Security Top Stories

RSS

The year 2020 isn’t over yet, but so far, it’s been unprecedented from a threat landscape point of view – including the impact of the global pandemic and social movements on the cybersecurity landscape. The threat researchers at FortiGuard Labs have taken a good hard look at what was happening over the first six months of 2020 from a cybersecurity perspective, and we’ve identified some key trends that the industry needs to be aware of.

What are four aspects that security and privacy professionals need to consider to ensure the balance of privacy and safety in data regulations?

Many higher education institutions have seen a decline in on-campus residency, dining, and parking along with deferred enrollment which has resulted in reduced revenue. At the same time, they have had to decrease class sizes, transform non-academic spaces into classrooms, and improve ventilation systems. All of which come with mounting expenses.

The novel coronavirus has forever changed how and where we work. As many organizations adopt new solutions and collaboration tools (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Slack or Zoom) to accommodate employees and customers during this critical period, such fast-paced digital transformation has also exposed several shortcomings associated with our remote workforce’s home networks and routers.

Data Center Security is far more just implementing Access Control Lists (ACL) on a router and firewalls. Physical colocation requires a minimum of “five rings of security.” These five security features are a must for all colocation providers and cover public spaces from the perimeter all the way to the individual server housings.

To meet modern day challenges and address the evolving retail bank landscape, Origin Bank embraces innovative technology and solutions that boost efficiencies, reduce fraud and enhance service. The organization considers the protection of its clients’ assets to be paramount and strives to deliver a safe banking experience.

Compliance regulators don’t take days off – not even in a pandemic. Faced with steep penalties for non-compliance and potential reputational damage, organizations are being forced to rethink their compliance strategies to account for new and emerging risks. For digital businesses today, the best place to start is by assessing how systems should be good enough, understand how data integrity is currently being managed, identifying any compliance hazards or gaps, and considering how automation can help address them.

The need for cybersecurity in the financial services industry has never been greater. Financial Institutions (FIs) have been and will continue to be the subject of cyberattacks by adversaries of all varieties. The old adage “why do you rob banks....because that’s where the money is” holds in this domain as well. In 2019, 86 percent of breaches were financially motivated, and the records exposed in all breaches increased by 284 percent. And if that’s not enough for FIs to worry about, consider that the average cost of a breach as disclosed by public firms in 2019 was $116 million. Given the magnitude of this issue, these are the top trends seen in cybersecurity this year.

Thoughts around threat landscapes commonly prioritize corporate and governmental networks assets as high priorities, with personal networks and resources as lower-level threats. However, there have been recent changes that have caused the reassessment of prioritization levels at times. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of individuals who work from home has greatly increased. In fact, Stanford researcher Nicholas Bloom places the percentage of people currently working at home at over 40%.