criminals have been doing this for years,” Wilson noted. “We have tools and products that will allow our clients to get to the who.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference.

Photo: SiliconANGLE