Even with all the uncertainty in the world, people welcomed the turning of the new year as a fresh start. Cyber-criminals also welcomed 2021 – not as a chance to reflect and reboot but as an opportunity to build on their many successes over the previous year.
Hackers had a field day in 2020, costing companies vast sums of money. Among hackers’ many successful “ventures,” ransomware is booming, to the point where it’s predicted there will be an attack somewhere in the world every 11 seconds in 2021.
But this is not to say ransomware is the only tool in the hacker’s toolbox. Far from it.
With a huge rise in the use of new technologies in various aspects of enterprise IT systems, security threats have become much more sophisticated. But instead of trying to beat back all system issues using one cover-all solution, companies have with renewed dedication been pursuing a layered approach to cybersecurity.
The core intent of layered security is to form a series of barriers – not one of them impossible to crack or overcome – with the end goal is to make attacks much more easily detected, and thus less successful.
Many organizations take a layered approach to security; others, however, might want more information. Why exactly is it important that businesses take this approach?
New tech brings new risks
While integrating new technologies into a system infrastructure can help put an organization on a winning track in a competitive marketplace, it can also bring risk. For example, while providing flexibility and enabling productivity for people working remotely, IoT device endpoints are risk points, drawing a sizeable percentage of all attacks. On top of this you have new tech like AI and 5G, both of which bring both benefits and possible cyber risks. A layered approach can cover all these pieces.
Attacks are more complex and costly
One size fits all simply doesn’t cut it. Not anymore. Attacks (and those who launch them) are growing in sophistication every day, and it will require more than a stationary security tool to avoid, or at least minimize the damage of, a cyber attack. As most one-off cyberattacks occur through a series of processes called “cyber kill chains,” layered controls, being specific and overlapping with one another, are a company’s best chance of detecting attacks as they occur, or swiftly thereafter.
Compliance is critical
Organizations that persist with outmoded system security in 2021 are courting disaster, both from a financial and a legal perspective. A modern, layered security approach makes the grim prospect of having to fix a huge mess and pay out massive legal costs for violations of privacy less likely.
Hour of power
On March 31st, security consultant Laura Payne, iland Director of Cloud Protection and Security Dale Levesque, and Veeam Senior System Engineer Brandon McCoy will be getting together for a very useful discussion around the current risk landscape, and how a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity threats can help mitigate risk. A camera-on Q&A will follow, during which you can ask the experts any questions you may have.
