With more than 24 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices estimated to hit the market by 2020 and spending on IoT solutions over the next five years to reach nearly $6 trillion, organizations cannot afford not to start preparing for adoption.
It seems no matter how hard enterprises try, no matter what investments in security controls and processes they make, and no matter how much they strive to harden their systems, data breaches, data manipulation, cyber extortion and other attacks on availability are going to happen. Just like taking precautions to protect themselves from fraud and theft, or natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and fires. Industry takes steps to mitigate these risks, but can’t eliminate these risks. Cybersecurity is much the same.
Life in the SOC has grown a lot more complicated in the last few years as the major forces of cloud and software-defined networking (SDN) adoption have started to converge on enterprise IT in a very big way.
With cybercriminals making millions – if not billions – of dollars from ransom requests, companies have also been targets of opportunity. While file encrypting ransomware such as CryptoWall have been known to cause financial losses topping $18 million, variants that encrypt the NTFS MFT (Master File Table) – Petya for instance – have been raising concern, as recovery from it involves complete endpoint downtime and significant IT challenges.
It’s one of the more famous quotes about computer programming:
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
The Internet of Things and quantified-self movements have led to an explosion of interesting gadgets for consumers and households, and we've detailed the types of IoT vulnerabilities and attacks in smart homes in our latest research paper. But the IoT is also laying the foundations of a new way of working. It’s about using information technology to reshape how, and where, we work.
SMBs growth by far surpasses enterprise growth, last year reaching a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32% when large enterprises explored opportunities to split. Consequently, entrepreneurs have realized that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to build businesses, and that technologies can be easily incorporated.
Healthcare institutions remain among the most targeted organizations when it comes to hacker attacks and other security intrusions. These entities possess a wealth of data, including personal information that cyber criminals can use.
The major Panama Papers breach involving millions of files that reveal a complex tax evasion system developed by the richest and most influential people in the world was not a hack, as initial reports said. It was an inside job.
CIOs are becoming increasingly important as cybercrime inflicts significant operational, reputational and financial damage, and company boards fear losses that might ruin business forecasts.
There has been a lot of discussion recently about the need for improved cybersecurity information sharing. The catalyst is that the more information about cyber attack trends, vulnerabilities, and attack techniques organizations can share than the nimbler and directed and hopefully effective IT security defenses could be.
The cybersecurity jobs market is white hot and is showing no signs of letting up. How hot is the cybersecurity jobs market? Most recently, enterprise technology publication Computerworld, in its 2016 IT Salary Survey, reported that Information Security Manager and Information Security Specialist are both among the top five in-demand jobs in IT.
