Information security is becoming a wilderness stalked by a cunning beast. Avenues of attack continue to expand as attacks become more sophisticated and more focused. This alarming picture is the new normal in the world of IT. It’s no longer possible to feel secure or even comfortable. As a result, the need to continuously evolve defenses has led to a series of departures from traditional security measures. Here are four ways tech security has changed.
1. The “Best Practices” Concept Has Little Value
Attacks that do little actual damage can still ruin a company’s reputation. Good practices help, but don’t stop sophisticated hacker attempts. Security awareness on the part of employees has its effective limits. Even though we’re living in a hyper-connected world, digital marketing channels only increase exposure. Organizations must harden their networks and infrastructure with risk assessment to identify points of weakness while developing strategies to minimize the damage.
2. IT Has Competition
A new graphics program introduced to a desktop may be more productive than company software, but may betray login info to hackers at every session. The underworld of shadow IT and bring-your-own-device practices open up a world of possibilities but with it whole new vectors of vulnerability. Each company must find its own balance of flexibility and control, such as separate network zones for design, evaluation, and production.
The expertise of managed IT services providers can provide a neutral and reliable 3rd party to protect resources by regular monitoring of network performance through hardware and software monitoring. These services can also provide data flow supervision and monitor log files, providing another and often the superior level of protection.
3. Expect Breaches
Proactive measures to mitigate exposure, such as firewalls and anti-virus protection, are necessary. Organizations must also prepare for a successful cyber attack. Reporting breaches are mandatory, despite the possible public embarrassment. It improves future security through attack analysis. The new hacking strategy of ransomware, where organizations are denied access to internal data until ransoms are paid, is best forestalled by layers of in-house encryption and the common sense of regular backups to offsite or online facilities. This ensures that data remains accessible.
4. End-to-End Encryption
Ransomware is based on the idea that accessed data can be encrypted remotely, making it useless without the decryption keys. But applying encryption to data also makes it useless to hackers. The latest and best encryption should be applied not just too sensitive files and database tables but to all data in transit to or from the network, including connected mobile devices. Encryption at endpoints is best effected through virtualization of apps and machines, and for cloud or web-based applications through delivery controllers secured by firewalls engineered for web apps.
Ransomware is based on the idea that accessed data can be encrypted remotely, making it useless without the decryption keys. But applying encryption to data also makes it useless to hackers. The latest and best encryption should be applied not just too sensitive files and database tables but to all data in transit to or from the network, including connected mobile devices. Encryption at endpoints is best effected through virtualization of apps and machines, and for cloud or web-based applications through delivery controllers secured by firewalls engineered for web apps.
The average cost of a data breach in 2015 was just under $4 million (USD). It is vital that security teams constantly monitor traffic and access logs, and scan application data for anomalies. The basic principles of modern data security are to bolster weaknesses and maintain vigilance. In the world of IT, automation and the right solutions make that possible.