TekTalk Insights

Top CyberSecurity Trends of 2019

Staying current with the latest cybersecurity threats and initiatives is critical to strengthening your relationship with customers – even if you don’t currently source security services for them. As trusted technology consultants, you are always one incident away from an emergency phone call from a customer in a tight spot, and in need of a partner with effective and efficient solution.

At TekEfficient, it is our goal to arm you with the knowledge, resources, and suppliers to ensure your customers never get to that phone call, because you were there to set them up for success.

Here’s a quick update on the most current cybersecurity trends.

TOP 10 SECURITY PROJECTS OF 2019 ACCORDING TO GARTNER

1. Privileged Access Management
Multi-factor authentication for all admins and PAM for third-party access.

2. CARTA-inspired vulnerability management
CARTA – Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust Assessment – is Gartner’s strategic concept for information security. Risk-based approach to patch management that focuses on systems and vulnerabilities with higher risk.

3. Detection and response
Mean time to detect and respond is the new standard for effective security against attackers. As only 20% of endpoints are protected by endpoint detection and response (EDR), there’s a lot of room for improved security here.

4. Cloud security posture management (CSPM)
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB). CSPM is focused more on the operational aspects of enterprises than CASB or cloud workload protection, such as monitoring, DevSecOps and risk identification.

5. Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
CASB is for enterprises looking for visibility and central management of policy and governance across multiple cloud services.

6. Business email compromise (BEC)
A business email compromise (BEC) attack steals funds or sensitive data by exploiting normal business processes using pure social engineering tactics rather than malicious URLs or attachments and thus bypasses traditional security processes. Enterprises need technology that can inspect message context by looking at the trustworthiness and authenticity of the sender. Security awareness training and web browser isolation are other controls.

7. Dark data discovery project
“Dark data” is data that was once operationally valuable but over time has become “dark,” meaning it has unknown risks and no value.

8. Incident response
Security incidents are inevitable, but having an incident response vendor on retainer “is not a replacement for good security processes and preparedness.”

9. Container security
More than half of enterprises have at least one container-based application in development or production, making container security a growing need. “Make sure these are secured from inception.”

10. Security ratings services
A security ratings services project focused on risks associated with digital ecosystems, going beyond internal security posture, to the supply chain, regulators, customers and partners.

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TOP 5 SECURITY THREATS OF 2019 ACCORDING TO ZDNET

1. Cryptojacking
Ransomware has been one of the biggest threats impacting businesses in the past two years, exploiting basic vulnerabilities including lack of network segmentation and backups. Today, threat actors are employing the same variants of ransomware previously used to encrypt data to ransom an organization’s resources or systems to mine for cryptocurrency — a practice known as cryptojacking or cryptomining. The rise of cryptojacking means the argument that many SMB leaders used in the past — that their business was too small to be attacked — goes out the window.

2. Internet of Things (IoT) device threats
Companies are adding more and more devices to their infrastructures. Maintenance is often the last consideration when it comes to IoT. Organizations that want to stay safe should require that all IoT devices be manageable and implement a process for updating them.

3. Geopolitical risks
More organizations are starting to consider where their products are based or implemented and where their data is stored, in terms of cybersecurity risks and regulations. If organizations do not consider location and geopolitical risk, those that store data in a third party or a nation state that is very sensitive will run the risk of threat actors or nation state resources being used against them.

4. Cross-site scripting
Organizations struggle to avoid cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks in the development cycle. More than 21 percent of vulnerabilities identified by bug bounty programs are XSS areas, making them the leading vulnerability type. XSS attacks allow adversaries to use business websites to execute untrusted code in a victim’s browser, making it easy for a criminal to interact with a user and steal their cookie information used for authentication to hijack the site without any credentials. Security teams often discount the severity of this attack. But bug bounty programs can help identify XSS attacks and other weaknesses in your systems.

5. Mobile malware
Mobile devices are increasingly a top attack target — a trend rooted in poor vulnerability management. But the analyst firm said many organizations that try to deploy mobile device management (MDM) solutions find that privacy concerns limit adoption. The biggest pain point in this space is the Android installed base. Organizations should ensure employee access to an anti-malware solution. Even if it’s not managed by the organization, this will alleviate some security concerns.

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Additional CyberSecurity Resources / Articles from ZDNet

• Cheat sheet: How to become a cybersecurity pro (TechRepublic)
• Phishing attacks: A guide for IT pros (TechRepublic download)
• Information security policy template download (Tech Pro Research)
• Online security 101: Tips for protecting your privacy from hackers and spies (ZDNet)
• The best password managers of 2018 (CNET)
• Cybersecurity and cyberwar: More must-read coverage (TechRepublic on Flipboard)