IT Trends & Technology

If you feel like the IT security and threat environment has evolved at a remarkable pace in the last 5 years, you’re right. Between the introduction of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), regular updates to compliance standards such as PCI-DSS and HIPAA, threats of ransomware and data leaks, and the continued growth of cloud services, it can be hard for any organization to keep up and feel secure.

Although cloud adoption is on the rise, there are still many myths about how secure the technology really is. In fact, according to a study of 250 global CIOs, 30 percent marked cloud security risk as the thing that they are most worried about.

There are certainly some considerations to explore in any cloud infrastructure—whether it is a single, private cloud or a hybrid, multi-cloud environment—but it is important to debunk the myths, properly weigh the risks, and flesh out the benefits to make sure you have all the right information to make the best decision for your organization.

FNTS has a long history of building strong relationships and partnerships with our clients. Our people pride themselves on delivering excellent customer service, and as we move into 2019, this continued focus on our customer will stay a primary focus. As part of the customer experience and our service delivery focus, we intend to:

From smart grids to smart meters, technology is transforming the way the utility industry does business. IT is being used to enhance operational processes and customer experience in a digital age where information security is trying to keep up with big data. To get an idea of the scope of data being collected, one only needs to look as far as the smart meters utilized by households. A single household smart meter can generate 400 megabytes per year. If you multiply that by 135 million smart meters in the United States, it equates to 54 petabytes, or a little more than half of the data uploaded to YouTube in a year. This data must be stored somewhere that is secure, so that if and when disaster strikes, it is protected.

Cybercrime is a continuous threat for organizations of all sizes and across all industries. If the news surrounding the data breaches at Marriott and Equifax are any indication, even global firms with large security budgets can still be vulnerable in the face of a seemingly endless barrage of sophisticated attacks. In fact, IndustryWeek recently reported a 350 percent increase in ransomware attacks against its members versus the year prior, as well as a 250 percent rise in email attacks.

Moving your enterprise data to the cloud can bring with it a number of benefits to your operational costs and the management of your information technology footprint. In fact, 83 percent of enterprise workloads will be facilitated via the cloud in 2020, according to a LogicMonitor study. However, with this growth in cloud services can come substantial risk.

Fortunately, by following some key best practices, such as those laid out in this article, you can help your organization take the necessary steps to strengthen your data security and mitigate the potential vulnerabilities of operating in the cloud.

In late November 2018, Marriott International Inc. reported that it had fallen victim to a colossal theft of customer data. Up to 500 million customers’ personal information was exposed, including passport and credit card information. The breach, which began in 2014 and continued until this September, is only the latest in a long string of high-profile cyberattacks making headlines this year.

Despite the eye-popping figures and high stakes, according to a McKinsey survey of corporate directors, the majority of respondents reported that their boards had, at most, one technology-related discussion a year. Similarly, according to EY’s 19th Global Information Security Survey, only one in five executives fully considers information security in planning their larger corporate strategy.

Like many other new technologies, the concept of security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions was born out of a problem that dogged IT professionals. However, in this case, it was multiple problems that couldn’t be solved with existing solutions.

Gartner, who is credited with coining the term, defines SOAR as “technologies that enable organizations to collect security threats data and alerts from different sources,” where technology and professionals can combine to analyze incidents, triage issues, and drive responses in a standard way.

Today’s Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO, is having a stronger and more strategic role in organizations due to more cyber threats, compliance standards, connected devices and stored data than ever before. However, according to a study done earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers, almost half of average companies today don’t have a C-level security executive in place. Now is the time for organizations to evaluate their risk posture and invest in an information security team that can adopt a strong cybersecurity culture that aligns with their strategic business goals.

Persistent security breaches, new investments in hardware, and a growing demand for cloud services are the primary drivers behind ongoing increases in IT security spending, according to a recent industry forecast.

In 2019, expenditures for security products are expected to reach $124 billion, up almost 9 percent from the $114 billion allocated for 2018. Recent high-profile attacks like Equifax, WannaCry, and Yahoo, to name a few, have prompted businesses to take a good, hard look at their security vulnerabilities and their abilities to detect and respond to increasingly crafty cyberthreats.

Research indicates that cybercrime damages will total $6 trillion a year by 2021—more than double the cost of just a few years ago. Part of that total comes from the growing success of ransomware schemes, which cost about $5 billion a year, up from just $325 million in 2015. These chilling stats point to one reality: Effective IT security measures are growing more important with every passing year.

As overall IT budgets grow tighter, it becomes more challenging to improve IT security. In a recent IBM security study polling more than 2,800 IT and security professionals, 69 percent reported that funding for cyber resiliency is insufficient.

While a recent study by SAP Center for Business Insight shows that digital transformation in healthcare is growing, the slow pace of that growth can be directly attributed how healthcare organizations are grappling with some of the most significant IT challenges. While the use and plethora of digital platforms have become standard, the resulting big data, the need for interoperability and real-time analytics, as well as the need for greater mobility and security, are all setting the stage for more challenges moving forward.

According to the Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, ransomware is growing at a yearly rate of 350 percent. That type of growth means that businesses face a scenario where it’s just a matter of time before they are dealing with ransomware. One way to protect an organization is to develop a sound data backup and recovery strategy.

The use of public and private clouds is now a cornerstone of an enterprise’s ability to innovate and operate with agility in an evolving business landscape. The challenge has been maximizing that ability while minimizing costs, vendor lock-in, and security issues that are inherent to the public cloud at scale.