A week no longer goes by without some high-profile data security breach hitting global, regional or country-specific news headlines. By almost any measure, cyber danger doubled last year and hackers are now breaking into enterprise systems, stealing sensitive data and causing business disruption at an unprecedented pace.
Last year, there were about 730,000 attempted cyberattacks each day on the Michigan state government alone. And Michigan is just one of the thousands of government organisations and businesses that experience serious cyberattacks worldwide, including the UAE government and businesses in the Gulf.
So how can governments, corporations and individuals respond? Every organisation must have an effective plan to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyberattacks.
Here are some strategies that can help in five areas that are keeping chief information security officers up at night.
First, cloud computing data must be encrypted at rest and in transit. Security leaders need to find the right balance between blind trust and control with cloud companies as they address data ownership, security, legal issues, hosting locations and service-level agreements. Enterprises need to survey networks and learn where data is truly going. Secure solutions such as Fedramp in the US and G-Cloud in the UK offer alternative configurations.
Secondly, we must ensure that security is built into non-traditional computing environments such as critical infrastructure with embedded technology. Governments should work with the private sector to develop cyber disruption strategies to respond to cyberattacks against the critical systems we rely on and prepare for events such as power outages.
Thirdly, every employee is vital in this battle, so we must change online habits to avoid ever-emerging cyber threats. We need to train employees not to click on phishing scams and to be watchful against online fraud and social engineering attacks.
Fourthly, more and more mobile apps are running our business applications today. We need to enforce policies with mobile device management programs, lock devices automatically, have the ability to remotely wipe data and encrypt the sensitive information on them.
Lastly, when it comes to malware and zero-day threats, you must be able to answer questions like do you know what systems you have, their level of compliance and patch status. How do you respond to cyber incidents? What data is at risk during an incident? Do you have staff who can do forensics and identify the scope of the problem? Who do your customers call and how do you communicate with teams, employees and the media?
As we look into the next five years and ask how we can prepare for 2020, there are core skills that technology and security leaders must develop to be effective. First, we must recognise that cyber programmes will fail if they stand alone. Build partnerships that bring together the private and public sectors as well as law enforcement to deal with cybersecurity issues.
Secondly, we must learn from history to address the challenges of the future. From Wi-Fi to the cloud, mobile computing and the internet of things, the same patterns often develop. How can we ensure that security is built into products from the start?
Finally, we cannot just say no to innovation and technological advances, but offer alternative solutions that meet the right risk profile for businesses.
Our future in cyberspace is bright, but cybersecurity needs to be at the centre of our innovation strategies.
