By José Manuel Gomes, IT Operations, Cloud & Security Associate Director at Noesis
Protecting your assets, systems, and, most importantly, your customers' confidential data is no longer a problem exclusively for security and information technology professionals. Dealing with and mitigating risks to help the organization's operational viability and sustainability is a transversal responsibility.
The technological leap was such that the incorporation of new technological capabilities and the development of cloud strategies increased, supported by flexible IaaS and PaaS models and by the race to consume SaaS applications.
This growing development of multi-cloud environments has resulted in increased cyber-exposure and high points of failure and vulnerabilities in networks and environments, which cyber-attackers have been quick to exploit.
With millions of employees working from their home offices and millions more consumers purchasing products from their cell phones, protecting confidential data has become critical. In an environment where cybercriminals are usually a click away, companies must focus on Security Architecture through a holistic approach that includes "smart" technological capabilities, including standards, guidelines, processes, and practices, which guarantee mechanisms to safeguard information and access security and privacy policies.
This vision can be briefly presented in the framework: Security & Privacy by Design.
Cloud-oriented solutions and services: that support the growing use of Multicloud environments, capable of controlling access at points where security policy must be applied, from on-premises to different deployment models. Intelligent Monitoring solutions can detect all types of threats: internal, cyber-attacks, filtering, data manipulation, and supply chain threats.
Compliance and Auditing Mechanisms: suitable for each of the different deployment models. The security of applications and the data that transit between them cannot be the individual responsibility of each Service Provider.
Data Governance: With increasing mobility and increasing adoption of SaaS applications and shadow IT, governing application usage in the cloud is essential to ensure compliance with E2E security policies.
Digital Identity: IAM solutions must have levels of sophistication that allow federating authentication across multiple environments and managing provisioning in an integrated and secure manner.
Cybersecurity Managed Services: Services that operate 24x7 with highly qualified and experienced talent, versed in cutting-edge technologies and proactive principles of threat prevention and threat neutralization.
Next-Gen Cybersecurity: More complex cloud environments and increasingly sophisticated intrusion schemes require more demanding, automated, and sophisticated paradigms and solutions, using solutions that incorporate AI and self-learning algorithms.
When asked how they approach the possibility of a cyberattack, most CEOs say, "There is a plan" and "It's in our top of mind." The experience of the last few months suggests that the most pertinent questions to ask are: is your organization prepared to face an interruption of a few days or weeks as a result of a cyber attack? How would that affect your customers?
Organizations must train themselves, in a structured way, with cutting-edge services and technologies that allow them to safeguard themselves against the growing number of attacks. Organizations and Governments need to understand the criticality of having a security architecture that protects their information and data.
Published (in Portuguese) in IT Security
