Cybersecurity essentials for the future: From hype to what works

Cybersecurity never stands still. One week it’s AI-powered attacks, the next it’s a new data breach, regulation, or budget cut. With all that noise, it’s easy to get distracted. But at the end of the day, the goal stays the same: protect the business.

CISOs are being asked to juggle more, with tighter resources, more boardroom time, and threats that keep changing. Here are five areas that deserve your attention now and going forward.

Get visibility and reduce your exposure

Start with the basics, and know what you’re defending. Asset inventories should be real-time and complete. This includes shadow IT, unmanaged devices, SaaS apps, and third-party services. Automate discovery where possible and connect asset data to your risk processes.

“Visibility is usually the first thing to go,” David Doyle, Head of vCISO Services at DirectDefense, told Help Net Security. “The minute your organization embraces cloud-native architectures or starts connecting smart devices, visibility starts to slip. Teams spin up resources, add new vendors, and push updates faster than most inventories can track. Shadow IT and unmanaged APIs aren’t theoretical risks anymore, they’re daily realities.”

Doyle emphasized that visibility must extend “beyond hardware to include data movement, model ownership, encryption keys, and every third-party touchpoint.” Without that, organizations are managing risk “with a blindfold on.”

Visibility alone isn’t enough, so focus on exposure. Too many teams are buried in vulnerability data without knowing what’s truly reachable or urgent. Prioritize based on exploitability, asset value, and business risk. Misconfigured cloud services, public storage buckets, and forgotten admin portals often matter more than high CVSS scores.

Treat identity as the new perimeter

Most attacks target identity, not firewalls. Phishing, credential theft, and session hijacking remain common because they still work. MFA is important, but not enough. Review access, and monitor for suspicious logins. Treat identity governance as part of everyday operations.

“Identity and access management have been fundamental pillars of cyber defense for decades, but the increasing complexity of both software development and cybersecurity in general renders it deceptively difficult to get right, especially in distributed enterprise environments,” said Matias Madou, CTO at Secure Code Warrior.

He stressed the importance of CTOs aligning closely with CISOs to ensure security programs remain modernized and effective. “A good place to start is making a meaningful attempt at an internal Secure by Design initiative. This is a solid foundation for building software securely from the beginning, verifying and continuously enhancing developer security skills, and making smart choices around logging and monitoring, secure defaults and access control.”

People are the front line. Train them to spot social engineering and make reporting easy. Executives and high-risk users need extra support, especially with deepfakes and voice impersonation on the rise. Protecting identity also means protecting the people behind the accounts.

Build resilience across systems, teams, and suppliers

You can’t stop every breach, but you can prepare for one. That means having plans that work and testing them. Tabletop exercises should be routine. Include more than just the security team. Legal, communications, HR, and executives all need to know their roles.

“Security can’t be built in a vacuum,” Doyle noted. “Too often, I’ve seen risk and security programs developed in isolation, then handed off to the business with little context. That rarely works. Business leaders don’t want more policies; they want security to support their goals.”

To get there, security teams must “build strong partnerships across the organization. Connect early with procurement, engineering, legal, and operations. Define risk together. Agree on ownership and acceptable exposure.” According to Doyle, when security is a shared responsibility, “controls are more likely to stick and less likely to be bypassed.”

Think beyond internal systems. Your vendors and cloud providers must be part of your resilience plan. Can they keep operating if something fails? Can you? Backups, redundancy, and supplier reviews are as important as traditional defenses.

Resilience also includes communication. Who talks to regulators, customers, or employees during a crisis? Define those roles before an incident happens.

Use AI wisely and prepare to defend against it

AI is becoming part of everyday security operations for defenders and attackers. There are real use cases like threat detection, log triage, and automated access reviews. But these only help if they’re deployed responsibly. Know what data your AI tools use, and make sure the results can be explained. Avoid introducing new blind spots.

On the threat side, expect more convincing phishing, fake voices, and deepfakes. These tools make attacks faster and harder to detect. Train your team to recognize them. Update your detection playbooks, and treat AI-generated threats as part of your overall risk model.

Madou added that Secure by Design calls for “radical transparency” from software vendors. “Vendors who have made the Secure by Design pledge and can prove their security initiatives should have an advantage during third-party software procurement, as well.” He encouraged organizations to “choose vendors that care about security as much as you do, and eliminate as much software supply chain risk as possible.”

He also highlighted the role of data in improving identity assurance: “Precision identity and access management can be aided by data insights from developer benchmarking tools that can identify individuals who have met or exceeded minimum security knowledge requirements to commit code.”

Simplify the stack and speak the language of the business

Security stacks are often too complex. Too many tools, not enough integration. This slows down teams and clutters your view of what’s happening. Now is the time to simplify. Keep the tools that solve real problems, and retire the rest.

At the same time, improve how you talk about risk. Boards want to know what matters to the business: downtime, revenue impact, regulatory risk, brand damage. Avoid technical jargon, and make the case for security in business terms.

As Doyle put it: “It’s not enough to raise alerts or talk about vulnerabilities. You have to make it clear why the risk matters. Will it affect revenue? Delay a product launch? Erode customer trust?” Aligning threat models with business outcomes turns “security from a blocker into a business enabler, and that’s what earns you influence.”

Stay ahead of regulations like the SEC rules, DORA, and NIS2, which require more visibility and accountability from security leaders.