Between more sophisticated cybercriminals and immense pressure to ensure governance on compliance, 2021 is already shaping up to be a minefield. And as such, cybersecurity has risen to the top of most organisations’ agendas.
With this in mind, here are three cybersecurity resolutions every business should consider this year:
-
Watch out – Dark Clouds are on the horizon
Businesses haven’t been the only ones accelerating their digital transformation this year – cybercriminals have been hard at it too.
There has been a sharp rise in ‘Dark Clouds’ as cybercriminals have migrated to the cloud, often for the same reasons businesses have – cloud allows them to avoid big up-front capital expenses, pay monthly for their shady businesses and scale up only when they need to. Coupled with the ability to access information from anywhere, it’s no wonder we’re seeing cybercriminals innovate.
This ranges from cloud-based caches filled with stolen user data such as email addresses and authentication credentials, to personal identifiable information (PII) such as scans of passports, driver’s licenses and bank statements.
-
Team up – cybersecurity has turned personal
Between collaborating cybercriminals, the upwards trajectory of data growth and the distributed workforce, the risk factor for every business is accelerating.
This is one reason why we expect to see most businesses increase their general IT spending by around 5-10% this year, despite the economic impact of the pandemic. And we expect most of that allocation to go towards IT security. We have already seen how cyberattacks are on the rise in South Africa with news reports of high profile data breaches of several financial institutions.
But even with these investments, it won’t be enough to cover all the potential threat vectors. So, businesses will still be forced to place strategic bets across their people, processes and technology in the hope of covering their weakest points.
That’s why making sure every member of the company plays in the cybersecurity challenge is key, especially now that working from home is proving to become a permanent culture with lockdown restrictions. For example, while employees may be a business’ biggest weakness, they also form the ‘human firewall’ and need to be equipped to do just that – which takes education.
-
Gear up – look to hybrid security and intelligent backup to stay ahead
Technology is always going to be the heart of the cybersecurity fight, but no one product is going to maximize the cybersecurity state – businesses need to invest in their desired outcome. To do that, organisations need to look for software-defined models integrated with external services – a hybrid security approach.
This includes cloud-based software such as PenTesting-as-a-Service (PtaaS), Scanning-as-a-Service (ScaaS), Network Defense-as-a-Service (NDaaS), Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) and Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS).
A hybrid security approach which has internal security teams connected to external cybersecurity experts and law enforcement will be the most secure, while also helping raise the experience level of your security teams.
By Edwin Weijdema, Global Technologist at Veeam
