Over the last decade, cybersecurity assets for organizations have more than doubled in scale. With the move towards the cloud and data warehouses changing to modern data stacks, trends are also changing consistently every year.
Organizations face more risks and challenges in an ever-connected work amidst the dawn of the internet age. Hackers are rampant, and ransomware is becoming prevalent, so everyone needs to step up. Here are the top 8 trends in cybersecurity that you need to look at.
- Remote Work Impacted Organizational Security
It’s no surprise that the pandemic increased cybersecurity threats across the world. The problems stem beyond doing BCC in email but the remote nature of work during the past couple of years. Remote connections toward company assets opened new challenges and solutions.
The insecure and sudden need to migrate to the cloud opened a world where security protocols were rushed in exchange for seamless productivity. Some even pushed security to the side, which meant a more vulnerable IT landscape across the entire industry.
It’s vital to assess the current situation of your security infrastructure. Now that everything is starting to settle down, you need to identify many weaknesses that open your company to external threats.
- IoT Security Is A Must
New technologies and devices are coming and changing the way we do business. Among these are Internet of Things (IoT) devices that need to be consistently networked and online to do their job. IoT security is more important than ever to prevent attackers from gaining access to your system.
There are many ways to create a more robust security network for your IoT devices. Software protection, consistent monitoring, and creating a separate network for IoT devices are some of the things you can do to tighten your system protection.
- Team Software Protection Are Becoming More Important
Team software has become a crucial part of remote work, and a lot of company data is exchanged between these channels. Team chat like Zoom and Slack opened businesses to threats of ransomware, keyloggers, phishing, and unauthorized access.
Slack security is a must and peer-to-peer access needs proper protection from your organization. For starters, require two-factor authentication for your team members, coupled with active and invited user management, and opt-in access to channels.
- Ransomware Are More Prevalent
Ransomware attacks have been prevalent over the last couple of years. It isn’t a new threat by any stretch of the imagination, but with the rise of digitalization and the internet, many created big targets for their company. Both the volume and the size of the attacks have been exponential as a result.
Extortion attacks are the end-game so far by ransomware. Hackers usually demand payments via cryptocurrency to return valuable data; otherwise, companies would need to deal with data loss or have company secrets released publicly.
Protecting against ransomware attacks is a matter of vigilance. Organizations can employ data backup and recovery plans. Small things like keeping things up-to-date and consistent patches can give ample protection when you need it the most.
- Zero-Trust Platforms Are Growing in Value
Zero-trust platforms have become a powerful way to deter external attacks. The remote workforce had to create hasty solutions to accommodate a more remote environment. To correct this, companies pushed for the zero-trust approach for their businesses.
Zero-trust sits on several principles that try to nip threats at the bud. For starters, companies don’t provide trust access to users due to their potential for compromise. VPN and firewalls are also untrusted for protection.
Instead, micro-segmentation of the work environment is a must to minimize damage from attackers. Companies also perform identity and device authentication within the network, preventing malicious entities from utilizing holes in their security systems.
The right zero trust platform is seamless but pushes its users to operate with security in mind. The model assumes everyone, but those with administrator access are “would-be” attackers. Even those with admin rights are still monitored for potential issues.
- The Human Factor Is Still A Weak Link
When it comes to cybersecurity, it’s rarely ever the devices or the system that’s the problem. Instead, it’s always humans who are the weakest link. Phishing is a common vulnerability and one of the most potent threats to many organizations.
Organizations must keep their employee education consistently updated. Cybersecurity is critical that the human factor can cause close to 90% of system vulnerabilities. You want systems to be implemented correctly rather than forgotten.
Employee education should not simply be transmitted through slide presentations, documents, and workshops. Organizations need to keep employees engaged, as even the best-educated employee can forget what they saw once in a slideshow.
- Vendor Consolidation Is A Must
The reality for organizations today is that companies can have too many tools from different vendors. Too many vendors can result in too much complexity with your networks and increase the security headcount you need to do. With dozens of tools come dozens of potential issues too.
Organizations should remember that vendor consolidation is a must if you want an avenue for a more efficient security. Many security vendors now respond to this need for consolidation with better integration. However, one common issue for companies is the length of rollout needed for these assets.
- Artificial Intelligence Is Changing The Landscape
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are on the rise. Their growing sophistication is increasing every year and AI is utilized for automated security systems. This cuts down human intervention within the system, analyzing massive amounts of data to understand risk and mitigate it.
AI presents a major opportunity for organizations to build a more robust threat detection. Its evolution, however, also goes both ways, with viruses from potentially evolving neural networks becoming more and more possible.
Malicious actors are taking advantage of AI to automate attacks and hit organizations at a time or part of their business they don’t expect. Then again, companies should utilize artificial intelligence or risk getting left behind.
If you’re not doing it yet, AI-powered security systems can streamline your threat detection and cut down your team’s workload. It can save you millions of potential income through consistent productivity and the mitigation of data breaches.
The Bottom Line
Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving landscape. Stagnation is the biggest enemy of any organization. As these trends go to their next natural step, you need to be ready for more complex cyberattacks. Implementing network-level threat detection and security can help you prepare for years to come.
