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What is the difference between Security and CyberSecurity?

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What is the difference between Security and CyberSecurity?

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Security is the protection of ones property and rights of the property. This is very similar to cybersecurity but Cybersecurity is focused on the digital world compared to the physical world.

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Emerging trends and Threats in Cybersecurity 

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Emerging trends and Threats in Cybersecurity 

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This article analyzes 7 trends that will shape the future of cybersecurity. One of the biggest trends they are seeing is the gap in education within the field. Most people do not know about the risks of cyber attacks. An interesting thing about this article is their concern for AI and ML programs and how it could translate into increased cyber crime rates as well as more advanced attacks.

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As technologies advance, so do the skills of hackers seeking to exploit system vulnerabilities.

Organizations need to understand cyber risks and plan for tomorrow's challenges.

We've outlined the trends which could shape the future of cybersecurity and how to prepare for them.

In order to disrupt a country, halt major commercial flows or make important financial gains, hackers usually look for vulnerabilities that have not yet been discovered. The constant technological evolution is a catalyst for them to find new flaws to exploit.

Therefore, in a fast-evolving digital ecosystem, decision-makers in government, industry, academia, and civil society need to anticipate and address tomorrow's cybersecurity challenges to stay ahead of the curve.

Below are some of the key insights, tensions, and trade-offs that will likely shape the future of cybersecurity and that can help an organization better prepare to face cyber threats.

Public and private investments in security technologies, as well as broader efforts to tackle cybercrime, defend critical infrastructure, and raise public awareness about cybersecurity, are likely to reap tangible payoffs by 2030. Cybersecurity will be less about "defending fortresses" than moving toward acceptance of ongoing cyber-risk, with a focus on bolstering resilience and capacity for recovery. As markers of this trend, passwords could be nearly obsolete by 2030, cybersecurity will be widely taught in primary schools, and cryptocurrencies will be more effectively regulated. Still, while investments in more secure systems and basic cyber hygiene will raise many above the "cyber poverty line," progress is likely to be unevenly distributed across communities and geographies.

Erosion of trust online is poised to deepen and continue to undermine offline relationships and institutions. Advances in artifical intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between humans and machines online, potentially leading many people to shift their activities back offline and even revert to using analogue devices. In a world of increasingly sophisticated synthetic media and AI-based cyberattacks, cybersecurity will become less about protecting confidentiality and more about protecting the integrity and provenance of information. Unfortunately, at the moment when societies most need to come together to solve major problems like climate change, distrust could lead to a retreat from regional and global cooperation. We need to work to avoid this outcome.

There is both optimism and uneasiness about the rapid pace of scientific advancement and commercial adoption of AI and ML technologies. On the upside, we will see vast innovation in sectors such as medicine and transportation, as well as improvements to cybersecurity. On the downside, AI will also lead to innovation in cybercrime, and ML models could train themselves to achieve illicit or devious ends. There is a lack of clarity in how governments, companies, or communities will ensure that AI and other technology-based systems are built, deployed, and monitored safely and ethically, and no clear forum from which that guidance will come.

The trend toward "digital sovereignty" and internet fragmentation will continue, as efforts toward internet interoperability and cross-border data transfers will compete with efforts by governments to establish localized or regional controls over online spaces. This may be an opportunity for local communities to have more agency in defining digital security, but we could also see a "wild west" of disinformation, surveillance, and more powerful cyberattacks emanating from rogue states that have isolated themselves from the global internet. The trend toward deglobalization could also lead to more pronounced "regional pockets of truth," with differences in information defined by geographic or other boundaries, and governments could exert more control through technology.

By 2030, we will know whether early cybersecurity efforts at privacy legislation (such as Europe's GDPR) are delivering on their policy objectives, but it remains uncertain whether we will have improved methods for managing personal data by 2030 or will be living in a world in which we have given up on contemporary notions of individual privacy.

6. Metaverse uncertainty

Participants were split between those who believe that the metaverse (or metaverses) will not materialize, and will be considered a failed experiment by 2030, and those who believe we need to accelerate policy innovation to keep up with the new privacy and security issues that a fully realized metaverse will pose. However, the most dystopian visions of the future that emerged from the workshops were based on a passive consumer (i.e., living in the metaverse to escape problems in the real world). The antidote to this dystopia, and a key aspect of what the future holds, relies on our ability to educate citizens to embrace critical thinking.

In the workshops held in Europe, we heard concerns about a blurring of frontiers between governments and private corporations (for example, a few participants speculated about a future in which the largest tech companies hold seats on the UN Security Council). From US-based participants, we heard more concerns about a trend toward digital sovereignty, the security issues companies face in addressing increasingly divergent regulatory requirements around the world, and lack of a practical human rights framework for determining compliance trade-offs. Most agreed that the public sector will play an important role as both buyer and investor in technology and in developing guardrails in how cybersecurity plays out.

