1. Enterprise Information Security: Managing Cyber Threats In-House

The enterprise information security community is part of an enterprise’s architecture that focuses on cybersecurity. Its purpose is to ensure that business strategy and cybersecurity are aligned.

This community is arguably the largest, which is no surprise considering the challenges enterprises face. For example, Google discovers 40 billion spammy pages a day, often containing malicious malware.

The community operates not only within global corporations but medium-sized enterprises as well, with an expansive assortment of skills and expertise throughout the community that allows enterprises to largely manage their cybersecurity strategy in-house.

2. 3rd Party Providers and Cloud Services: Making Built-In Security the Priority

There is often an overlap between this community and the enterprise community.

Some 3rd party providers have emerged as enterprises themselves, while also plugging the gap when their clients don’t have the in-house expertise or infrastructure to support their whole strategy.

The distinction is that these communities have cyber teams that work on two areas of cybersecurity:

• In-house enterprise teams are tasked with defending their own company from cyber threats
• 3rd party providers offer security built-in, as opposed to bolted-on, to the products or services they offer

3. Legal Community: Risk Management for Highly Regulated Sectors

Risk management is particularly crucial in highly regulated industries, which has opened an opportunity in the market for independent risk management professionals.

This subset of the cybersecurity community is often made up of IT risk and security professionals providing independent services, or those from a legal and compliance background specializing in cybersecurity.

4. IT Auditing: Ensuring Compliance & Protecting IT Assets

IT Auditors are responsible for examining and evaluating an organization’s IT infrastructure by reviewing:

• Applications
• Data use and management
• Policies
• Procedures and operational processes

Their essential role ensures compliance against recognized standards and established policies. Although IT auditing has been well established for some time, the evolution of this role has had to further incorporate and recognize the importance of cybersecurity as it becomes increasingly important.

Not only that, IT auditors determine whether a company is maintaining data integrity and aligning its IT strategy with the wider goals of the business.

5. Security Vendors and Service Providers

Security vendors and service providers are the community within cybersecurity that specializes in developing tools and software that are licensed out to other companies.

There’s increasing overlap between these service providers and the 3rd party cloud services we’ve already discussed, as those cloud providers further integrate the highest security measures into their products and services as standard practice.

6. Consultancies: Augmenting Your In-House Expertise

Cybersecurity consultancies come in a variety of sizes, from fully-fledged consultancy companies to individual consultants.

The role of a consultant is to identify problems or potential security risks and weaknesses in existing systems, evaluate these risks by severity, and partner with their clients to implement their most favorable solutions.

Consultancies bridge the gap between available in-house expertise and the expertise required to maintain defenses against ever-growing cyber threats in evermore complex systems.

That’s why at RediMinds, we partner with our clients to identify their threats and implement the right identity and access management solutions to meet their needs with confidence, so they can continue to serve their customers and scale.

Read more about RediMinds Identity and Access Management Solutions.

7. Researchers: Finding Weaknesses Before Hackers Can Exploit Them

Researchers in the cybersecurity space are often referred to as hackers, ethical hackers or the red team.

The role of hackers is to improve security by conducting fraud red testing to play the role of an attacker. The goal is to locate any vulnerabilities in their clients’ systems that hackers could exploit. This information is then used to strengthen the weaknesses found, starting with the highest priority.

Large corporations often have their own in-house red team, like Google, or hire external teams, like RediMinds, to take on their systems and report back on their vulnerabilities.

8. Academics: Paving the Way in Cybersecurity Research

With more advancements and awareness of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity comes more interest and funding to push even more advancements forward.

Universities, labs, and other facilities that focus on the research side of cybersecurity are becoming more and more prominent with the extra funding, sponsorships, and programs being available.

9. Small Business Security: A Different Playing Field to the Enterprise Landscape

Cybersecurity for small businesses is its own community simply due to the huge difference in resources and depth of skills and knowledge compared with big enterprise companies and specialized consultancies.

This community is often made up of part-time IT workers or in some cases the owner or CEO themselves, acting as a one-man band.

This cybersecurity community often relies on 3rd party solutions with security built into their products and implements these for their small business clients.

10. Government: Protecting Public Security

At both a national and local level, cybersecurity in the public sector ranges across every area of government from IT to the military and intelligence services.

This community is similar to the enterprise community in that they’re working to protect a large body – except that body is the government and public sector organizations.

This community is highly regulated by standards and strict regulations that they have to follow, with few outside-the-box tactics that may be open to professionals in the private sector. Obviously, the microscope under which this community operates drives a vastly different culture from others within the cyber community.

11. Government Policymakers and Regulators

Policies and regulations surrounding exponential technologies are often playing catch up due to the immense speed of technology growth that we have witnessed in the past few decades.

