Tips To Ensure Cloud ERP Security

Data security is a critical problem, and business leaders are increasingly called on to help improve cybersecurity and detect threats. When switching from on-premise to cloud ERP, it’s essential to note that cloud ERP systems come with adequate security measures. And then, additional security and exposure controls would need to be implemented by corporations. 74 percent of respondents had data protection concerns in a new survey, and 53 percent said they had data privacy issues and data loss problems.

Ensuring Cloud ERP Security: Some Proven Strategies

A breach of data can impact company activities and have disastrous implications for the company. A few approaches related to cloud ERP data security include the following:

Developing A Security And Governance Strategy

Involve executives and all workers in building a framework for data governance and determining security standards. Cloud ERP systems integrate enterprise-wide data, so it is likely that several departments may be able to access confidential data. In order to drive growth and innovation, improved data access is needed, but restricting data access is not the solution; improved data security and governance are. Predictive analytics can help you detect and quickly address security threats.

Installation of Updates

When a threat or vulnerability is discovered by ERP providers, they repair it in the form of a security patch or software update. In order to protect ERP data from potential attacks, software updates are important. Cloud ERP providers often deliver security updates, and customers have the option to allow them to promptly patch the latest threats and vulnerabilities automatically. This is one of cloud ERP systems’ most significant advantages.

Ensuring IoT Security

Gartner estimates that at least 50 percent of enterprise applications in production will be IoT-enabled by 2024. IoT devices interact with other devices connected to the internet, making them prime targets for hackers searching for access to multiple sources of data. If you put in place reasonable measures for the protection of IoT devices, it would be best for you.

Securing Integrations

Cloud ERP offers minimal customization space but provides the ability to integrate several applications into a single cohesive system. Protecting these integrations is critical, so routine mapping of interfaces and APIs between ERP applications is recommended. Organizations must conduct routine security audits of cloud ERP settings to prevent hackers from deciphering the data and improve data encryption should they ever gain access to it.

Global Unified Access Management

Your Cloud ERP provider must allow you to globally manage access controls. Only approved users should be open to details across the enterprise. Unauthorized users are not allowed to access business-critical data by the RBAC+ABAC hybrid approach and Federated SSO to unified identity and access management.

Identity And Access Management (IAM) Capabilities

You have comprehensive control over deciding the correct access levels for users in your organization and revoking access when it is no more required. With a strong identity and access management framework in place, you can ensure that:

• Access to relevant data is only available to those users who are approved with enterprise-wide centralized identity management and federated single sign-on (SSO).
• Role-based access controls (RBAC) are in place to allow segregation of duty (SoD) and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information at the same time.
• Context-specific permissions are allowed by attribute-based access controls (ABAC).
• Users only see data relating to their job-specific activities. Managers program work positions that map to data rights and job functions.

Stable and flexible multi-factor authentication (MFA) and access controls are in operation, including SSO, user provisioning, and capabilities for hybrid identity management.

4 Easy Ways To Ensure ERP Data Security

Your ERP data truly represents your business in a virtual form. The ERP system includes all of an enterprise’s important information. With that in mind, your ERP data security strategy must be at least as watertight as your security strategy for your other business assets. Here are some ways on how to build a robust ERP data security strategy.

1. Define User-Access and Audit Regularly

For all datasets, every ERP user should have role-based access specified. Such access should also be divided into at least three categories: read-only, export-permitted, and complete access (including editing).

At the basic level, ensure that users log in to the ERP with protected user identifiers and strong passwords. Have new passwords needed frequently and irregularly. Via routine data audits, ERP data protection can also be maintained. Audit user accounts to validate their work duties need access to the data they are already allowed to use. Adjust access to ERP data depending on the current role if a user’s access needs to change because they have taken a new position. As these may no longer be needed, do not simply build on their current access levels.

2. Monitor Data Usage and Transactions

Create queries to track the use of ERP data in search of anomalies. Start by searching for simple objectives, such as users who approve payments for themselves. Start to look for patterns, then. It may be a warning that trouble is brewing if the transaction volume of an ERP consumer rises or decreases in an irregular pattern.