It is imperative for security practitioners to take a holistic view on the advancement of digital technologies to stay ahead of the curve. As per the Global Cybersecurity Outlook Report, a varied range of new technologies is being adopted by organizations, significantly raising the complexity of securing the digital ecosystem and widening the attack surface for malicious actors to exploit. It is therefore paramount to monitor how these technologies evolve, together with their social, economic and political contexts to make informed business decisions on organizational resilience.

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC), is running the Cybersecurity Futures 2030 initiative. It is a foresight-focused scenario-planning exercise to inform cybersecurity strategic plans and enable practitioners to understand the impact and prepare for the future of digital security.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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7 trends that could shape the future of cybersecurity in 2030

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Know the key insights, tensions, and trade-offs that will likely shape the future of cybersecurity and can help an organization better prepare to face cyber threats

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How can employees balance information security with access and protection

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How can employees balance information security with access and protection

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Zero trust security is an interesting new framework where any person trying to access the network should not be trusted by default, regardless of their relationship to the network. This includes policies such as Multi factor authentication and reoccurring authorizations for each access point.

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Zero Trust Security: What Is It and Who Needs It? (Updated 2023)

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How can companies use AI and ML to enhance their response and detection capabilities?

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How can companies use AI and ML to enhance their response and detection capabilities?

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An interesting benefit to the emergence of AI and ML is the vast detection capabilities that the programs possess. This is because of the large amounts of data that these softwares can process which allows them to detect patterns, threats, and statistical worries at a much faster rate than a human could. Because of this, those can establish much more elaborate systems for protecting and verifying their users.

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Ethical implications with AI and Cybersecurity

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Ethical implications with AI and Cybersecurity

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One of the toughest issues Cybersecurity currently faces is trying to balance protection and privacy. AI and ML can detect almost any movement or action on the internet which can be a privacy issue. The benefit of this is being able to catch onto security threats before they happen. Drawing the line between the two has been difficult for many companies.

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Ethical concerns in Cybersecurity and AI

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Ethical concerns in Cybersecurity and AI

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This video is from the SANS AI and Cybersecurity summit as they talk about the concerns associated with AI and how companies are addressing them for the user. One of the biggest concerns was privacy. Lots of the concerns over privacy came from tracking processes and how much they were being monitored.

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The Ethics of AI and ML: Ensuring Cybersecurity and Privacy in Automated Decision Making

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How has remote work and BYOD affected cyber security?

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How has remote work and BYOD affected cyber security?

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An interesting example of the Bring your own device trend which caused a huge threat to security was when the iPhone was released. Blackberry was the leading phone company at the time and many companies used highly secured versions of these phones for their employees. When the iPhone was released, many employees starting bringing their iPhones in to work since they can accomplish more on the phone in various places. The issue with the iPhone was that it did not have the same robust security protocols as the blackberry which led to many data leaks and issues with cybersecurity.

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The increase in remote workers has posed many challenges for companies. This is because remote workers are more likely to use their own personal devices for work, connect to unsecured network services such as coffee shops, and the fact that most workers are negligent when monitoring the security of their work information.

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The Cybersecurity Challenges Of Working From Anywhere
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In a recent article, I examined the growing desire among workers to be able to work from anywhere. This principle goes beyond "merely" working from home or a co-working space in the location of your employer and opens it up to literally working from anywhere.

This has been commonplace among gig workers and digital nomads, with data from 2020 revealing that around 5 million Americans identified as such. With the Covid pandemic showing how effective remote working can be, and numerous places around the world opening their arms to digital nomads, it's a concept that seems likely to grow in the years ahead.

Security concerns

The shift to remote working during the pandemic coincided with a significant rise in cybersecurity incidences as criminals sought to take advantage of both the stress and disruption of the pandemic itself and the increased "attack surface" available to target.

"While most industries made the shift to remote work due to the pandemic, it created new attack surfaces for cybercriminals to take advantage of, such as home devices being used for business purposes," Microsoft explained in their recent Digital Defense Report.

This has forced employees and security teams alike to think about security in a way that was not required in the pre-pandemic landscape when work was predominantly conducted in a physical workspace.

"We need employees to be far more aware of things that they wouldn't need to be aware of when they're working in the office," says Nadya Bartol, Managing Director, BCG. "For instance, who is standing behind us? Am I leaving my device unattended? How is the network I'm using protected? Do I let family members use my device?"

Significant implications

The remote workforce represents a significant increase in the so-called "insider threat" faced by organizations. A recent study from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint found that insider threats have increased both in terms of their frequency and cost during the Covid era.

