How companies can shield themselves from growing cyber menace

Growing digital expanse has made it a norm for IT/ITeS organisations to maintain a myriad of data and services of their customers. The shift in technology requires these operations to move to different platforms - the major one being a Cloud. 

Moreover, the regulatory and privacy requirements that these companies need to adhere to are also on an uptick, putting tremendous pressure on companies to focus on privacy and security. 

In such scenarios, technology companies must fast innovate and to be truly successful in the long run, this constant innovation needs to be in sync with the cybersecurity compliance updates. 

These cybersecurity measures need to be robust and secure for companies to adhere to constantly changing compliance regulations alongside adopting the latest technological solutions.  

Also Read: Wipro to acquire cybersecurity consulting firm Edgile for $230 million

The Future of Cybersecurity  

Given the present cybersecurity state of affairs, companies should implement a unified method to construct a safety mesh versus a monolithic one. 

A built-in platform that connects insights from information residing in digital servers, on-premises, endpoints, and the cloud becomes essential for a unified motion to cut back complexity and improve resiliency. 

In addition, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation have also proved to be significant security enhancers. The combination of AI and analytics greatly improve accuracy and time taken to determine threats, detect malware and community anomalies, flag dangerous customers throughout the organization and probably keep away from insider threats. 

The Security Operations Centre (SOC) is the heart of any functional cybersecurity organization. 
AI empowers the SOC in contextualising information insights and machine studying logic to essentially prioritise the most vital threats. 

Further, clever automation comprising AI-powered instruments enhancing the effectiveness of safety operations is coming to the fore as a crucial technological advancement in cloud integration.  

Together with a company's optimised processes and parameters, AI workplace safety solution combines IoT and AI with trained SOC analysts to detect and prevent workplace hazards and take real-time action to improve safety significantly. 

A well-designed security operations centre framework should do far more than merely track alarms and alerts. 

When properly configured and managed, the SOC can assist in incident containment, provide invaluable insight into incident analysis, and deliver proactive protection.  

Also Read: 87,050 cyberattacks on govt organisations in two years

Implementing a Zero-Trust Philosophy

In an era wherein most assets and devices are now established outside traditional physical and logical security parameters, facilitating a cybersecurity mesh in enterprises for scalable and reliable controls remains utmost priority for strengthening customer satisfaction on critical data security. 

In a hyper-digital and largely contactless world, 'Trust' remains the core currency in the next normal and is the critical deciding factor. 

A trusted environment needs to be built in which sensitive data can be processed or analysed at work from anywhere, giving clients a feeling that their data is secure. 

Businesses are re-visiting IT priorities that need to be modified for the new hybrid work environment and address increasing cybersecurity concerns by implementing zero-trust security architectures. 

Zero-trust network access, multifactor authentication, etc., have been implemented by enterprises offering remote access.  

Zero Trust aids in preventing successful data breaches by eliminating the concept of Trust from an organisation's network architecture. 

Based on the premise of 'Never Trust, Always Verify,' Zero Trust intends to safeguard modern digital environments by capitalising on network segmentation, averting lateral movement, and simplifying granular user-access control. 

Innovation-led companies embrace the Zero Trust mannequin as conventional cybersecurity frameworks deal with layered safety's IT perimeter and defence. 

Achieving Zero Trust is often presumed to be a costly and complex affair. The reality is that it is built upon the organisations' existing architecture and does not require companies to replace existing technology. In short, Zero

Trust is quite simple to deploy, implement and maintain.   

Merging Roles and Responsibilities  

Organisations must articulate well-defined security plans with effective yet attainable security goals in place. 
For this to come to fruition, companies must deploy the right cybersecurity leader who can guide employees through the security measures that are in practice and can oversee the entire cybersecurity strategy. 

While this is the need of the hour, the reality remains that not many organisations find it urgent enough to deal with cybersecurity challenges that are fast becoming constant threats to organisations' repute and overall operational performance.    

As we move ahead in the digital-first era, companies will need CIOs and CISOs working together to make security a trusted source with the consistency of standards, behaviour, and execution. 

These specialists will need to know how to secure the specific technologies and at the same time, should possess situational awareness of the threats that hold the most significant risk to a specific business unit.  

Companies need to capitalise on an armoury of competencies, such as contextual knowledge, and a thorough understanding of risks and ways to mitigate them. 

Moreover, they must employ robust cybersecurity leadership and values and foster a strong security culture within the enterprise. 

We must remember that at the centre of the security strategy, a CISO bears responsibility for solidity within the security team, effective communication between the entire organisation, devising cybersecurity plans, prioritising threats, and articulating value.  

A Fool-proof MESH  

As the security landscape becomes increasingly complex, harbouring a swarm of threats and vulnerabilities, organisations need to quickly formulate a robust cybersecurity strategy. 

Companies and specially CISOs need to bear in mind that enterprises do experience a loss of $3.92 million on average due to data breaches. 

In lieu of this, businesses fast realize the importance of bringing cybersecurity to the centre stage. 

They also need to make safety consciousness and knowledge sharing a cultural norm throughout their organisations. 

Globally, future-forward companies encompassing the most mature safety practices outperform their peers by employing these well-carved cybersecurity practices. 

It is time now for all companies to invigorate their cyber resilience in the cloud era and shield themselves from the growing cyber menace.   

(The author is Chief Business Officer, Birlasoft.)