3. Monitor and Protect External Transactions

ERP data security is also more of a challenge for external transactions. It includes all cloud transmissions and even those related to in-house systems. Your connections should always be safe, and you should regularly verify your protection. Consider encrypting the flow of data beyond your control. The type of devices that are linked to your ERP should also be tracked. Do these devices comply with the BYOD guidelines of your firm? It’s time for a quick check.

4. Don’t Do Away With The Old-Fashioned Security Methods

For hundreds of years, basic manual controls such as segregation of duties have functioned and still operate today. Transactions (financial and data transactions) should be approved by at least one person not directly involved in the transaction. Another frequent security monitoring tool employed is sequentially numbered purchase orders and sales orders. Define formats for ERP data, including social security numbers, check numbers, and part numbers, where possible. It is possible to reject data not fitting the specified format from processing.

Conclusion

There are now built-in ERP data security features in many ERP software products on the market, but they should not be considered anything more than a safety net. The understanding of your workers and the vigilance of your managers are the foundations of a successful data protection strategy. The new solutions for data protection come with a broad range of features that provide robust ERP data security. They streamline enterprises’ data management efforts and also help them adhere to the required data protection law guidelines.

Identity and Access Management: Some Challenges

In today’s digital age, there are more apps that are cloud-based, more resources, more devices, and more users. 94 percent of Chief Information Officers agreed in a recent survey that the technology stack will be more complex in the future, with more apps, data, devices, and transactions.

Identity and access management challenges can be divided into three categories: compliance challenges, security challenges, and challenges of productivity.

Security Challenges

• In the Cloud, your firewall is of no use. Anyone can try to sign-in to your cloud apps.
• There is a spike in cybercrimes. Hackers have repeatedly attempted to gain access to corporate networks.
• Password spray attacks are almost difficult to block. Hackers attempt to simultaneously log into networks from different countries.
• A cause for concern is consumer breach. Staff reuse the same passwords at home and work.
• The same passwords are used by contractors when they move from company to company, putting your details at risk. They are, therefore, a liability.
• Employees are either busy, distracted or don’t care about themselves. You can’t pressure individuals to have better password protocols. Removing passwords with SAML Single Sign-On is the only way to solve the password dilemma.

Productivity Challenges

• Much time is spent resetting passwords. Password resets account for about 50 percent of helpdesk tickets. This is either operated internally by a helpdesk or outsourced to a supplier of services. For every ticket, the cost ranges from $5 to $50. It is, therefore, thoroughly unproductive and also costly.
• Similarly, a lot of time is spent logging in. Users need hundreds of URLs, usernames, passwords, and secret questions to be remembered.
• Cloud adoption has tremendous resistance. Consumers fail to change preferences and workflows when new applications are introduced.
• IT is burdened by sluggish identity and access management software and workflows. The key identity and access management (IAM) issue they face is getting too many identity schemes, 51 percent of IT decision-makers say. IT spends hours on needless activities of onboarding fresh workers, rolling out apps, and offboarding employees.
• Tools for legacy systems are antiquated and resource-intensive. A valuable IT budget costs legacy access systems. In order to accommodate the continued growth of cloud computing, they are decentralized, dynamic, and ill-equipped.
• Long and cumbersome processes for onboarding and offboarding make things complicated and uncomfortable. The departments concerned often complain about the number of resources and software and the access and permissions needed for new hires to be created.

Compliance Challenges

Enterprises need to pass audits and comply with all laws on compliance. Companies that are public or controlled sectors need to meet internal and external auditors’ standards and implement controls as required by compliance laws.

Many organizations, since the reports produced are decentralized and fragmented, must put together reports and audit trails across several different frameworks.

Conclusion

Today’s enterprises need to have the new data protection and analytics technologies in place, considering all the above-described challenges. These solutions simplify the tasks of an enterprise, increase performance, provide valuable insights into user behavior, and ensure robust data protection, with features such as Single Sign-On (SSO) and adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). They streamline the identity and access management of an enterprise by providing a combination of role-based access control and attribute-based access control (RBAC-ABAC hybrid approach). Therefore, they help to enhance the security posture significantly.

