Cybersecurity threats are an ongoing challenge facing businesses around the world, as technologies such as Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) continue to change the security landscape. From individual hackers to sophisticated state-sponsored attacks, the cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving and becoming more complex.
This ever-changing landscape means that organizations can no longer afford to become complacent when it comes to cybersecurity. Too often, organizations take a reactive approach to cybersecurity – rushing to respond after a breach or incident has already occurred. However, this reactive mentality leaves companies vulnerable and trying to catch up to the threat actors. Only by taking a proactive stance on cyber resilience can companies truly protect their digital assets, ensure business continuity, preserve their reputation, and maintain customer trust.
Simon Crocker, senior director of systems engineering at Palo Alto Networks, stresses the critical importance of adopting a proactive approach to cyber resilience.
“Companies face unprecedented threats to their reputation, operations and sensitive data,” he says. “Reactive measures alone are insufficient to protect against the myriad of cyberattacks that constantly threaten operations.”
The nature of cyber threats is becoming increasingly complex, with attackers constantly devising new methods to penetrate defenses, exploit vulnerabilities, and infiltrate networks. Crocker points to the recent disruption caused by the LockBit group to cybercriminals as an example, highlighting the need for organizations to stay ahead of these threats.
“By adopting a proactive stance, organizations can anticipate potential vulnerabilities and implement preventive measures to mitigate risks. They need to consider how quickly they can determine the impact and scale of a vulnerability within their environment, patch and reboot applications, and retreat within the CI/CD pipeline.” “
Furthermore, regulatory bodies seek to take stringent cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive data and uphold best practices. The EU NIS2 (Network and Information Security) directive aims to introduce laws to strengthen cybersecurity across the EU, and all relevant organizations are expected to be in compliance by the end of this year.
“Taking a proactive approach to making operations resilient online ensures organizations remain compliant with relevant regulations, avoiding potential legal and financial penalties.”
Build a comprehensive cloud-based cyber resilience strategy
For organizations to be proactive when it comes to building security initiatives, they must prioritize a comprehensive cyber resilience strategy to protect their operations and data. Crocker identifies the key components of an effective cloud-based cyber resilience approach, the first of which is building strong access controls and visibility.
“Implementing strict authentication mechanisms, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access control (RBAC), is key to building a comprehensive cloud-based cyber resilience strategy,” he explains. “Restricting access to only authorized personnel and ensuring strong authentication procedures reduces the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.”
It also highlights the importance of visibility across workloads, access permissions, and data in cloud environments. “Organizations need to consider how to achieve this in a comprehensive, consistent and scalable way, across a potentially multi-cloud environment.”
Continuous monitoring and threat detection are also important aspects of cloud-based cyber resilience. “Organizations must deploy advanced security monitoring tools and use technologies such as anomaly detection and behavior analytics to detect suspicious activity and potential threats in real-time.”
Monitoring cloud infrastructure and user activities and performing regular security audits and assessments can detect unauthorized access attempts, identify vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance with security policies. Finally, Crocker also emphasizes the critical role employees play in building a cyber-resilient organization. “Providing comprehensive cybersecurity training and awareness programs to educate them on cloud security best practices, phishing scams, and social engineering tactics will encourage a security-conscious culture and enable employees to report suspicious activities immediately.”
The role of artificial intelligence in driving cyber resilience
The role of AI in cybersecurity is evolving rapidly, as disinformation campaigns and the creation of deepfakes pose challenges to distinguish real information from fake, especially in critical events such as elections and geopolitical conflicts. Crocker points to recent reports revealing that AI-powered cyber attacks could bring down UK network systems within seconds – attacks that have already cost the UK economy an estimated £27 billion (US$34 billion) in 2023 alone.
“AI, on the other hand, plays a critical role in enhancing cyber resilience by augmenting human capabilities, automating repetitive tasks, and making proactive threat detection and response possible,” he says. “AI-powered algorithms can analyze massive amounts of data from multiple sources, including network traffic, logs, and endpoint activity, to find patterns that indicate potential security risks. This enables organizations to take quick action in response to emerging threats before they become problems.” Great security by detecting anomalies and suspicious activities in real-time using machine learning and predictive analytics.
AI can also be used to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of vulnerability management programs. “AI-powered vulnerability assessment solutions are able to automatically identify and classify vulnerabilities according to their potential impact on business operations, exploitability, and severity.
“Overall, AI enables companies to improve their cybersecurity defences, reduce the risk of cyberattacks, and enhance their ability to withstand and recover from security incidents through the use of AI-driven technologies and platforms.”
Emerging trends and challenges
Looking ahead, one notable trend will be the continued migration of critical workloads and sensitive data to the cloud, driven by the advantages of scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness that cloud platforms offer. However, this widespread adoption of cloud services also poses new security issues, especially with regard to data privacy, compliance, and governance.
“As data privacy legislation remains stringent across the EU and globally, organizations must ensure they have robust policies and controls in place to protect sensitive data and comply with legal obligations,” explains Crocker.
Another emerging trend in cloud security is the increasing complexity of cloud environments, driven by the adoption of multi- and hybrid cloud architectures. “As organizations leverage multiple cloud providers and integrate cloud services with available infrastructure, managing security becomes increasingly challenging. This introduces new attack vectors that require organizations to invest in cloud security tools and platforms that provide centralized visibility and control across heterogeneous environments.
“As cloud adoption continues to grow, cybercriminals are adapting their tactics to target cloud services and infrastructure to exploit vulnerabilities and steal sensitive data,” Crocker concludes. “To defend against these evolving threats, organizations must deploy proactive threat detection and response capabilities that leverage threat intelligence, advanced security analytics, and AI-based technologies to quickly identify and remediate security issues.”
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