Traditional use of IT may be holding you back

The pandemic has changed the way businesses run and the movement of customers from offline to online channels is the reality and businesses must now live with it. Offline businesses are taking the help of online aggregators to survive as the new norm, which has led to a sudden wave of digital availability of many business products and services. During this crisis, various technologies are evolving such as, everything-as-a-service in IT, including big gains in speed and agility. Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is a term for services and applications that users can access on the Internet upon request. It all started with the cloud computing terms: SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), meaning that ready-made software, a platform for its development, or a comprehensive computing infrastructure could be provided via networks. Gradually, other offerings appeared and now, the designation as-a-Service is associated with various digital components, e.g. data, security, communication, etc.

The most difficult challenge in cyber security is the ever-evolving nature of security risks themselves. Traditionally, organizations and the government have focused most of their cyber security resources on perimeter security to protect only their most crucial system components and defend against known treats. Today, this approach is insufficient, as the threats advance and they change more quickly than organizations can keep up with. Cyber security incidents are a crisis scenario that every organization is vulnerable to. It is almost impossible to protect the business 100% from cyberattacks, but yes there are chances to create an effective incident response plan that instructs the IT team how to respond to an attack. Effective crisis management is not the same as cyber incident response.

Secondly, there is an urgent need of the perimeter that is becoming increasingly difficult to enforce. There is a need for an intelligent edge security platform, which can surround and protect your entire architecture — core, cloud, and edge — to thwart attackers and mitigate threats wherever they emerge. It has to provide 24/7/365 protection for your websites, applications, APIs, and users.

There is always a potential risk associated when we either login or do any transactions digitally or even while we do any ATM or digital payment transactions. As per CERT, Cyber-attacks may be triggered on • Individual systems • Multiple systems and networks in a single or multiple organizations • States and entire Nation • Targeted cyber attacks on infrastructure of one or more critical sectors, either individually or simultaneously, may result in significant/complete breakdown of supplies or services essential to the life of the citizens including but not limited to Finance, Defence, Transport, Energy, Communication or critical sector. These events would lead to a National Crisis.

Building a right cyber resilience plan is the most difficult task, after developing everything, there have been several cases reported, seems there is no escape from the cyber-attack. Cyber security incidents, particularly serious cyber security attacks, such as advanced persistent threats (APTs), are now headline news. They bring serious damage to organisations of all types – and to government and international bodies. Ways to respond to these attacks in a fast, effective and comprehensive manner are actively being developed at the very highest level in corporate organisations, government bodies and international communities such as the World Economic Forum, where cyber security attacks are seen as a major threat.

Most organisations need professional help in responding to a cyber security incident in a fast, effective manner. However, it is very difficult for them to identify trusted organisations that have access to competent, qualified experts who can respond appropriately whilst protecting sensitive corporate and attack information.