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cross cloud world

With complex data storage now the norm, how can business stay secure?

  • min read
    • While firms in every line of business are planning increased cloud use, defending against the increased range of digital dangers needn't be time-consuming or expensive, even in a multicloud world. Almost nine in ten companies use multicloud – multiple cloud storage and processing providers – to power IT and store business-critical information. A whopping 80 percent use both public and private cloud. While these complex storage setups bring advantages, they make life harder for IT professionals. Recent Kaspersky research found IT complexity is becoming a top challenge for businesses, particularly securing these networked environments. How can leaders make sure it's all secure and manageable? Defending growing data worlds The number of employee and customer digital touchpoints that must be secured in the average enterprise is ballooning. Networks are getting more complex and the amount of data gathered skyrocketing. That data can be enormously valuable – if it doesn't get lost completely in the crowd of, well, more data. Meanwhile, high-severity cybersecurity incidents grew by half in just a year. Hackers keep finding new ways to breach defenses. "Cloud and online IT complexity expand each year as the magnitude of cyberthreats grow," Tim Rosato, head of trend forecasting firm Silver Lion Group, told me in a phone interview. "User accounts, information and logins are also traveling across more cloud networks, apps and virtual desktop environments." New solutions for multicloud enterprise This growing complexity has sent many companies the way of investing in automated endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms. These proactively scan for and eliminate threats. They're also implementing more specialist security products for hybrid cloud with controls that let you centralize security. It's all about greater network visibility and faster threat response across online workloads, software development and third-party apps. "We live in a multicloud environment. Our research shows malicious actors can take advantage of any unprotected cloud, gaining unauthorized access to the whole infrastructure. New solutions can help protect assets and remediate different kinds of attacks", says Marc Rivero, senior security researcher at Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT.) New digital identity management tools also help identify and authenticate users as they travel across apps, networks and cloud providers. You'll also want to routinely scan code and applications, networked systems and connected devices for potential points of compromise, closing loopholes before they get used. Simple actions can also lower odds of compromise further, like adopting zero-trust security and multi-factor authentication. And you can't go past promoting security awareness regularly among staff, with training every three to six months. Back up data offline every 24 hours and test security teams' reaction times using exercises based on real-world cyber incidents. Data-mapping tools that track how information flows across your business, and which users have or control access to this data, can also strengthen your cloud defenses. They help you classify and cordon off data by sensitivity level, which may also be useful in regulatory compliance. Many clouds certainly don't make light work, but the growth of multicloud and hybrid cloud is here to stay. For enterprises, the challenge is making sure their security is up to scratch for this complex environment. The increasing adoption of solutions that use automation and AI, and those designed for convoluted cloud settings, show many are taking heed. But no matter how many clouds or endpoints, remember your people must be the heart of your cybersecurity strategy.
services multi cloud

