Enterprises must maintain a continuous planning cycle

Pankaj Kitchlu, Systems Engineering Director, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks

 Impact of cyber-attacks on the critical infrastructure of companies
 

In the present day and age rapid digitization has led to rising digital threats. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) recently tracked and reported more than 11.5 lakh incidents of cyberattacks in India. Report says that ransomware attacks have increased by 120% in India. Power companies, oil and gas majors, telecom vendors, restaurant chains and even diagnostic labs have been victims of cyberattacks.

Although advanced technologies are being used for defensive purposes through security automation to counter cybersecurity risks, cybercriminals use AI/ML for sophisticated automation to launch effective malware and phishing campaigns, providing them scale, speed, and repeatability. Organizations should adopt solutions like advanced threat protection, cloud workload protection and endpoint detection and response for ensuring a threat-proof IT infrastructure. Moreover, security operations should be automated by leveraging tools like SIEM and SOAR, helping to get insights on threats and adversaries.

Managing critical events and emergency incidents
 

Prepare for the worst-case scenario first, and then have a plan in place to manage future events or incidents. Enterprises should also maintain a continuous planning cycle that is in sync with current challenges and agile enough to capture real-time candidates for attacks.

As the world transitions from a physical asset economy to a digital & application-based economy, investments in and around security must increase proportionately. Prior generations of enterprises had unique homegrown platforms and critical assets that were operated in a closed environment, making any cyberattacks difficult to sustain the scale and return on investment.

With organizations moving to more open platforms and multiple clouds, this shift can make them easier targets for cyberattacks. Applications are not the only targets. Every network connection in a LAN – Wired or Wireless Campus, WAN – National or International, and Data Centre – Private or Public becomes a point of interest.

Thus, it is critical to understand the advantages of implementing a Connected Security approach that will enable and secure organizations' digital transformation journeys.

The solutions to protect the infrastructure

Juniper Connected Security protects users, applications, and infrastructure by extending security to every point of connection across the network, from client to cloud. Everything, from how users access data and applications to how network connections are established, must be secure. Because Juniper Networks security solutions are open and extensible, our partnerships with network and security vendors extend the Juniper Connected Security vision by offering customers a choice of products to deploy an industry leading solution.

Junos Space Security Director is at the heart of Juniper Connected Security, providing centralized policy and management. Security Director is a management application that allows you to quickly create, maintain, and apply accurate and consistent network security policies. It also manages the firewalls.