There is a lot of noise about artificial intelligence lately - plenty of controversy regarding what it is and, especially what it isn’t. From a researcher’s perspective, neuronal networks are a powerful tool that enables automation of tedious big data tasks, but also one that also encourages experiments in other areas of research.
When the topic of IoT security comes up, it’s often considered a consumer security issue – fancy controllable houselights, baby monitors, home security systems, and anything else that can be networked. That’s a mistake and IoT devices are certainly marching onto the enterprise. Earlier this week Zscaler published results that took a look at IoT security, and they found a number of enterprise devices were comprised, as well as a number of other startling results.
Few industries have as broad an impact on other sectors and on society in general as telecommunications. Imagine trying to communicate with people without wired or wireless services.
Some 47% of IT professionals are unable to monitor workloads across clouds, while 44% agree or strongly agree there is insufficient network control and monitoring in the cloud, according to a Bitdefender survey on US IT decision makers.
There’s no doubt that enterprise environments are growing more complex by the day. Just consider the fluid nature of cloud computing and virtualization, the increase in the number of workloads, applications, and types of applications, coupled with the fact that they are distributed among on-premises and various types of cloud, and the explosion of mobile and accelerated adoption of IoT in recent years.
Could IoT be missing the mark? To get real value out of this technology, companies and even governments have to come up with standards and a coherent plan to let smart devices improve our lives as they are meant to. Right now, the industry is acting irresponsibly by only focusing on user experience to steal a march upon their competitors.
The main cyber threats companies are not prepared for are: outsider attack (43%), data vulnerability (38%), insider sabotage (35%), user errors (35%), and phishing (35%), according to a Bitdefender survey on US IT decision makers.
Recent industry research studies provide a clear sense of what’s happening in terms of cyber security spending—and it’s probably good news for many security executives. Investments in technologies to protect data resources are going up, likely a reflection of the greater emphasis on security at the highest levels of organizations.
Companies are slowly joining the bandwagon with hybrid cloud adoption, but Gartner estimates that it’s still three to five years from going mainstream. By the end of 2015, only 15 percent of enterprises have adopted it so far, although the demand for hybrid cloud is estimated to be growing at a compound rate of 27% a year, outpacing overall IT market growth, according to researcher MarketsandMarkets, cited by The Journal. The company said it expects the hybrid cloud market to reach $85 billion in 2019, up from $25 billion in 2014.
Most every business that is embracing DevOps methodologies is also deploying containers – or thinking about deploying containers. Currently, according to this story in Betanews, there are more than 100 products that currently use containers in agile development and they represent $1.7 billion in venture funding. “Eighty-eight percent of enterprises say they're shifting to a DevOps strategy, and containers are changing the nature of DevOps and transforming infrastructure,” Betanews reports.
An October 2016 Bitdefender survey of 250 IT decision makers in the United States in companies with more than 1,000 PCs shows that virtualization is a strategic priority, yet they are still not fully ready for the security challenges this environment brings. Hybrid infrastructures have become the major common architecture in the enterprise environment and CIOs have to adapt to the new world.
It’s absolutely true that, more often than not, security is a barrier to getting things done. Whether it’s a forgotten password, waiting for resources to be provisioned, or a risk-based decision that requires a new initiative to be delayed because potential risks are too high without some additional mitigation. However, when approached correctly and with some forethought, it doesn’t have to be this way.
A new type of attack using a legitimate Windows mechanism rather than code vulnerabilities has been found by security researchers, potentially used to carry code injection attacks that would go completely unnoticed by traditional security software.
As enterprises increasingly embrace cloud computing and cloud services, they must also adjust their cybersecurity spending to reflect the new reality of how they’re using (or not using) their data centers and business-technology systems. The fact that there is a shift in security spending because of so-called digital transformation efforts was made clear in the recently released Global State of Information Security Survey (GSISS) 2017 -- a worldwide study conducted by PwC, as well as CIO and CSO magazines.