Multicloud may be your cloud strategy’s silver lining

  • min read
    • No one expects to hear bonfire-roasted undersea cables were part of what inspired University of Hawai'i's interest in using the cloud. Galvanized steel conduits come out of the ground right where Honolulu's homeless population tends to light fires. More than once, the undersea cables have ended up cooked, leaving Honolulu with a quarter of its usual bandwidth. It's a novel problem, but the benefits University of Hawai'i is getting from multicloud are shared widely. More than 80 percent of organizations now use more than one cloud provider, say leading technology researchers Gartner. They describe multicloud as, "bringing multiple cloud services under unified management to serve multiple service models such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS,) Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS,) and multiple delivery models (public, private.)" Many businesses are testing ways to use multicloud in digital transformation, to reduce risk, avoid getting locked into using one vendor and get more of the services they need. I spoke with Brian Chee, co-host at TWiT: This Week in Tech – a network of nearly 30 tech podcasts and IT Specialist at University of Hawai'i, to find out how and why the university uses multicloud. He shares his advice for those deciding whether it's a good option for their business, or just getting started. Why multicloud? For Chee, it comes down to none of the major cloud providers doing everything they want. For example, since they've been wooing University of Hawai'i, Chee's been considering the value of Google Cloud. But as they've only just started providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS), he couldn't run anything custom on it without a lot of painful retooling. If he were willing to retool, Google Cloud would be economical. They have many and varied data centers globally, making load balancing and failover capability simple. He thought setting up global load balancing (GLB) on Google Cloud was easier than Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, but that will change, as Microsoft and Amazon invest big in undersea cables. Does multicloud mean chaos? University of Hawai'i has 10 campuses and 30 research institutes. Its IT group acts more like an Internet Service Provider (ISP.) They provide connectivity to the research and instruction units, but departments buy their own equipment and services. Brian says between them, departments use almost all the cloud providers he's heard of. Recently they've started turning the corner and using private cloud. It delivers services through IT infrastructure used only by their organization. About three years ago, they deployed a system based on VMware so they could pool resources and provision systems through a portal. On top of that, Chee says university departments want a hybrid cloud environment. He knows some are experimenting with Microsoft Azure, who has a deal on trial machines for educational institutions. He uses Amazon Web Services' Glacier for data archiving with a failover: An alternative destination if there's disruption on the original transfer method. Getting started with multicloud There's no "one size fits all" solution Multicloud can happen by circumstance rather than design. Kaspersky's Andrey Pozhogin explains: "When changes happen – like a company restructure, merger or acquisition – the IT team are suddenly managing a very different technical infrastructure stack. How to best resolve this is a unique decision based on your needs. There is no cookie-cutter solution." Know your needs from your wants Chee says, start by making two lists, "needs" and "wants." When you test drive, use these to decide where to place workloads. Proof of concept (POC) As they offer deals for test-driving, you should set up test runs with the major cloud service providers. Try to verify the claims in their brag sheets and marketing materials. This is important because all the big players are different. "Too many people just believe salespeople," says Chee. "Independent, unbiased testing is almost non-existent nowadays." Find a cloud-agnostic dashboard Look for a dashboard that gives you one-touch capability on every switch port, several views into the inter-device path and the health of everything connected to it. Switch ports can be physical or virtual, as long as they talk SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol.) Chee says market pressure means vendors are moving their dashboards toward this kind of functionality. Always have security top of your mind Chee thinks security is lagging behind DevOps. "They tend to be separate tools. SecOps hasn't caught up with the DevOps folks or a single pane of glass yet, but they're getting there." He's only heard of one tool, TotalView by PastSolutions, that combines DevOps and SecOps, but expects more are on the way. Reducing multicloud risk People often think trying to set up failover between cloud providers is complex. Not so much anymore, says Chee. "For cloud providers to stay competitive, they've had to develop Application Programming Interface (API) sets to manage and control IaaS and SaaS images remotely." Another good thing to include in your proof of concept. If they don't lead by example, the rest of the company will keep bad habits like weak passwords, using sticky notes and personal web browsing on company equipment. The C-suite must also be willing to invest in cybersecurity training and company-wide licenses for security tools like password vaults. Portability is the future Chee thinks the flexibility to move applications and data from one cloud provider to another will be critical in the next few years, and he says things are happening there. "It shouldn't be long before I can shop complex mathematical tasks around various computing clusters worldwide to find the best price. I think that kind of portability is just half a dozen years away." Businesses are choosing multicloud to diversify where they place their workloads among the major cloud service providers, taking advantage of their strengths.
switching cybersecurity questions