An Insight Into Various Types Of Security Threats

‘Data security’ refers to the protective measures taken to protect data from unapproved access and data corruption during the data lifecycle. The protection of data is an important function of companies of all sizes. In the process, data protection technologies are implemented that include tokenization, data encryption, data security solutions, and other key management activities that secure data.

Data Security Solutions: The Need

Data is the new business currency, and, hence, it is important to protect it from cybercriminals. To implement the latest data protection tools for cyber defense, companies around the world are investing extensively in IT.

In essence, organizations are keen on preserving three common components: technology, processes, and people. Intellectual properties, critical assets, customer data, brand image, and much more are covered by this.

Usually, remote devices that connect to an enterprise are targeted to tap sensitive data by attackers. This is where endpoint protection comes into play, allowing the network connecting devices to be secured and managed.

With the proliferation of computer networks over time, cyber-attacks and consequent data breaches are rising. It is critical to have the right strategies for data protection in place to meet the challenging risks.

Data protection solutions secure computers or networks from online attacks as they are linked to the internet. They seek to recognize the laws and regulations that are to be implemented against strikes on internet security. Network-layer protection, IPSec protocol, email security, data security, and system security are many types of security.

Data Security vs. System Security

Data security refers to an organization’s attempts to ensure that the information collected is not deliberately accessed or inadvertently removed or changed, tampered with, or otherwise misused. Security for devices coexists with security for data. System protection covers everything, including the network and facilities that an organization wants to guarantee. Simply stated, data protection is designed to protect information, and what protects computer and network information is the security of the system.

Outlined here are some of the common techniques for cyber-attacks.

Denial of Service (DoS) Attack: Malicious people will try to overload the network by trafficking it with lots of service requests, slowing access and network-reliant operations to a crawl, instead of sneaking into a computer network to steal valuable data. A standard denial of service attack can be avoided by blocking the IP address of the attacker. A more complicated type of attack, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, is difficult to maintain, however, as it requires many IP addresses. Many companies, however, offer data protection solutions that substantially decrease the effects of DDoS attacks.

Malware Attack: Malicious software/malware attacks are pretty common these days. Hackers gain access to the corporate network and then encrypt all the important data without a trace. In order to unlock your data, you need to get the encryption key, and you must pay a ransom. Malicious programs sneak into your computer or network through a virus or worm, so alert workers about the online danger of clicking on suspicious links or opening unidentified attachments.

Backdoor Attack: Programmers seldom leave codes open to allow troublemakers to completely access a network. Cybercriminals are, as a matter of fact, looking for and using the weak points for such exploits. Always be careful to review the code for all of your company’s customized systems and platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service providers and are not vulnerable to such attacks.

Direct Access Attack: Those who access physical assets in your business can easily access your most confidential information. Fraudsters who want to pick up data desperately can easily steal or smash hard drives, flash drives, and laptops into your office and copy the information they want. Thus, it is better to improve protection by offering employee training and information encryption.

With cyber-attacks continually on the rise, companies need to ensure that their data is secure, and workers need to have uninterrupted access across multiple channels at the same time. Plus, companies need to adhere to mandatory guidelines on data privacy. And data protection tools help companies accomplish these goals precisely.

Prioritize ERP Data Security With These Simple Steps

Data residing in ERP systems, being a treasure trove of critical business data, truly represents your organization. In the ERP system, all relevant information related to an entity is included. Considering this, for your other business verticals, your ERP data protection strategy must be at least as perfect as your security strategy. We have outlined some ways to develop a strong security strategy for ERP data.

1. User-Access Definition And Regular Audit

For all datasets, every ERP user should have role-based access established. Such access should also be broken down into at least three categories: read-only, export-permitted, and complete access, including editing.

Ensure that users at the basic level log into the ERP with protected user identifiers and clear passwords. You need new passwords often and irregularly. With the assistance of periodic data audits, ERP data protection may also be maintained. Audit user accounts to check their work obligations and to assess the need for access to the information they are already authorized to use. Modify access to ERP data depending on the current role if a user’s access has to change because they’ve taken a new position. As these might no longer be needed, don’t just build on their current access levels.

