This past year, cybercriminals caused significant disruptions around the world, using their increasing technical know-how to break through companies' defences. In 2018, experts expect the trend to increase as these attackers will use more sophisticated tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence to launch attacks.
So how can you prepare for the year ahead? Incidents like the WannaCry attack, which impacted more than 200,000 computers worldwide in May 2017, are just the warmup to a new year of more virulent malware and DDoS attacks.
Cybersecurity leaders require better visibility into what is happening to gain more control–on what matters to their business. Below are a few focus areas to focus on as you start your year, to ensure you are better protected.
Address and patch known vulnerabilities. Businesses should assess existing resources and ensure they are investing in an equal mixture of detection and prevention solutions. They should also consider redesigning their assets and moving different assets into more secure locations, or segment to add partitions between departments. Adding these may make it more challenging for hackers to penetrate your organization.
Cloud security has become a top priority for many businesses as the cloud environment reaches maturity, it's becoming a security target, and it will start having security problems. It's possible shared cloud service becomes unstable and insecure based on increased demands by companies. When it comes to cloud, businesses will need to decide who they can trust and who they can't. Companies should develop security guidelines for private and public cloud use and utilize a cloud decision model to apply rigor to cloud risks.
Focus on Long-Term Privacy Compliance. Many IoT devices will process data that may be insufficiently protected, and this can pose significant challenges to data security and privacy compliance. Critical areas to focus on include data flow management, threat response guidelines and privacy awareness with employees. Security guidelines will need to take into account if the initiatives are planned for legacy devices or on new custom devices, and these will require a different approach to enable security, and ultimately ensure privacy. Mandatory data breach notification (Notifiable Data Breaches – NDB scheme) comes into effect on 22 February 2018, it's important to understand your obligations and be prepared.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help secure your enterprise against cyber-attacks and ensure you are better protected in 2018.
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