Cybersecurity experts predict that there is currently a cyberattack incident approximately every 11 seconds worldwide.
This is almost double what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times more than five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). Aside from these concerning statistics, what is even more alarming is the degree to which the sophistication of these attacks has grown.
We are just over a year and a half into the pandemic and the way organisations approach cybersecurity has been embraced at an accelerated pace.
With the vast majority of companies adopting fully remote or hybrid working arrangements, there has been a firm focus on the implementation of additional cybersecurity measures to keep critical operations secure.
But, despite all efforts to protect systems and data, security breaches appear to be increasing in both velocity and scale which begs the question, are cloud complexities casting a shadow over businesses cybersecurity strategies?
It is surprising how many organisations believe that cloud infrastructure has some type of in-built security silver bullet when in fact, an increase in complexity of cloud computing may open up more security gaps than most realise given the dynamic and ever-changing nature of cloud stacks.
Many organisations do not grasp the shared responsibility model that is in place meaning the Cloud providers will provide security of the Cloud and the client is responsible for security in the cloud.
Increased cybercrime sophistication has expedited the need for more than a ‘one solution fits all’ approach when it comes to securing data.
In order to accelerate innovation, strengthen security, and improve business agility, organisations are having to make critical decisions about the cloud platforms they aim to embrace.
Which Cloud is the Right Cloud?
There is no such thing as the “Right” Cloud, it is all about the line of sight – visibility is key. Everything depends on visibility and this is the foundation of any cloud security strategy.
Whether security revolves around compliance, policy governance or risk remediation, visibility into infrastructure security is fast becoming the most pressing cybersecurity challenge within cloud security.
As businesses grow, visibility gaps may begin to widen due to the implementation of a variety of deployment processes and technologies. These gaps may be the result of using many different cloud providers, accounts, locations and services.
One way to overcome visibility challenges is to implement an agnostic cloud security platform that allows the application of customised security policies to better protect the multi-cloud and on-prem environments from all types of security threats.
It’s been predicted that the world will store more than 200 zettabytes of data by 2025, with 50% of all data to be stored in the cloud.
The exponential growth of big data is difficult to perceive. But to put that number into context, the amount of data in the entire world was estimated to be 44 zettabytes at the dawn of 2020, so by 2025, 50% more data than what the entire world is currently using will be stored in cloud-based platforms.
The staggering numbers confirm that cloud use, and the continued adoption of cloud services, will increase exponentially.
Businesses looking to use cloud services safely and securely should place focus on automating one thing at a time at each layer of the cloud stack, with a view to being more secure than they were yesterday while instilling better practices for a more secure tomorrow.
By Willem Barnard, Business Development Manager and Alliances, and Christo Esterhuizen, Cloud Development at Trend Micro.
Edited by Luis Monzon
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