Every business has evolved into technology. More technology means more data and more threats. Data breaches and ransomware attacks have grown increasingly common in many industries over the last few years, hitting businesses of all sizes regardless of the sensitivity of their data. As 2022 unfolds, the security and compliance concerns to enterprises seem a lot like those in 2021. Surprisingly, the growing number of cyber-attacks and the rising cost of data breaches have made information privacy and security a top priority for organizations in today's data-driven world.
Modern challenges demand modern practices. Keeping this in mind, compliance must expand beyond policies and procedures to encompass enterprise-wide efforts. Furthermore, security must evolve beyond its traditional role of keeping firms secure and in compliance with legal requirements to become a strategic enabler for businesses to enhance customer satisfaction, promote innovation and development, and decrease costs.
Cybersecurity has constantly been a never-ending race; however, the pace of transformation is accelerating. Unfortunately, businesses are currently incorporating additional technologies into their IT networks to simplify remote work, improve the customer experience, and produce revenue, all of which present possible new risks. Simultaneously, adversaries—no longer restricted to specific actors—include extremely advanced organizations that influence integrated tools and skills with artificial intelligence as well as machine learning. In this regard, the extent of the threat is eventually rising, and no organization is immune.
Looking ahead to 2022 and beyond, CEOs may better grasp how cyber can assist the business with a security plan based on shared accountability by concentrating on the ever-changing regulatory environment. Whether it's modern constant threats, ransomware, backdoor attacks, or something entirely new, there will almost certainly always be new risks to struggle with. Adopting a few considerations could help firms cope with these risks:
Today’s global business environment is constantly affected by geopolitical, environmental, social as well as technological uncertainty. An increasing volume of sensitive data moving across interconnected and integrated networks fuels the consequent cyber risk consequence. To better match security with the organization's strategic business objective, change the focus of discussion from cost and speed to more effective security planning to provide improved business value and user experience. When consumer-facing systems are disrupted or data is exposed, the costs are more than what cyber teams normally estimate operationally and are enhanced by reduced investor and customer trust, which can have long-lasting effects.
Additionally, for isolating exposures and risks, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) should also be taken into consideration for automating repairs and remediation. Ideally, organizations would automate the necessary tasks while development is still in process to remove them from the control of development experts.
Cyber security and cloud security are increasingly interchangeable terms. When it comes to security, cloud conversions must prioritize a comprehensive range of regulatory and predetermined considerations. Furthermore, organizational security teams should transmit the idea that all data stored in the cloud is the organization's responsibility. To continue driving compliance complexity, particularly surrounding security, should remain top of mind. In addition, security teams are forced to add cloud security posture management (CSPM) to their toolbox in this context.
Because of the increasing maturity of cyber automation capabilities, they are becoming an essential component of cyber security strategy. Automation has shown to be extremely beneficial in many cases when data sets are too big or complicated for direct analysis, and it is being used in many industries to find difficult-to-identify correlations and patterns.
Moreover, automation is also being used efficiently for jobs that benefit from greater speed, including recognizing security issues in massive amounts of log data and doing high-volume data discovery, where evaluating individual files is frequently inefficient. Interestingly, organizations no longer have consistent control over software versioning and the general features offered in the cloud environment as a result of the migration to the cloud. Automation has been critical in examining risk safely and implementing additional baseline features as needed.
The race to digital transformation remains a top concern for businesses of all sizes. To become a digital-first organization, a data-centric strategy is required, in which data is shared on a near-constant basis across a complex and linked ecosystem of partners and suppliers. Unfortunately, in today's ever-changing digital environment, this technique is no longer appropriate. Although this type of trust — or lack of trust — framework may give near-real-time risk insight, the majority of enterprises find it too time-consuming and costly. A consistent risk management framework that seems both internal and outward is critical, especially in high-risk industries especially financial services.
Along with a shift toward continuous assurance, regulators and even major companies may consider taking a more active role in ensuring ecosystem security. This might involve offering a monitoring/threat intelligence service across their supply chain and working with partners to protect against discovered risks.
Going forward, the hyperconnected smart society will almost certainly encounter increased cyber threats on various global fronts as a result of a variety of changing attack directions. Security experts must navigate this new reality by helping corporate leaders in understanding the consequences of putting their confidence in technology and its resilience, while also predicting how that technology may be exploited by others. However, this may provide a unique and useful viewpoint, but there is also a responsibility to provide realistic and practical guidance.