2. The Traditional Methods Of Security Still Work

For hundreds of years, basic manual controls such as segregation of duties have functioned and still work today. Transactions should be approved by at least one person not directly involved in the transaction (financial and data transactions). Another standard security management system employed is serially numbered purchase orders and sales orders. Define formats, including social security numbers, check numbers and part numbers for ERP data where possible. It is possible to deny the processing of data that does not meet the appropriate format.

3. Monitoring Data Usage And Transactions

Create queries while looking for anomalies to monitor the use of ERP data. Start by searching for simple objectives, such as users who accept payments on their own. Start to look for trends then. It may be a warning that trouble is brewing if the transaction volume of an ERP customer increases or decreases in an unexpected way.

4. Track And Secure External Transactions

ERP data security is also more of a problem for external transactions. They include cloud transmissions and also those connected to in-house networks. Your connections should always be stable, and you should periodically check your protection. Consider encrypting the data flow that is beyond your power. The type of devices that are linked to your ERP system may also be monitored. Do these devices comply with the BYOD guidelines of your firm? It is time for a quick search to get an idea.

Conclusion

There are now integrated ERP data protection features in many ERP software products on the market, but they should not be seen as anything more than a safety net. The knowledge of your workers and the dedication of your administrators are the foundations of a successful data protection strategy. A wide range of features that provide comprehensive data security through ERP is part of the latest data protection technologies. They streamline businesses’ data processing activities and also assist in compliance with the relevant data protection law requirements.

Tips To Stay Safe Amid The Explosion In Remote Working

It was commonly agreed, as 2020 concluded, that remote work was here to stay. In fact, during the first lockdown, 60 percent of the UK workforce migrated to a remote model, and the trend will likely continue long after the pandemic as employees come to demand more flexibility from their employers.

Although this may inspire office workers across the globe to celebrate the demise of the morning commute, there is, however, a darker side to working remotely. A remote working survey of 2000 US and UK customers reveals that 34% of firms have reported a breach since the pandemic introduced the remote working community of today – rising to a staggering 48% in the US!

OneLogin conducted the latest COVID-19 State of Remote Work Survey 2.0. This survey was conducted in December 2020 with 2000 remote staff from the US and UK. The survey was carried out online and broken down by nationality, country, age, gender, job position, industry, and seniority in a business.

The survey found that not only have workers felt pressure to return to their workplaces but that since they started remote work, 34 percent of those surveyed globally have encountered some kind of violation. This suggests that a large number of businesses have not set up the necessary infrastructure to promote the enormous shift needed by COVID-19 towards remote work.

The survey, which surveyed 1000 remote employees in the United Kingdom and 1000 in the United States, also found that US businesses have reported breaches at a far higher rate than their UK counterparts, with 48% reporting, compared to only 17% of UK businesses, and large organizations are far more likely than small organizations to have been breached: companies with more than 250 employees reported 26 percent more breaches than companies with 1-9 employees.

For an enterprise, all data breaches are profoundly troubling, and it is definitely a disturbing statistic for such large numbers to be recorded in duality with remote work. These results indicate that a large percentage of businesses, particularly in the US, were woefully unprepared for the onset of remote work. To understand the reasons why these violations occurred, it is important that all organizations – particularly those violated – conduct a comprehensive security audit.

Tips To Stay Safe

Another important move in keeping the enterprise secure from attacks is to ensure that the security best practices are followed by your staff. To do this, we’ve given some practical tips. For instance:

• Do not share your work device with friends or family members: 26 percent of respondents confessed to doing so.
• Do not download personal apps to a business device: 23 percent of respondents admitted doing this.
• Don’t work on non-protected public Wi-Fi: 22 percent of respondents admitted doing this.
• Do not share your corporate password with others: 12 percent of respondents admitted that they did this.
• Do not leave the business gadgets in a public space unattended: 10 percent of respondents confessed to doing this.
• Encourage your business to engage in multi-factor authentication (MFA), which provides you with several layers of protection: just 36 percent of respondents recommended the implementation of MFA.

