By Amardeep Sharma, CTO & Director, Praruh Technologies Ltd
The world that we currently live in is led by digitalised infrastructure. Everything that we see, for the most part, has a digital footprint. Organisations of the modern era have a majority of their information and processes secured in virtual ecosystems, where individuals, devices, and applications are connected in real-time across diverse geographies, platforms, and editing/viewing boundaries. With such hyperconnectivity easing innovation and operational productivity, the new workflows have brought new variations of cybersecurity threats that traditional models were not designed to manage.
As working assets and IPs are increasingly stored virtually on the cloud, Software-as-a-Service platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and Operational Technology (OT) systems, novel risks of cybersecurity breaches are surfacing. Previously, IT environments were largely untouched, but with sensitive information now being available on the internet and protected by a mere firewall, they are marked as an easily susceptible surface for attack. Hence, cybersecurity is not just about protecting a tangible workspace, but about the enormous data, workflows, etc., in the vast virtual world.
The Collapse of the Earlier Security Boundary
Year on year, for several decades, cybersecurity strategies have focused on the distinctive nature of the transfer of data within and outside the network. In these cases, firewalls, VPNs, and perimeters were put in action, given that the usage of the application was restricted to a centralised set of users. That model, however, is now obsolete.
Contemporary organisations have their workload divided among diverse cloud solution providers that are in turn connected through third-party APIs. Moreover, the organisations are dependent on SaaS tools for central business functions. In case of remote workspaces, devices connect from unmanaged networks. With data flowing between different environments in real-time, relying on network location for security is highly risky.
User identity and data are the crucial elements to be secured from cyber breaches in the current times, and hence, MFA or multi-factor authentication of every user, device, and API request must be mandated at all times. Security decisions have no room to be static and must be dynamic and contextual at all times.
Threat Perpetrators have Scaled, and hence Security must follow
The challenge of dodging cyber-attacks has become bigger with the manifold evolution of threat actors. Cyber foes are operating beyond manual or opportunistic efforts but leveraging automation, AI, and intricate social-engineering tactics to conduct attacks at scale.
What used to be a marketing rule, personalisation has become a strong pillar for phishing campaigns, thanks to the data available publicly. Malware is now being devised to adapt to avoid detection. Automated tools are now scanning cloud environments all the time to attack during down times, etc. As perpetrators have sharpened their skills in attacking swiftly, manual cyber threat monitoring systems and reactive controls are now rendered ineffective.
To tackle this hurdle in a robust way, security policies need to be flexible and revisited continuously, periodic audits must be conducted, and human-dependent processes need to be reduced subsequently.
Scalable cybersecurity is a mandate
Scalability in cybersecurity is about maintaining control in agile environments. As firms are continuously sharing workloads between applications, off-setting and onboarding new users, deploying applications, or expanding into new regions, security controls should adapt to changes automatically.
New-age security architectures must provide skeletal access privilege by default to ensure that all users and applications have access only to the information as needed. MFA at all checkpoints must be made a standard rather than a one-time event. Access decisions should also infer user posture, device health, and immediate risk stimuli.
Scaling up the security infrastructure through users, applications, APIs, and data is the need of the hour. A potential breach at one instance can lead the whole ecosystem to be at risk. Zero Trust principles are hence necessary.
Embedding security into the cloud-native World
While organisations heavily depend on cloud-first applications, security in these virtual workplaces has become a necessity. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) remains on the priority list for modern IT operations, allowing teams to define and deploy environments safely. Similarly, compartmentalisation of applications and Kubernetes orchestration have helped in adding structure to the seamless operations of software without any breach threats.
From manual compliance to policy as code
Apart from real technical threats, organisations are pressured by regulators demanding policy compliance at all times. With diverse regional data protection laws and industry standards seeing continuous changes in complexity, manually updating and complying with the fast-changing regulations is practically possible to meet. The effort has hence shifted towards policy enforcement as code. By putting across compliance requirements in user-friendly formats, companies can apply standardised policies across the ecosystem, automate enforcement, and populate tangible evidence without requiring manual monitoring.
Policy as code allows security teams to shift from periodic, reactive enforcement to compliance in real-time, architecturally. This effort helps narrow down the gap between security, innovation, and operations.
Building resilience that just defense
In the entirety, scaling up cybersecurity is about remaining resilient at all times rather than being reactive to just mere instances. While no company can guarantee being fool-proof in its cybersecurity infrastructure, resilience to limit the blast radius, detection of issues instantaneously, and a quick recovery pathway with nominal impact are what make firms remain relevant in this digital age.
To be resilient, organisations must have visibility across their entire digital estate and deploy thoughtfully devised automation to reduce response times. Resilience demands a seamless collaboration between various teams, right from Research and Development, Data Team, Developers, security teams, and external stakeholders.
As the digital world continually seeks ways to remain hyperconnected at all times to facilitate global business operations, security is no longer a function to be viewed as a department working in silos, but rather as a discipline that must evolve hand-in-hand with technology. Organisations that quickly learn about the need for this shift and strategically invest in scalable, cloud-first security infrastructure will be way better positioned to operate with confidence in an increasingly complex digital landscape.