This aspect of the cyber community is dedicated to that race of making policy decisions surrounding security and cybersecurity based on the latest technologies.

12. Trade Associations and Industry Groups

This community is closely aligned with other sub-communities like enterprise information security.

However, with the rise of groups such as ISAs, ISAOs, and Security 50 they are emerging more and more as their own sub-community of cybersecurity.

Where to Next: The Future of Cybersecurity

Cyber communities are forming and evolving across the board, committed to protecting everyone from small businesses to multinational enterprises, private organizations to government entities, and the military.

The growth in these communities makes one thing abundantly clear: cybersecurity will continue to be a topic at the forefront of the minds of every leadership team and governing body.

For our take on what’s next in cybersecurity, check out our article on the Future of Cybersecurity.

“Cybersecurity used to be relatively simple – like blocking off only 3 lanes of traffic. Now the number of lanes to block off is growing exponentially”

Madhu, Rediminds CEO

Let’s go over some trends and where we think the main cybersecurity concerns for enterprises lie as we head into 2023.

Changes to Fundamental Ways of Working

The Covid-19 pandemic induced a drastic and sudden change to the way we do things in business. Companies of all sizes were forced into survival mode, making immediate decisions and temporary procedural changes to keep functioning.

Now, as companies and individuals attempt to move forward, it’s clear that a lot of the new ways of working are here to stay. So it’s time to start building them into the fundamental procedures of our businesses – leaving behind the state of temporary emergency.

Remote Working

Pre-pandemic, remote working was something of an exception rather than the rule. But in such a short space of time, anyone who could work from home was doing so.

Some businesses have since returned to normal office-based work. But statistics show that more and more companies have adopted a remote workforce in a more permanent way. A recent study shows that in the UK for example, staff now only visit the office for an average of 1.4 days a week post-pandemic compared with an average of 3.8 days pre-pandemic.

With this new way of working, it’s vital that enterprises have cybersecurity procedures in place to account for an often substantial increase in devices connecting to their network, devices connecting from different locations, and making servers available – and secure – outside the office.

With this new way of working, it’s vital that enterprises have cybersecurity procedures in place to account for an often substantial increase in devices connecting to their network, devices connecting from different locations, and making servers available – and secure – outside the office.

This is what’s referred to as the edge of a network. For more, check out our article on edge cybersecurity.

The Flow of Information

Where information is coming from, going to, and how it’s transmitted is ever evolving.

And the shift towards remote working has made the need for cloud and hybrid cloud servers even more apparent, coupled with the increasing prevalence of the IoT (Internet of Things).

In 2019 there were 10 billion connected devices, which is estimated to triple to 30.9 billion by 2025. This increase in information flow brings with it added threats and more opportunities for malicious code to get into your network and systems.

It’s imperative that security teams recognize and monitor the open vulnerabilities and where potential threats could be coming from.

Harnessing Technology

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) models are phenomenal at identifying patterns and alerting IT teams to any abnormalities. Harnessing this trait along with the ability to analyze masses of data in real-time makes for an excellent solution to combating cybercrime.

So much so that IBM explains that companies with a fully developed AI and automation program are able to identify and contain data breaches 28 days faster than those that didn’t, resulting in an average saving of $3.05 million.

We have a full article all about artificial intelligence in cyber security, but here are some key areas to keep in mind for 2023:

IT Asset Inventory

IT asset inventory management is the process of keeping an updated record of all the IT hardware and software within an enterprise’s network.

Traditionally this was a manual process carried out by IT teams, allowing threats to slip through the cracks as the number of IT assets is ever growing:

• More hardware and software is adopted as the organization grows
• Old hardware is retired or upgraded to new models
• Users are both added and removed
• Software is and should be updated regularly

The adoption of AI and ML automation makes it possible to optimize asset usage and supports the mitigation of cyber risks by knowing exactly what assets are in use and identifying where potential threats are likely to come from.

This is especially critical given the recent change in how businesses operate as remote working means more devices operating on potentially unsecured wi-fi networks, and more software for cloud computing, storage, and communications.

Automated Malware Detection and Prevention

Every 11 seconds, a business falls victim to ransomware.

Hackers are increasingly finding new ways to bypass signature-based detection techniques – calling for a more advanced means of detecting and preventing malware threats.

Signature-based detection, although not without its merits, can only detect known threats.

Enter AI and ML-based tools that can detect unknown threats – by scanning software to search for characteristics, not signatures.

When abnormal characteristics such as software trying to rapidly encrypt many files or if the software itself has never been seen by the tool before, these characteristics can be flagged in real-time.