Now it is known that remote work will continue well into the future. And cybersecurity, as always, will remain important for all organizations. Therefore, enterprises would do well to deploy the latest data analytics and security solutions. These solutions, with their best-in-class features, will strengthen the security posture of organizations and deliver robust data protection.

An Insight Into Attribute-Based Authentication

Every day, employees use so many applications at the workplace to do their jobs. It is indeed difficult to remember so many different passwords that each user has for multiple accounts. Those few whose identities have been stolen in the past know the value of security and privacy.

As a result, the effort to construct lengthy passphrases, use a password manager, or turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) is not considered to be measurably beneficial and instead done unwillingly. Doing so creates friction in the sign-in process. Of course, that’s the point; pressure isn’t one-sided in the case of authentication. It goes beyond attackers who try to gain unauthorized access to user accounts, IT apps, and databases rich in confidential information. And while security teams have sought to inject more leverage into the access control mechanism in the past, they have been met with resistance. Businesses want speed and responsiveness, not dissatisfied customers who are unable to access the required resources.

It all Starts With Passwords

A small subset of security teams have successfully implemented mandatory 2FA / MFA and employee password managers, recognizing the bleak reality of the data security threat environment, but adoption rates for these security enhancements remain poor due to the aforementioned friction concerns. As a consequence, these companies are back to where they began, leaving major gaps in user authentication and automatic access to devices. The simpler it is to access accounts for employees/customers/authorized users, the easier it is for cybercriminals to strike. When they are in, all sorts of harm can be done across business networks by attackers. It is also not an option to do nothing, but many security teams feel stuck between trying to insist on the highest safety practices and bowing to the low-friction authentication burden.

Attribute-Based Authentication

The key benefit of authentication based on behavior and attributes is that it works seamlessly on the user’s part in the background without intentional effort. In turn, it removes the security burden off the user and places it back in the hands of the security team. The initial username + password combination login can remain. Still, the first login is only one security layer, not the last or definitive word on access control.

In the decision to allow system access in an attribute-/behavior-based authentication setting, additional factors are weighed more heavily: operating system, BIOS UUID, patch levels, trends for when the user/system resource accesses other system resources (normal/expected vs. abnormal/unexpected), patterns of how a user/system resource accesses different system resources (e.g., a sudden change in bandwidth consumption). The use of additional variables in authentication decisions decreases the possibility of attackers being able to snatch and turn bits of “what you know” (i.e., username + password) into a system compromise. Decisions using an aggregate of attributes that are incredibly hard to reproduce (e.g., cryptographic recognition, behaviors, and patterns) pave the way for greater security without friction being added.

Persistence is another advantage of behavior-/attribute-based authentication. Attributes and behavior are inextricably connected with the tools of devices. That is to say, what / who is trying to communicate cannot be abstracted from them. This not only leads to better credentials, but it also means that systems can be configured to confirm access constantly, again, without a human being entering the information. Credentials are a mixture of what an entity is (identity) and how it behaves, and permissible access depends on the network in which the entity attempts to communicate (environment) and what the entity is attempting to do (transaction).

Improving Access Management

Such identity and access management, completely automated, uses some form of machine learning to continuously improve the accuracy of authenticating tools. Unlike typing a combination of username/password, then potentially entering a secondary code, token, or biometric, authentication based on attributes and behavior is invisible to the user and is less likely to be vetoed by the executive team as too intrusive. As a consequence, without having to convince someone to change policies, security teams will strengthen authentication. Thus, it is simple, seamless, and frictionless.

Cybersecurity: Five Basic Strategies To Implement

Individuals, technologies, and processes are the three underlying factors behind any successful cybersecurity program. But the fact is that cybersecurity is handled on an ad-hoc basis by too many organizations. Through operationalizing your core security functions to ensure that your security operations center (SOC) works securely, efficiently, and quickly, you can understand and define how your instruments, teams, and processes can work together in harmony.

