The Future of Cybersecurity
Jun 24, 2021
iCrowdMarketing powered by iCrowdNewswire
Yurchanka Siarhei/Shutterstock.com
The future of cybersecurity is, according to IT leaders and insurance giants, certainly a salient topic in the world economy. Cybersecurity has existed as long as computers, systems, and other networks have existed just like the authorities have existed to counter crime. The similarities end there, however, because the attack surface, vectors, and methods are on a different level when it comes to cyberspace (the digital domain). Cybercrime has been proliferating at unheard-of levels, especially since the dawn of what we can refer to as the Digital Distrust Age. The Distrust Age can also be referred to as the post-Snowden leaks era. What were the Snowden leaks? In 2013, then the ex-CIA contractor and subsequent whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid on the fact that government surveillance in the U.S and beyond was gathering data and monitoring citizens at large. Following this scandal, public awareness surrounding online privacy and security (cybersecurity) grew and set off waves of outrage and distrust.
So, why is cybersecurity so important and observed as the most important factor in preventing the worst global threats known to man (according to the industry leaders and surveys)? Cybersecurity is vital to the world, and we can support this claim with an article by Maryville University that covered the importance of cybersecurity; “With so much of our daily lives conducted online these days, it’s astounding that the issue of cybersecurity is not more discussed. Only occasionally does the issue come up in national consciousness, usually during a celebrity photo leak or a breach of political security. However, common cybercrime is much more prevalent than these occasional headlines suggest. Every day, cybercriminals victimize people who shop, bank and send or receive money online. And the sad truth is that few of these criminals can be described as experts or masterminds. The lack of awareness about cybersecurity makes most people an easy target for anyone trying to hack into their personal data.” Even still, there are issues higher up in the agenda than just the sensitive part of our online personal lives on social media or politics or simpler cybercrimes, that is high-tech cybercrime as detailed in the same article; “It is estimated that cybercrime costs the global economy over $400 billion per year. As a result, companies and organizations all over the world, including the U.S. Government, are making cybersecurity a top priority for the coming year and are setting up standards for cybersecurity protocol. Last year, President Obama asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to draw up a set of best practices for cybersecurity. Created with the input of thousands of security experts, the plan is designed to help organizations manage the risks of a cybersecurity breach.”
Cybersecurity has now turned into an entire multi-billion industry (and is only projected to grow a lot bigger as time goes on), from a once back-room-nerd only discussion -we have realized that a world without solid cybersecurity is at great risk of imploding in on itself. The constantly increasing innovations, internet speeds, and width of the digital economy in all senses require evermore increased cybersecurity and demand for cybersecurity-trained employees, CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers), cybersecurity teams, and the utilization of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to combat sophisticated and merciless attacks (most of which are extremely difficult to detect as well),. The implications of an unprotected device are not only that the device itself is now insecure, but it has the potential to infect endless other devices as well (botnet attacks or worms, for example).
What do Cyberspace and Cybersecurity Refer to?
Cyberspace is a mix of the words cyber (from cybernetics) and space as in area or domain. Cyberspace mostly refers to the internet. Cybersecurity is the protection of this exact area. Cybersecurity is the protection of cyberspace. Cybersecurity, more specifically, is the concept around using software and hardware tools, as well as the human factor of education and training that supplies this protective mechanism. To make it easy to understand, cybersecurity is your antivirus, antimalware, or firewall. Cybersecurity is also an organizations’ hardware-level virtual private network, for example. Finally, it means training and educating employees to control and know these systems through and through.
The State of Cybersecurity Today
Cybersecurity will affect almost every person on the planet as internet penetration takes place in even the most secluded and remote areas where people live. With the number of IoT (Internet-of-Things) devices surpassing one billion today, that means more than a billion vulnerable endpoints (opportunities) for cybercriminals to make some cash (often called their ROI or Return on Investment). We just had the worst cybercriminal attack in 2020, when SolarWinds was breached (although this breach went undetected for years). Just recently (May 2021), the United States White House issued a historic Executive Order following the cybercrime mentioned above. The Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity stated the following; “Section 1. Policy. The United States faces persistent and increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten the public sector, the private sector, and ultimately the American people’s security and privacy. The Federal Government must improve its efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to these actions and actors. The Federal Government must also carefully examine what occurred during any major cyber incident and apply lessons learned. But cybersecurity requires more than government action. Protecting our Nation from malicious cyber actors requires the Federal Government to partner with the private sector.”
What Awaits in The Future For Cybersecurity?
How do we remediate cybersecurity problems? What is being discussed at ‘cybersec’ conferences regarding the biggest security issue and global threat in the world today?
- Because hospitals and Covid-19 vaccine supply chains have become popular victims of ransomware attacks, the industry is looking at speeding up cybersecurity training and healthcare digital security certificates
- Increased threat hunting, vulnerability testing and monitoring, system protection, and attack scenario practice will be needed to respond to threats that are increasingly more sophisticated and difficult to handle
- With artificial intelligence and machine learning now in use, we should eventually see quantum computing join the mix and provide us with unprecedented encryption capabilities
- Updating systems to counter future cybercrime and even cyberterrorism means adopting agile constantly updated systems, built with defense-in-depth as well as managed detection and response systems that know why, when, and where an attack will happen
- Zero-Trust models will be trending, which means no-mercy security controls that will hinder some speed and cause a bit of inconvenience to the workflow, but will be vital to the survival of any business out there
Tags: English