Highlights:

  • Today’s cyber threats and problems are even more challenging with IT trends like the widespread use of the cloud, DevOps methods, and the shortening of development cycles.
  • Holistic cyber resilience is the way forward to protect company assets and ensure business continuity.

Cybersecurity has always been critical, but it has become more important today. Cyberattacks are getting worse and more common every passing day. At the same time, it is facing the urgent problem of technological revolution. The tech revolution is driven by remote work, a lack of skilled workers, and the rapid growth of cloud deployments. These changes make it essential for organizations to secure environments ahead of time, avoid risks, and respond quickly to cyberattacks.

While IT organizations have the talent and skills to deal with cybersecurity problems, most don’t have the skills and knowledge to deal with the growing number of threats. This blog will deliberate on how security leaders can navigate cybersecurity challenges by setting the tone for their teams and implementing a process that can mitigate stress and shift the focus to driving real organizational change.

The goal is to have more robust programs that can effectively and efficiently meet the needs of today’s security landscape, which is getting increasingly complicated.

Reality check on today’s threat landscape

Talking about cyber threats, the biggest concern pertains to network, platform, web applications, and OS threats. The emergence of IT trends such as DevOps methodologies and the condensing of development cycles have made it difficult for organizations to address cyber issues. Threats are also generated by the use of new technologies and the exposure of data, including greater uses of the cloud, IoT, applications, and AI/machine learning, constantly evolving security threats and attack methods, and exposure caused by increased digital operations and remote work.

Cloud security maturity — actual preparedness vs perceived 

News stories about major security breaches continue to put us in shock and make us wonder how they could happen in a world that’s technologically so advanced. Organizations either are well-handled to face cybersecurity now or plan to be able to do so in the next three years. According to IBM, 74% of organizations admit that their cybersecurity plans are either ad hoc, applied inconsistently, or have no plans at all.

With the cyber threat landscape constantly evolving and regulatory demands becoming more complex, organizations cannot afford to operate under misconceptions that lure them into a false sense of security. A common error enterprises make is they believe they are fully prepared to cope with cyberattacks in all areas.

In reality, their perceived cybersecurity strength may not be what it seems. Many are not fully prepared to prevent a breach through the three primary areas of attack: People, processes, and technologies.

A mature cybersecurity program calls for significant and constant attention to people, processes, and technology. One of the key elements of a strong security posture is an organization’s ability to anticipate threats before they happen. In today’s high-risk environment, failing to put this kind of proactive approach is a chance organization cannot afford to take. In the face of the unknown, what’s required are mature practices in cloud security and clear, proactive strategies that can set them up for success.

No matter how much organizations express confidence in their ability to implement and execute cybersecurity strategies, the reality is that cybersecurity is not a mature, well-established principle or culture within their companies. Largely, organizations still struggle to implement robust cybersecurity programs and rely heavily on aging, traditional methods of cybersecurity rather than modern cloud-centric processes. Signs of mature cybersecurity include cloud-centric solutions and security built into DevOps.

Cybersecurity can be integrated across the following:

  • People: Besides having mature security practices, security must be a part of the decision-making process.
  • Technology: When making any technological decision, security tools must be kept in mind.
  • Process: There should be a sound understanding of cybersecurity and best practices across an organization.

Cloud security investment

Some crucial factors driving security investments for an organization include getting rid of possible risks and dangers, improving the tools and processes already in place, and building cybersecurity skills.

Typically, organizations invest in different areas, such as antivirus software, virtual private networks (VPNs), and firewalls. And as businesses improve their cybersecurity, these tools will likely continue to be a standard – yet essential – investment for them over the next three years. Other joint investments in cybersecurity include management of the security posture of the cloud and compliance with the cloud, tools to protect databases, data encryption, and workload protections in the cloud.

Threats go up — budgets stay flat. Despite the reality of rising threats and breach opportunities, respondents anticipate that their budgets will remain flat over the next three years. They even predict that relative spending will stay the same across categories.

But with cybersecurity being a vast field, organizations often struggle to find a good balance between money and safety. Even though there are more threats and chances for breaches, cloud security budgets remain the same for most organizations. A growing number of cyberattacks and their increasingly complex nature call for organizations to maximize their budgets. It must not be forgotten that the prime goal is not just to purchase more tools to chase the growing number of vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity must primarily focus on safeguarding the assets – and minimizing the fallout of attacks – that are most relevant to overall vital business operations. Yet, the scope for risk will always be there.

Getting better at cybersecurity to deal with the threats

Global research aims to help businesses build and protect their IT environments. The following steps can lead to a more mature cybersecurity program:

  • Make an assessment of the level of security within your organization.
  • Invest in the right people, processes, and technologies to improve your cybersecurity posture to keep pace with today’s growing threats.

Assess — Find out the magnitude of the risk and the level of maturity

Organizations must walk a fine line when devising and implementing their cybersecurity strategies. Consider the following things when evaluating the cybersecurity strategy of your business:

  • What’s the status of your computing landscape right now and where do you want to be in the next few years?
  • What have you been able to do with cloud-native security tools and processes so far, and what do you hope to do in the future?
  • Gauge your company’s investments in new technologies or plans to invest in them in the near future.
  • The gaps in your organization’s security landscape.

The answers to the above will help you build a foundation of how and what your organization’s cybersecurity strategy should be. Cybersecurity hurdles can be overcome with the help of mature security practices and resources in terms of people, processes, and technologies.

Invest—Raise proactive integration, building, and response planning

Most organizations want to maintain cybersecurity capabilities in-house. But it’s hard for them to gain the money, talent, and knowledge they need to solve their cybersecurity problems. Organizations look for outside partners to meet their cybersecurity needs when they don’t have the right skills in-house.

IT leaders do wish to work with the right people when it comes to cybersecurity. Some of the important questions that organizations and potential cybersecurity service providers should talk about are:

  • Which cybersecurity tasks need to be managed vs task performance?
  • Current capabilities vs the ideal cybersecurity state of an organization.
  • Analyze the current technology landscape and its status over the next few years.
  • Internal barriers that mar successful cybersecurity implementation.

In conclusion

In today’s ever-more-connected environment, organizations cannot just afford to remain content with minimum security, given that attackers are always on the roll, diversifying ways to attack.

To counter present and future attacks, organizations must adopt a holistic approach that addresses not just technology, people, and skills but processes and governance. While many businesses have already embraced a holistic cyber resilience posture, the results have been encouraging: They have been able to detect breaches and stop attacks faster while also fixing breaches faster and more effectively.

Many businesses are yet to embrace the novel approach to cybersecurity as required by a rapidly expanding digital world. Holistic cyber resilience is the way forward to protect company assets and ensure business continuity in a threat landscape that is constantly shifting and becoming more diverse.