The constant desire for value maximization has dictated businesses to evolve and transform their operations. They are open to adopting the latest technologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Today, technology is changing rapidly, and related trends, good or bad, cannot be ignored. For most enterprises, malicious cybersecurity activities and trends are not going anywhere soon.
The best way for enterprises to deal with these fast-paced cybersecurity threats is to devote their energies to implementing the right tools and strategies. Cybersecurity Mesh is one such strategy that has dramatically helped businesses prepare for what might come.
Before going into the details of a Cybersecurity Mesh, we will briefly touch upon the ongoing cybersecurity trends, which are incredibly relevant in today’s digital domain.
Related: The Top Cyber Security Challenges for the Year 2022
Expansion in the Attack Surface
The rapid increase in enterprises’ attack surface/ is mainly because of two factors: Rapid Digitalization and Hybrid work environments. The advantages of both are so high that it is not wise for businesses to discontinue either of them. What they can do instead is to have a robust security posture to deal with ever-increasing cyber-attacks.
Presently, around 60% of the workforce is remote, and out of them, 18% of the employees have stated their intentions of not returning to their offices anytime soon.
Rapid Increase in Ransomware
The pace at which ransomware attacks are taking place is alarming. The perpetrators of such attacks block legitimate users’ access to necessary IT resources, operations, or confidential data of an enterprise. Then, the attackers threaten to delete or publicly publish all these resources unless a ransom amount is paid.
Only last year, cybercriminals attempted 700 million ransomware attacks globally. This is a 134% increase from the year 2020.
Related: A Glimpse of the Leading Cyber Security Trends for 2022
Risk Attached with Supply Chains
In 2021, enterprises’ large-scale supply chains and critical infrastructures had to bear the brunt of most cybersecurity attacks. This shows that enterprise supply chains are not immune to these attacks and must be protected.
Change in Policies
The massive scale of cyberattacks has forced state-level involvement in privacy and security regulations. For instance, Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act was passed to regulate cyber security initiatives, and the reporting mechanisms/protocols in case such attacks impact an organization.
Hackers Targeting Identities
A viral attack vector for numerous cyber miscreants is that they target the credential and identities of employees, particularly the ones with privileged access rights. The hackers have gone one step further and even targeted organizations’ Identity and Access Management (IAM) frameworks.
The trends mentioned above have emboldened cyber criminals to illegally fill their pockets, and inflict severe damage to businesses. However, it is not all doom and gloom. The solutions to combat these problems are even more resilient. These cybersecurity solutions will drive businesses towards a threat-thwarting future.
In this post, we will talk about one such Cybersecurity trend that is gaining a lot of popularity in the business world, which is Cybersecurity Mesh.
Related: The Cyber Security Outlook by Gartner for 2022 and Beyond
What is Cybersecurity Mesh?
Today, multiple IT/ resources (laptops, desktops, mobile phones) of an organization are deployed outside the protected network firewalls of the enterprise. This is why it is important for IT departments and the C-suite to improve their overall security controls strategy.
The traditional perimeter cybersecurity defense strategies have unfortunately gone obsolete now.
Every IT resource (on-premise, datacenters, or Cloud-based) that needs security, is given an integrated security structure/posture through the Cybersecurity Mesh, adopted via interoperable technology.
This interoperable technology works with security tools to accurately analyze the data, and report any red flags.
Related: How to Responsibly Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cyber Security?
Examples of Cybersecurity Mesh
The following three examples will help you develop a better understanding of the various Cybersecurity Mesh strategies.
1. Siloed Technology and the Cybersecurity Mesh
A common mistake that many organizations make is that their security and identity solutions are deployed in silos. Cybercriminals, on the other hand, do not think in silos. A silos cybersecurity strategy will be dependent on its own set of data, rather than a holistic approach.
With the help of Cybersecurity Mesh, organizations can successfully leverage security intelligence by interoperating tools. These tightly integrated tools will enable key IT decision-makers to have a wider view of enterprise security.
Integrated security analytics and data sharing ability will trigger actions in multiple systems, whether on-premise, cloud-based or a mix of both.
The IT/ teams should look into their enterprise’s security stack, and search for opportunities that can enable seamless interoperation and tight integration.
Cybersecurity Mesh is a secure way to access and use an enterprise’s IT recourses from any location, through any device. It also gives employees or things (software, digital tools, etc.) the ability to defend their enterprises against malicious attacks and sophisticated cyber threats.
2. Decentralization of Identity with Cybersecurity Mesh
The increase in distributed workforce infrastructures has enabled employees to access Cloud-based applications from anywhere, as long as they have endpoint devices with a stable internet connection. As already mentioned, the perimeter security solutions are no longer enough for the current work landscape.
The best solution to this problem is to have a distributed identity tool woven into an organization’s IT fabric. Multiple identities will then be supported from multiple places.
In order to implement this Cybersecurity Mesh strategy, organizations should adopt Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). These will enable them to have capabilities like Adaptive Access, Identity Proofing, and Decentralized Identity Management.
3. Cybersecurity Mesh Allows Centralized Policy Management
Multi-cloud environments are becoming increasingly popular among businesses these days. It involves deploying multiple cloud platforms. These can be Private, Public, or an amalgamation of both. A survey suggests that 98% of the organizations that opt for Cloud Computing services prefer Multi-cloud.
Although a Multi-cloud environment offers agility, scalability, and bolstered resilience, since multiple Cloud Service Providers (CSP) comes with a different set of access policies, maintaining a robust approach to security controls becomes difficult.
Related: Cloud Computing, Cyber Security and Artificial Intelligence in 2022
This is where Cybersecurity Mesh can help enterprises develop centralized policy management, through consolidated dashboards. The cybersecurity Mesh approach makes sure that the security tools are flexible so that the decision-making can be split from its enforcement bit. The enforcement of the policy can be separated from the IT assets, resulting in across-the-board implementation and enforcement.
This provides a holistic view of the organization-wide security ecosystem, and in turn, improves the cybersecurity response time as well as efficiency.
Conclusion
A secure Cloud journey can help enterprises build customers’ trust and bolster the resilience of their business. From the very beginning, there should be investments in the right kind of security features and shared accountability across the organization. This saves organizations migrating to the Cloud from encountering unforeseen challenges down the road and creates maximum value over the mid to long term.
If you are looking for highly secure and compliant Cloud Hosted Virtual Desktop solutions, feel free to contact dinCloud, an ATSG company, which will improve the overall security posture of your enterprise.
