Cybersecurity threats are always in consideration for organizations. With threats growing every year, most companies already have various initiatives in place to help ensure they stay protected.
However, the last few years have seen considerable shifts in the severity and sophistication of modern cyber threats. As each new cybersecurity solution is implemented, cybercriminals quickly learn how to circumvent its security measures.
Because of this, it’s crucial for businesses not to become stagnant in their cybersecurity risk management efforts and always look to improve and modernize them over time.
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Understanding Today’s Cyber Risk Landscape
It’s important to remember that while you may have already spent a lot of time and resources managing your business’s cybersecurity, new cyber risks emerge every day. It’s critical to assess these new risks and evaluate whether or not your systems and policies are capable of addressing them.
Some of the common trends in today’s cyber risk landscape include:
The Rise of AI-Powered Attacks
In recent years, AI technology has seen heavy adoption rates across all industries. AI tools and solutions allow individuals and businesses to automate a variety of tasks while getting immediate access to information when they need it.
However, there is also a darker side to this technology. Today, cybercriminals are leveraging the computing power of modern AI-enabled tools to create increasingly more sophisticated phishing schemes and powerful strains of malware. They’re also able to deliver these payloads much faster and more efficiently than ever before by using AI agents (bots) that carry out malicious tasks 24/7 without any manual intervention required.
Escalating Ransomware and Extortion Tactics
While most businesses are aware of the dangers of ransomware, not all of them understand how these types are escalating. Businesses are now especially at risk of “double” or even “triple” extortion, where cyberattackers not only focus on encrypting their data but also threaten to make it public or target their current clients and partners.
This level of pressure can cause considerable disruption to normal operations and can make organizations more likely to pay a ransom to avoid data security and compliance issues or risk damaging their relationships with partners.
Exploitation of IoT
Another growing trend is businesses becoming more reliant on the Internet of Things (IoT) to help support their infrastructure needs. These devices and sensors connect networks, hardware, security cameras, and other critical components to allow a seamless flow of communication and remote control.
However, these devices can significantly expand an organization’s digital attack surface and are often left unattended or poorly secured. Cybercriminals are targeting these types of devices more frequently as they can provide an easy entry point into larger business networks.
Actionable Strategies for Modernizing Your Cybersecurity Risk Management
To ensure your business is prepared to deal with newer threats as they emerge, below are some important strategies you can apply to help modernize your cybersecurity risk management efforts:
Embrace a Continuous and Adaptive Risk Assessment Approach
Many organizations conduct periodic risk assessments to evaluate their systems and update policies or technologies as needed. While these reviews are valuable for uncovering vulnerabilities or inefficiencies, relying solely on scheduled assessments is not enough to keep pace with today’s constantly evolving threat landscape. A more continuous and adaptive approach is essential for maintaining strong security over time.
Now, it’s imperative that organizations implement continuous monitoring solutions and evaluate their system integrity multiple times a year. This includes regularly assessing security controls, working with penetration testing teams, and implementing active threat detection into daily security operations.
Implement a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)
While safeguarding against external threats is a key component of any security strategy, it’s equally important to recognize that risks can also originate from within the network. Insider threats, whether intentional or accidental, pose significant challenges and require the same level of attention and preparedness as external attacks.
Establishing a zero trust architecture (ZTA) is one way to mitigate this. ZTAs are built around the principle of “never trust, always verify.” This means that regardless of who your users are or their roles within the organization, they should never be given more access or control than needed to complete their tasks.
Another core component of establishing a ZTA is implementing micro-segmentation across your networks. This takes a larger company network and creates isolated zones where systems and databases are housed. This helps ensure that even if one area of your business network becomes compromised, you can quarantine threats and restrict their ability to move laterally to other connected systems.
Prioritize Comprehensive Attack Surface Management (ASM)
Understanding the extent of your company’s digital attack surface is critical to minimizing its exposure to outside threats. However, many businesses may not realize the scope of just how many potential digital entry points they may have, especially as they expand their operations into cloud environments or allow remote working arrangements with their employees.
Attack Surface Management (ASM) is a critical strategy businesses can implement to ensure they actively identify, monitor, and address all points of access to their business.
These strategies focus on IT teams using various tools and solutions that maintain an up-to-date inventory of all digital assets, while also actively looking for known vulnerabilities, security misconfigurations, or unauthorized shadow IT across your networks, cloud services, and third-party services.
Leverage Automation and AI
As newer cyber threats that leverage AI-driven processes start to emerge, it’s important for your business to adapt your threat responses accordingly. This often means using these same technologies to improve your security defenses and threat response capabilities.
AI-powered cybersecurity solutions use advanced machine learning algorithms to monitor and respond to security threats in real time. Because they can analyze large amounts of data, they are much more responsive and accurate than traditional solutions when identifying potential anomalies and sophisticated threats that might not match known signatures.
However, while leveraging the automation and intelligence that these tools provide can be helpful, it’s important that they’re implemented correctly. Pay close attention to any AI compliance standards that need to be followed, depending on your industry, and always ensure you implement ethical best practices when relying on them.
Update Your Cybersecurity Risk Management Processes
Today’s cyber threats are much different than years ago. This is why it’s crucial that your business regularly evaluates and updates its risk management processes. By following the strategies discussed, you’ll create a much more resilient cybersecurity posture while reducing your vulnerabilities and improving the effectiveness of your threat response.
Author Bio:
Nazy Fouladirad is President and COO of Tevora, a global leading cybersecurity consultancy. She has dedicated her career to creating a more secure business and online environment for organizations across the country and world. She is passionate about serving her community and acts as a board member for a local nonprofit organization.