10 questions to find out if your endpoint security measures up

  • min read
    • The digital perimeter around businesses has changed a lot in the past decade, with cloud computing, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and the internet of things (IoT,) to name but a few. For many, this has meant a radical rethink of their endpoint protection. Companies might do the same because they've outgrown their provider or lost trust when the protection has let them down. If you're thinking about changing your cybersecurity dance partner while you're in good company, it's important to think through your decision. And it's important to take stock and question if your current solution is going to be good enough to face oncoming threats. Kaspersky's white paper, Time to switch — updating endpoint security: Why now is the time to act, recommends you ask these questions. 1. What do independent test results say? If another vendor is claiming their product is better than what you've got, be sure to check whether their claims match up with what independent test labs find. These labs use cybersecurity experts to examine and evaluate features rigorously. Look at different labs' results carefully, because there are differences in the performance of different products. For example, AV-Test gave only one company's endpoint protection top marks in detecting fileless attacks. Look at the results of several tests and see which products consistently score near the top of the list. 2. Can your threat prevention cope with the most sophisticated attacks? With threats becoming ever more sophisticated by the day, products designed a decade back may not be able to cope with them. Endpoint protection that has a behavioral engine does the job. A behavioral engine detects fileless threats at the execution stage by analyzing execution patterns, spotting the fileless attack among a myriad of legitimate processes. It then isolates the threat and restores user data. It also blocks vulnerabilities to prevent this happening in the first place. 3. Is it giving you enough management flexibility? Older endpoint security technologies may not be designed for a heavily clouded IT sky. The cloud has led many companies to change how they do things, such as moving away from a centralized data center view of the world. They find it saves money and is more flexible. Security tools should be able to control new attack vectors that come with infrastructure change as well as the old ones. No company wants to get lost in a forest of different management tools. Your solution should handle it all – cloud and on-premise – equally well from a central console, also known as a 'single pane of glass.' 4. Does it support remote work? The lockdowns around the world that followed the COVID-19 pandemic showed employees must be able to work from home, among other places. Corporate networks need to be secure and resistant to attack from outside, but by definition, remote workers are outside that network. Existing software may not be able to handle it. For secure remote working, your endpoint protection platform must be able to secure endpoints remotely. This is especially challenging when employees are using older operating systems. 5. Got automation? Reducing human interaction gives your organization a boost in controlling unwanted activity. This is particularly true when using cloud because allocating workload becomes more complex. There are modern security systems geared for this, often using artificial intelligence (AI.) AI-driven tools like Adaptive Anomaly Control bring automation to the task of sorting legitimate from nefarious activity, and constantly improves with machine learning. Businesses find these kinds of tools can significantly reduce staffing costs and related overheads. 6. Can it meet specialized needs? On top of fileless attack protection, endpoint security most often comes unstuck on desktop firewall, ransomware protection and anti-exploit technology. As an example of why this matters, ransomware is a growing threat facing all organizations. To be effective, the software must protect not only impacted files, but also the disk to keep the master boot record intact. Look at your specific needs and see if your security vendor offers that level of protection. 7. Is there enhanced visibility with endpoint detection and response (EDR?) You need to be able to act fast on threats. To be effective, threat blocking should be married with analyzing the root cause. EDR blocks threats and ensures attacks don't hit other parts of the corporate infrastructure. It lets you see into all endpoints, for protection and threat analysis. And no matter how complex the attack, security managers have a real-time view of the threat. All this means faster response to a security incident. 8. Does it have an effective sandbox for advanced threat protection? Where threats are designed to bypass endpoint detection, sandboxes give an extra layer of security to automate detection and response. The sandbox isolates and detonates malicious applications, to analyze and detect even advanced exploits in targeted attacks. It can be costly, because it usually requires a cybersecurity specialist. Sandboxes are most effective when they're easy to install and operate, scalable and don't need specialist staff. Some endpoint products can't quickly identify and neutralize threats, for example, rules that detect and block similar malware attacks. Security managers should consider whether their current product gives enough control. If not, there are others out there that do. 9. Does it have data protection with encryption management? Integrated tools for data encryption come in two forms: Full-disk encryption (FDE,) preventing data leakage when a laptop is lost and file-level encryption (FLE,) protecting files when they're transferred in untrusted channels. You can also set policies that only certain users can see unencrypted files. 10. Does it have vulnerability management and system hardening? Many attacks happen through software vulnerabilities that could've been patched. It seems basic, but not every endpoint solution can check your system for preparedness and strength. Effective patch management makes sure you find security vulnerabilities early and take pre-emptive measures. System hardening reduces the chance of an incident by intelligently disabling some higher risk features and applications. Companies are adjusting their IT infrastructure to support growth and respond to a changing world. Many will find their security products are no longer fit for a new business paradigm. It's time to look again at whether your current protection is enough. An effective endpoint security product should be able to meet all strains placed upon it. It will handle cloud and on-premises traffic with ease, all from a common platform. It will use automation to reduce the need for human intervention. The vendor should be able to back their claims with reputable lab tests. Even with updates, having an older endpoint security system may mean your business struggles against today's threats. Switching to an automated, comprehensive system, your company will be better able to cope with sophisticated attacks.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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