Global organizations are working towards making data privacy a fundamental right. However, as the privacy paradigm shifts to a digital world, businesses are more exposed than ever before.
That’s because security has not been the focus of this revolution in IT infrastructure. With recent trends indicating a rise in attacks and vulnerabilities, it is safe to assume that cybersecurity professionals will experience more significant challenges in the coming years when it comes to combating data breaches.
This article will take a look at the cybersecurity trends set to change SecOps and how these trends can shift the industry towards greater security and privacy for businesses and customers.
Top 7 trends impacting SecOps
As more people and businesses go to the cloud to secure their data, the attack surface increases for malicious actors and their opportunities. Recent trends suggest that organizations are becoming interested in improving their cybersecurity practices to safeguard company and customer data. To that end, here are some of the trends that are shaping this paradigm shift:
Work from home culture
Since the past year, we have seen more and more organizations go remote. This new normal has given Security Operations Centers (SOCs) the new task of maintaining security for employees who send and receive important business data from their homes and mobile devices.
Since organizations have expanded beyond the four walls of office space, traditional security methods have become obsolete. As a result, it has become necessary to implement granular access controls and user identities to protect the data.
Many organizations have employed automation and machine learning to detect malicious activities in their system and quickly mitigate risks regardless of their location. Currently, automation is used for risk assessment activities, identifying threats, business analysis, and attack-surface management.
Attack surface management (ASM)
ASM is defined as the ability to discover, classify, and monitor assets within your network. These can include tangible objects such as laptops and routers and intangible things such as software and cloud storage.
This vast attack surface can be a potential problem, making it essential to find processes that can help reduce their digital footprint for organizations of all sizes. ASM tools detect the weakest information technology link within your network to pinpoint devices that can be easily targeted in case of a cyberattack. This technology is still relatively new, but its impact promises to improve the security efforts of any organization.
What’s the future of external attack surface analysis like?
Remote SOCs
Before 2020, we could see in-house facilities that acted as SOCs to offer a space for analysts and engineers to work productively in a comfortable environment. However, when workplaces across the globe went remote, their job became more challenging. It took SecOps experts several months to rise to the occasion and hone their skills to address the changing security needs of their employers.
However, according to recent surveys, most developers are still under-experienced because of the lack of exposure. Therefore, security experts need additional training and education to rise to the occasion of remote security management.
Red team exercises
A new concept has taken hold of the cybersecurity realm known as red-teaming, a critical security operation for evaluating your defenses against potential attackers. Red-teaming can help you simulate an attack and see if your defenses are good at warding off the threat. This helps create a strong cybersecurity posture for your organization.
It is essential to evaluate threats with the help of models. Although this concept has been around for a long time, it is quickly gaining traction among companies that are on the lookout for ways to enhance their security efforts.
Third-party security
Businesses routinely outsource certain processes to get experts to manage security and free up in-house resources and employees. The problem is that the growing need for SOCs in organizations makes outsourcing seem like a cost-efficient option. For some companies, it’s the only option.
Finding a strong SOC professional is difficult, and hiring them can be an even bigger challenge. This is why most organizations are more than willing to hand over their SecOps to third parties. Although there may be a clear security risk, organizations are put in a difficult situation and are forced to outsource their processes.
Luckily, privacy regulations all over the world create a contract between the organization and third-party before the operations are outsourced. This allows third parties to be held accountable, hopefully putting their reputation and reliability at stake as well.
Protective technology
Recently we have seen a rise in technologies that protect a person or organization’s identity online. The most popular is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) used to protect your information when sending and receiving data between your business and your clients. According to cybersecurity expert Ludovic Rembert from Privacy Canada, a VPN is one of the best tools to encrypt your data and communications while you are working over public networks.
“A Virtual Private Network (VPN) may sound complicated, but the idea is pretty simple,” he says. “A VPN is a service that creates a virtual tunnel of encrypted data flowing between the user (that’s you) and the server (that’s the internet). Other benefits include access to streaming content in other countries and hiding activity from government agencies.”
The cloud era
According to a study conducted by IDC, the world will have 175 zettabytes of data by 2025. This makes it virtually impossible to build enough physical locations to store all the data your business generates. This is why more organizations opt for cloud storage services than ever before, but this trend comes with security risks.
Organizations want ways to keep scanning and monitoring their cloud storage and checking for any risks or potential threats. Identifying a risk before it turns into an attack can save you from costly and destructive data breaches. Some businesses choose to crowdsource their security activities to get more eyes on potential vulnerabilities in their system and fix them before an actual attack occurs.
Conclusion
The looming threat of cyberattacks encourages organizations to optimize their security processes to keep their data protected. In addition, global privacy regulations such as GDPR compel organizations to safeguard stored data or suffer hefty fines. To remain compliant with these laws and protect their data, organizations need to improve their SecOps practices by keeping up with the latest trends in the industry.
This is a guest blog post written by:
Nahla Davies
Nahla Davies is a software developer and tech writer. Before devoting her work full time to technical writing, she managed—among other intriguing things—to serve as a lead programmer at an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Samsung, Time Warner, Netflix, and Sony.