The five main security functions that any enterprise should strive to operationalize are outlined here:

Monitoring

Monitoring should form the foundation of every SOC. To guarantee granular visibility at all times, there are simply too many data flows and devices for any internal team to monitor.

Define the company’s mission-critical data flows, along with the high-value assets and employee groups that impact your activities most while implementing your monitoring strategy. In so doing, you will concentrate on what matters most while building up your monitoring capabilities to add less-critical elements down the road. Also, remember that during working hours, attacks don’t often take place. Define your plan for the delivery of 24×7 coverage.

Finally, define the KPIs you would use to measure the efficacy of your methods, such as the percentage of coverage, ticket time, or time of remediation. By using transparent KPIs from day one, you will be able to track progress over time and guide new investments to where they will have the most impact.

Response

When surveillance is in place, you should act according to the information you receive. Create an incident management plan that outlines team roles, how incidents are categorized, and strategies for threat detection, remediation, and recovery. Don’t only clarify the steps themselves, but also how fast each step needs to be completed. This will help ensure that the technique is executed in an appropriate time frame in the case of a fast-moving attack.

Focus on the problems that arise most often, graph your workflows, and update your plan as you go. Test the plan regularly to ensure that everyone knows their roles and they are ready when the time comes. This will also help you find and repair flaws in the strategy before it’s too late, and you only discover the flaws in the plan in response to a real-world violation.

Vulnerability Management

The more efficient you are at patching, the more it will ultimately protect the entire network. But it can be tempting to put off patching when there’s a fire-drill task to handle, and it’s easy to forget patches for every last app and device in the company.

To ensure successful patching, create a vulnerability management plan that outlines the entire patching process. It should include what you scan and how often, and set a regular patch deployment schedule. Some legacy systems can be difficult to restore than modern systems, but that doesn’t mean you can exclude them. Patch what you can instead so that you can follow up later while keeping a good track of what you’re missing.

Threat Intelligence

Threat Intelligence will allow you to consider the possibility of attack from future and current risks. There are, however, far more signs of danger than the actual specific threats to the company. So, you need to know how to filter the threat intelligence. 

Start by understanding the unique threats that affect your business, along with the types of adversaries that your industry most commonly faces. When you have this understanding, you can streamline your efforts to disrupt common sector-specific attacker patterns while shortening your defense where it is most needed. This will also allow your team to see the full extent of a sophisticated attack for crafting a suitable response.

Threat Hunting

It is difficult enough to protect the network from existing issues, let alone hunting for unknown security threats. As a result, the operationalization of threat hunting arrives only when the first four criteria are relatively mature within the enterprise. Start tiny, and scale it up over time as you begin to broaden your other roles and start incorporating hunting into your efforts at cybersecurity. Be sure that each stage of each threat search is reported so that you can assess what has succeeded, guarantee consistency, and identify opportunities for automation.

Cybersecurity Trends in 2021: An Overview

With so many scams, hacks, and ransomware attacks hitting an all-time high, 2020 has been a difficult year for cybersecurity. From health breaches to mobile phishing scams, cybersecurity has suffered a slew of unparalleled assaults. In the cybersecurity arena, with remote work extended to 2021, we must prepare for another busy year. Some of the cybersecurity developments, which are expected to continue well into 2021, are outlined here:

The ‘Everywhere Enterprise’ is here to stay.

The enterprise is now everywhere – data resides everywhere, work takes place everywhere, and employees interact with clients everywhere. People will continue to work remotely, from anywhere, not necessarily in the workplace. In 2021, we are not going to see 100 percent of companies move to the workplace, and we won’t see 100 percent stay remote either. Employees will have the independence to decide where they want to work and to make that possible, businesses will need to take reasonable security measures. The job persona for 2021 will be someone who is working on the go using a number of mobile devices, such as tablets and phones. A static worker on the desktop will no longer be a reality.

Authentication enhancements will occur, and the password will finally die.

One challenge we’re going to face in 2021 is people figuring out how to go from depending on passwords for authentication to not just the second element but to fully remove the unnecessary friction with passwords created by the organization.

