Adapt or Die: Why Cyber ​​Security Companies Must Become Data Companies to Survive | Daily News Byte

Data has become the most valuable commodity in the world. The more your business understands data and how it is used, the more powerful that data can be to drive effective decision-making. Threat actors are also aware of the value of data and have mastered the techniques to do so steal and data through malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, social engineering practices, and more. Cybersecurity companies must constantly adapt.

Defending enterprise infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult in the age of digital business. With the rise of digital transformation, attack surfaces are expanding and threats continue to grow. That’s why it’s critical for organizations to ensure that their most valuable asset — their data — is protected. The number of cyber-attacks and data breaches is increasing every year, and regulators around the world are demanding that organizations prioritize the security of critical business functions.

Data is gold — and for businesses to capture their attack surface and secure their valuable data, it’s critical that they understand the relationships and dependencies that make up their digital estate. Gaining an understanding of that digital estate is what will set companies apart, ensuring businesses are prepared to protect their most valuable assets.

The cost of a data breach and why old ways of protection are no longer enough

Through large supply chain and ransomware attacks, criminals look for valuable data in many places. Personal information (PII), finances and other sensitive data are all prime targets for attackers who see it as gold. In critical sectors such as healthcare and finance, data protection becomes even more critical. In fact, the 2022 report reveals that 80% of financial institutions have suffered at least one data breach in the past 12 months. Data breaches don’t just threaten consumer privacy. They can also cause serious reputational and financial damage to businesses.

For example, last year, a hacker breached T-Mobile’s servers and stole 106 GB of data containing the Social Security numbers, names, addresses and driver’s license information of more than 100 million people. This incident cost T-Mobile $350 million and brought the company’s reputation into question. Marriott International has been the victim of several breaches following a merger and acquisition deal that exposed the personal information of millions of customers. The company was later hit with a significant £18.4m fine for breaching the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

From large hotel groups and retailers to small businesses, the cost of a data breach extends far beyond the loss of intellectual property. Incidents like these prove that companies need to do their due diligence, especially when going through an M&A transaction, and make sure they have a system in place to protect their most valuable assets, people and data. Major breakthroughs in the past few years have shown us that the old ways of protection don’t work. They are no longer enough.

A cybersecurity-first approach

With the adoption of hybrid and fully remote work, accelerated digital transformation and reliance on cloud services have made it difficult for companies to maintain security policies at scale. As they adapt to this new reality, organizations must focus on putting systems in place that help them gain an understanding of the assets on their network and how those assets communicate with each other.

Data in motion is particularly vulnerable without effective management protection and without full visibility of applications within the IT architecture.

Dynamic visibility is key to preventing data breaches and other sophisticated cyber attacks. Companies must take proactive steps to reduce their attack surface and attack blast radius. This requires addressing the inherent vulnerability of data — at rest, in motion, and across application transformations.

With the rapid shift to multicloud and edge IT infrastructure, companies now face significant visibility gaps. Poor visibility into the devices accessing your applications makes it difficult for security teams to understand their attack surface and data dissemination, as well as the threats they are exposed to. CISOs must be prepared to invest in architecture and technology that enables an inside-out approach.

Protecting your digital assets

In today’s threat environment, it is critical that businesses of all sizes have security frameworks in place to strengthen their cyber resilience. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can enhance modern cloud architecture and offer new agility and predictive capabilities for data security. This has proven particularly useful in helping IT teams automate and effectively predict, detect and mitigate cyber attacks.

Other technologies, including Cybersecurity Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) tools, can analyze and provide complete visibility into an organization’s complex internal attack surface. By using these solutions when moving data and assets to the cloud, companies can ensure that their data is secure while in motion. Unlike legacy approaches, CAASM solutions map the relationships between business functions, applications, middleware services, infrastructure and users, enabling security teams to understand the true business impact of compromises.

Cybersecurity is an ever-changing field — every day data security threats are more sophisticated, which shows that security companies must become data companies to stay in business or survive. The next generation of cybersecurity companies must provide an understanding of data and its relationships and interdependencies to stay ahead of today’s modern threats.

Marc Woolward is the CTO and CISO of vArmour.