CS Nov-Dec 2020

hacking surge
Adrian Rowley, Gigamon: a much stricter
privilege regulation policy is needed - a
Zero Trust one.
Joe Hancock, MDR Cyber: "Many of the
targets of sophisticated cyber-attacks are
nameless or their experience is tempered
by being part of an organisation that can
protect them.
many ways remain the same, points out
Chris Goettl, director of security solutions,
Ivanti. "This means businesses can cut
through this sophistication and prioritise
measures to maximise their cybersecurity
strategies. For this reason, they should look
to cybersecurity frameworks, such as the
CIS Critical Security Controls.
THE RIGHT MEASURES
"By following the top five CIS guidelines
and adhering to basic cyber hygiene
measures, it's possible to eliminate 85%
of modern cyber threats. Take vulnerability
management, for example: if IT and
security teams don't treat vulnerability
management as an ongoing process,
business infrastructure will be exposed,
as hackers can find and weaponise
vulnerabilities faster than these teams can
patch. Automating this process can further
protect the organisation by minimising the
gap between the onset of new knowledge
and remediation, reducing the period in
which cybercriminals can strike."
Goettl also recognises how businesses
have faced an entirely new security
challenge over recent months due to
the added risks of a remote workforce.
"For companies that weren't prepared to
support remote workers, this was a drastic
change. It's important that IT and security
teams implement tailored measures to
counter this drastic shift in attack surface,
as remote working looks set to continue in
some capacity for the foreseeable future.
"For example,", he also points out,
"patching a remote or fluid workforce may
require the implementation of a hybrid or
cloud-based patch management solution
that can implement patches to companyowned
devices and BYOD, and that won't
take up valuable VPN bandwidth with
update traffic."
With workers undefended away from their
offices and targeted by malicious actors,
companies must keep security front of
mind as they familiarise themselves with
the 'new normal', says Adrian Rowley,
senior director Sales Engineering EMEA at
Gigamon. "As flexible working becomes the
go-to, employees will be shifting between
on-premise and remote working,
combining user-owned and company
devices (not to mention personal WiFi
connections). This will make network
perimeters even harder to define and
to protect.
"Traffic flows will also be impacted,
with users switching from LAN to WAN
and back - so inspecting encrypted and
unencrypted data will be critical for IT and
security teams to keep abreast of potential
threats. Ultimately, the only way to drive
security in these difficult circumstances is
minimising blind spots and ensuring
unclouded visibility throughout the
network."
To create security resilience in times of
uncertainty, companies must move away
from the idea that any asset or user within
the network perimeter can be trusted, and
a much stricter privilege regulation policy is
needed - in other words, a Zero Trust (ZT)
architecture, he continues. "This security
strategy consists of scrutinising asset
behaviour and only granting access based
on this information, rather than based on
pre-existing credentials. Because it's
impossible to monitor what you can't see,
companies need a clear view of everything
that happens on their network to enable
a ZT approach. "What many businesses
haven't grasped yet is that ZT isn't a
product they can buy, deploy and use to
dispel their security woes," states Rowley.
"It's a mindset which must be applied to
every IT and security decision. Shifting
to a ZT model is no easy feat, but it's
imperative to ensure fool-proof protection
at a time when IT environments are
complicated by a fluid workforce and
cyberattacks are fiercer than ever."
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computing security Nov/Dec 2020 @CSMagAndAwards www.computingsecurity.co.uk