Health institutions will be the prime target group for ransomware attacks.

As a vertical becomes important, it is seen as their greatest chance by powerful attackers, so it is obvious that hospitals will be a big target for ransomware attacks in 2021. With the rising use of telemedicine and sensitive patient data flowing 24/7 through new mobile endpoints and legacy infrastructures, health institutions would be a hacker’s dream.

AI will be used as a new form of authentication.

With approximately 88 billion credential stuffing attacks registered in a 24-month span alone, cyber-related password attacks continue to dominate every sector. In order to address this issue and kill the password for good, companies need to follow a mobile-centric zero-trust security strategy. Using machine learning and AI, this approach goes beyond identity management and gateway strategies by using a more robust set of attributes before allowing access to determine compliance. It validates devices, determines the context of the user, tracks application authorization, verifies the network, and detects and remedies threats before safe access is given to a system or user.

Mobile employees will be the riskiest for organizations.

In the modern work from home era, we are constantly operating on the go, relying on public Wi-Fi networks, using mobile devices, remote networking platforms, and working with cloud suites. The greatest security risk for enterprises will be mobile employees, as they view IT security as a hindrance to effectiveness and feel that IT security compromises personal privacy.

Conclusion

With so many improvements in the way businesses operate, in the days to come, data security risks are likely to loom large. Businesses should also invest in the latest data security technologies that provide robust data security and allow businesses to comply with compulsory data privacy guidelines.

Proven Security Approaches From Data-Secure Enterprises

With digital assets scattered around IT environments and data breaches still a constant concern, companies face a daunting security challenge: how do they harmonize the security model to avoid using different tools and best practices for the traditional three-tier data center than they have for the cloud?

A recent study revealed that securing data moving between on-site and the cloud was the second data protection obstacle, followed only by protecting against malicious damage/hacking.

A more programmatic approach that explores and incorporates all data sources and networks into a holistic security strategy is required by organizations today.

User Behavior Is Important

A more user-centric approach is required. In other words, the security policies should be applied to each user individually, based on where they fall on the risk scale. Depending on the actions of an individual, such risk assessments and the policy implementation based on them will change dynamically.

This notion is confirmed by the study findings. Businesses deploying behavioral analytics, machine learning, and cloud-based access controls were the least likely to have been violated.

The Strategies

Traditional approaches to security have been established to secure a conventional infrastructure with a defined perimeter. As the perimeter is all but gone, organizations that identify data movements between data centers and the cloud and enforce policies that account for changing risk factors, such as the device and network in use and the user’s identity and job status, are more likely to avoid breaches.

1. Deploy Data Loss Prevention (DLP) systems with machine learning, automation, and data analytics.

Companies that have added automated DLP systems can easily detect users’ patterns of activity and learn from them to grant or deny access automatically based on the significant variables of the business.

2. Implement user-centric policies.

Securing channels one by one is not easy as staff interacts with information on PCs, tablets, USB sticks, email, etc., especially when using different security products that do not integrate. It’s easier to track data based on user variables like device, network, and application. 

3. Be careful of protecting only a subset of your entire data.

Many enterprises run their DLP systems in audit-only mode or take a black-and-white approach to blocking or allowing all access to data. Besides, they protect data carefully but only for certain networks or avenues while leaving others wide open. These approaches leave organizations vulnerable to downtime, loss of reputation, fines, lawsuits, and loss of information.

4. Avoid a mix of unintegrated, point security products.

This mainly happens when businesses initially have a very simple requirement, which increases when security products are extended and integrated. Joining many security instruments leads to disconnects, gaps, and inefficiencies when you want a more comprehensive, streamlined, and efficient solution. 

5. Assess emerging centralized security systems.

Newer, more unified systems will allow visibility through hybrid, private, and public cloud networks while automating security policies based on changing circumstances.

Although several businesses are struck by breaches, those with behavioral analytics, cloud data control, and machine learning who have added automation are much better. Focusing on the individual, taking a dynamic approach to evaluating their behavior, and changing security policies based on real risk can help organizations manage their security more effectively.