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It’s undeniable: cybersecurity threats – and how we protect against them – are rapidly evolving. More than ever, it’s harder to protect organizations, as well as partners and the broader supply chain, from the increase in volume and sophistication of cyber threats.
Our own research at Keeper Security has found that a staggering 92% of IT and security leaders observed an increase in cyber-attacks over the past year, with the vast majority of them saying that these attacks are more sophisticated than ever before. What’s more, the most effective ways of protecting against cyber threats are changing rapidly, too.
For business leaders, it can sometimes feel hard to separate fact (and fads) from fiction when it comes to the latest tools and protection methods – especially when budgets are tight.
Cybercriminals show no signs of slowing down when it comes to attacking organizations, and no firm is too small or ‘insignificant’ a target. Cybercriminals today view everyone and every organization as fair game.
Conventional Cybersecurity is Ineffective
What it means to be “cyber secure” is constantly changing. Cybersecurity isn’t a tick-box exercise along the way to achieving regulatory compliance. It requires real-time monitoring, proactivity and scalability.
This is especially critical as an organization innovates and grows. Compliance doesn’t necessarily specify best practice for protection against each and every emerging threat, as these appear so rapidly.
It merely tries to establish a framework for protecting data and systems. Proactivity, therefore, is critical. Research suggests that over half of business leaders believe that AI-powered attacks dominate as emerging threats; however, 35% of IT leaders admit to a lack of defenses against it.
And though AI is emerging as the latest cyber threat, traditional attack vectors continue to gain pace and therefore cannot be ignored. IT leaders have continued to observe an increase in phishing, as well as malware and ransomware-based attacks.
Both existing and emerging threat vectors require a modern solution that can keep pace with and adapt to the ceaseless barrage of threats.
A traditional layered cybersecurity stack is no longer effective. A layered approach with disparate software products creates security gaps and vulnerabilities that can put an organization at significant risk. This puts the organization and individual at significant risk of being targeted by cybercriminals.
Organizations consist of two types of assets that need protection: humans and machines. There is no fixed perimeter, so every person and every human in an enterprise needs to be protected – not just the IT department.
Ultimately, disparate cybersecurity solutions create heterogeneous IT environments, with inadequate visibility, security, control, compliance and reporting capabilities, which are ineffective against a modern attacker.
Zero-Trust in the Age of AI
It is critical that organizations implement a zero-trust cybersecurity strategy across the entire enterprise, but how?
Firstly, IT leaders should secure and manage access to critical resources using zero-trust and zero-knowledge security strategies. This should include managing access to servers, web applications, workloads and databases.
Zero trust and zero-knowledge stop movement through an organization’s systems laterally, drastically limiting the impact of potential breaches. This approach secures critical resources by verifying every access request, regardless of location.
Ultimately, it strengthens the overall security posture by reducing the potential impact and radius of attacks and adapting to modern, distributed IT environments.
Similarly, organizations should look to unify disparate identity access management (IAM) solutions into one ubiquitous platform to achieve visibility, security, control and reporting covering every user on every device.
Consolidation significantly enhances security by providing a holistic view of permissions and activities on every device, allowing for consistent enforcement of access policies.
Additionally, a unified identity and access management (IAM) platform streamlines reporting and compliance efforts, ensuring better governance and more efficient management of user identities.
Platforms Over Products
The most effective way to implement a cyber strategy resilient to modern threats is by moving away from layered product stacks towards consolidated, managed platforms. A consolidated platform allows security teams to have visibility and control over the network and who has access to what, as well as manage compliance.
One thing’s for certain: cyber threats will only continue to evolve in sophistication and volume. Organizations must proactively get ahead of the next generation of threats today.
The best way to do this is by consolidating security strategies by adopting zero trust principles and working with trusted professionals who can provide advice and support as the threat landscape changes.