Passwordless Authentication

A staggering 90% of passwords are vulnerable to attack, which makes it no surprise that 80% of data breaches are linked to weak passwords.

Passwords are archaic and are one of the biggest weaknesses in the cybersecurity of organizations.

The introduction of multi-factor authentication, or better yet, completely passwordless authentication, should be an absolutely critical focus point for the security teams of every organization.

Passwordless authentication can be achieved with biometrics such as facial recognition and fingerprints. And unlike standard passwords, no two captures of biometric data are identical. Thus, intelligent biometric systems make a ‘judgment’ as to whether the biometric data is ‘similar enough’ to the data captured when the individual enrolled and it is extremely hard to replicate by a potential hacker.

Biometric authentication coupled with a secondary verification method like an OTP (one-time password) is the safest form of system access for both employees and customers.

Microsoft actually claims that MFA authentication is so effective that it prevents 99.9% of the 300 million fraudulent sign-in attempts made every single day.

Adoption of Zero-Trust Policies

Gartner predicts that 60% of organizations will embrace zero trust as a starting point for security by 2025.

This strategic approach is based on the principle of “never trust, always verify” and involves constant monitoring and re-validating of any digital interactions.

Business areas that require this constant monitoring and verification include:

• Users: By using strong authentication of user access
• Applications: By continuously monitoring run time and communications between applications
• Infrastructure: By monitoring anything related to a company infrastructure (routers, switches, the cloud, etc.) in a zero trust manner

The Human Element

Gartner predicts that by 2026, 50% of C-level executives will have performance requirements related to risk built into their employment contracts.

Meaning that the ramifications of lack of preparedness and risk management could be as severe as contract termination. That’s why management of the human element is so crucial.

Training the Wider Workforce

Although the adoption of AI as part of an organization’s wider digital transformation initiatives should be at the forefront of focus in the coming years, technology can only go so far.

Training the workforce to enhance awareness of cyber threats should remain a #1 priority.

After all, it is a person that clicks a malicious link, opens a fraudulent email, falls victim to a phishing attempt or mistakenly downloads malware to their device. Thus, one of the best forms of prevention is education.

Leveling up Your Security Teams

Building a security team with the right expertise ensures greater responsiveness in the event of a breach and proactiveness in preventing those threats in the first place.

However, the ever-growing complexity of cyber-attacks and a shortage of cybersecurity experts put leaders in a difficult position, unable to secure the right expertise in-house.

As an expert implementation partner in leading security solutions like Transmit Security and Okta, our team at RediMinds is poised to bridge that gap and partner with you to effectively execute the right security solutions to protect your organization.

For more information, check out our Identity and Access Management Solution, or get in touch to speak with a security expert about leveling up your security team with RediMinds.

Applications of AI in Cybersecurity

The areas in which AI is augmenting and enhancing cybersecurity stretch from protecting individuals against email scams to managing the huge number of IT assets held by multinationals to keeping fraudsters out of our online accounts.

While the list of AI use cases in cybersecurity is already impressive in comparison to just a few short years ago, it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of its potential and is constantly evolving as new and exciting developments are made in the space.

1. Automated Malware Detection and Prevention

Every 11 seconds, a business falls victim to ransomware.

The pace at which hackers are creating new versions of malware that bypass signature-based detection is faster than ever, requiring more intelligent means of detecting and preventing malware threats.

Signature-based detection, although not without its merits, can only detect known threats.

Enter AI and ML (machine learning)-based tools that can detect unknown threats – by scanning software to search for characteristics, not signatures.

For example, software that tries to hide from detection or rapidly encrypt many files can be flagged as suspicious even if the software itself has never been seen by the tool before. The tools can also scan huge databases of existing malicious software and block an attack if a new, modified version of it surfaces.

Threats come from all angles, especially now that more and more employees are working remotely and customers are more frequently accessing systems or services online.

File-based malware, staff downloading personal apps, trying new software, and using free plug-ins all create security risks for enterprises that automated malware detection can combat in a way that human intervention by IT professionals cannot.

2. Taking on Search Engine Bots

For any enterprise, the performance of its website is crucial, and bots present a critical risk to that.

With 27.7% of global web traffic generated by ‘bad’ bots in 2021 – a greater number than in previous years – that threat is only increasing.

These threats are skewing the picture of the typical user journey, inflating website traffic, and presenting more severe threats like account hijacking, fake accounts, and data fraud. But they can’t be tackled manually.

ML models build an understanding of website traffic, determining whether it is an actual user, a ‘good’ bot like a search engine crawler, or a ‘bad’ bot that presents real threats to the organization.

This gives decision-makers the power to use this information to allocate resources towards preventing ‘bad’ bots from intruding on their systems or presenting a threat to their users.