Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Gaurav Banga, Founder and CEO, Balbix
Cybersecurity Shifts and Trends in 2019
2018 was littered with major data
breaches-from Facebook (multiple times) to Google+, Under Armour, Marriott,
British Airlines and more. Looking at the headlines from the past year, it's
clear that companies are struggling to stay ahead of security vulnerabilities
and adequately monitor their own infrastructure and assets for security gaps.
The number of threats is only growing, therefore organizations must adapt,
evolve their security approaches, and leverage more advanced solutions in order
to avoid being another cautionary tale in 2019.
Here are three major shifts that security
teams and organizations alike can expect in the months ahead.
AI Will
Be a Key Aspect of Cybersecurity Solutions (With Continued Human Oversight)
A common point of discussion across industries
in the last few years has been whether robots will replace human workers. When
it comes to cybersecurity, the answer is clear: AI is essential, but so are
humans. Combine the growing number of cybersecurity threats with the increased
digitization of assets/processes vulnerable to those threats and security is
now mathematically impossible for humans to manage solo. There are simply too
many attack vectors that must be continuously monitored, and hundreds of
thousands of vulnerabilities to sift through which must then be prioritized.
Without the help of artificial intelligence, these tasks are impossible, even
for the largest security team comprised of the most skilled IT professionals.
Advanced security solutions that continuously
monitor all assets over hundreds of attack vectors, and proactively predict
what vulnerabilities are most likely to be exploited (and have the highest
business impact). But while AI and machine learning-based tools are now
essential, humans are still very much needed. IT professionals must be ready to
respond to the information that AI and ML tools produce, as well as provide the
business context and guidance for the tools to learn what assets are more
important than others. Also, with the majority of detection and remediation functions
becoming more automated with AI and ML, humans will be able to focus more on
the big picture strategy of their company's security programs.
Security
Programs Will Become More Outcome-Oriented Instead of Project-Oriented
Traditionally, security teams have focused on
completing projects and checking items off to-do lists. Individual tasks were
assigned and completed without knowing how much of an impact they had on the
company's overall security posture. This past year, more and more companies began
to realize that dedicating time, resources and budget toward fixing problems
without clear understanding of how those actions reduce risk is futile.
Leveraging tools that benchmark risk and illustrate what activities will have
the biggest and most positive impact on security will become more popular in
2019. IT resources have never been more stretched and adopting an
outcome-oriented approach to security is the only way companies will be able to
stay ahead of threats.
Increasing Adoption of Risk-Based Vulnerability
Management Tools
Gartner recently released a report on risk-based vulnerability management,
which emphasizes the need for vulnerability management (VM) tools to
incorporate risk based on business context. Legacy VM tools can identify
thousands of potential security gaps for large organizations, and security
teams must be able to turn these results into prioritized lists, serving as a
guide of what to address first. Gartner's report states that advanced
risk-based VM tools evaluate the impact to the business of each vulnerability if
exploited, and produce a clear, prioritized list of actions for the security
team to take. Companies will quickly learn that risk-based VM tools are an
extremely effective and efficient asset in proactively avoiding breaches.
In 2019 we will see a distinct shift in the
types of tools and approaches security teams leverage to thwart attacks.
Cybercriminals are getting ever smarter and constantly evolving their attack
methods, and security measures must evolve as well.
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About the Author
Gaurav Banga is the
founder and CEO of Balbix, and serves on the boards of several companies.
Before Balbix, Gaurav was co-founder and CEO of Bromium and led the company
from inception for over five years. Gaurav has a Ph.D. in computer science from
Rice University, and a bachelor's degree in computer science from IIT Delhi. He
is a prolific inventor with more 60 patents.