The researchers highlight that while we may think of insider threat risks as the preserve of a disgruntled employer acting maliciously, the overwhelming majority of leaks and breaches are simply due to carelessness and negligence.

The findings chime with those from a recent study by the University of Central Florida, which found that when employees are stressed, they're far more likely to break security procedures and protocols. Indeed, the researchers found that the most common form of breach is when adhering to the rules slows workers down and so they break the rules in order to maintain their productivity.

The costs of such carelessness can be considerable, however, with the ProofPoint data revealing that each incident cost nearly $500,000, with large organizations (with 75,000 or more employees) spending $22.68 million on average to fix insider-related incidents.

Facilitating the change

We're living in a world in which flexibility is increasingly demanded by workers. For instance, researchers from Swinburne University suggest that for many Australians, the exposure to remote working during the pandemic was sufficient to convert them to the benefits of flexible working.

"As we begin our return to office, organizations should not be rushing to resume normal programming (just with reduced days in the office)," the researchers say. "This is an opportunity to rethink our approach to hybrid working, and what makes sense for hybrid models today might not be as effective in six months' time."

The pandemic has seen much of the cybersecurity focus on ensuring that home environments have been as secure as possible, but research from the Business School (formerly Cass), City, University of London and Goldsmiths, University of London shows how remote workers value "third spaces," such as cafes, bars and even pubs, that they can work remotely in.

This ups the ante as these spaces, while offering the flexibility that workers crave, also greatly increase the risk from a cybersecurity perspective. For instance, famous research from the University of Michigan found that almost 70% of us willingly plugged in a USB flash drive we found lying about without considering the security implications.

"I don't think that security is a choice as every business that we speak to sees flexibility as a business imperative so they have to figure out a way to make it work," Ryan LaSalle, North America Security Lead at Accenture, says. "It is 100% an imperative for every security organization, they don't get to say no, they simply have to make this work."

Securing the remote workforce

The Microsoft Digital Defense report suggests there are some pretty straightforward steps that employees and organizations can take almost immediately, including mandating more secure passwords, implementing two-factor authentication, ensuring all devices are fully patched with the latest software updates, and providing training to employees on secure practices, especially in identifying the kind of phishing attacks that continue to make up the bulk of cyberattacks today.

Virtual private networks (VPNs) are also commonly deployed to try and offer secure remote access connections between employees and their private corporate network. While VPNs can be highly effective, they can also come with numerous risks, especially if the network is poorly configured. Indeed, the Colonial Pipeline attack was administered via just such a VPN.

5G promises remote workers more powerful connectivity, with the promise of greater security than using WiFi connections or even VPNs. The reduced latency promised by 5G is set to make it a realistic alternative to WiFi, with remote workers having the option to use unlimited data options as their default connection to the workplace.

5G technology has encryption built-in via anti-tracking and anti-spoofing tools. It also utilizes network slicing, which allows a network to be spliced into multiple virtual networks, each of which can have customized security protections. This would allow specific controls to be given to highly important people within an organization to try and fight off whale phishing, which is when such VIPs are targeted by criminals due to their value.

A holistic approach

Of course, 5G is not without risks of its own, not least of which is that the advanced capabilities mean that many more devices are likely to be connected, and IoT devices multiply the number of possible vulnerabilities within your network. This was highlighted by a recent paper from Palo Alto Networks, which emphasized the growing number of non-business IoT devices that were now connected to corporate networks, including pet feeders, coffee machines and gym equipment.

"5G has better authentication, so I can't pretend to be you and you can't pretend to be me, as you could in earlier generations," Jeremy Thompson, Executive Vice President, Cyber Security, Western Europe at Huawei, says. "But from a corporate security point of view this may not be seen as any different to other forms of connection, as you generally assume that you can trust nothing."

It seems likely that remote work is going to endure after Covid, so it's vital that organizations get a grip on cybersecurity to ensure that their remote workforce doesn't provide easy pickings to criminals. 5G might play a part in that, but Thompson explains, the best security is likely to come from a combination of other aspects of the network that go beyond the means of connection itself.

"I don't think most security teams would treat working in a third place any differently to working from home," he explains. "The mindset is that connections are questionable and the environment you're working in will be open to attack."

As such, the vast majority of attacks can be prevented by ensuring that passwords are secure, software is patched, and employees have a basic awareness of cyber hygiene and phishing awareness so that they don't place themselves into vulnerable situations.

"We know this is what people want, post-pandemic, and so starting with embedding security from the beginning is a must," Jefferson Wang, Global Lead of 5G and Cloud First Networks at Accenture, says. "It's not just a decision, there's a whole program around it that includes policies, tools, training, and so on, that all work to ensure we can give remote workers the flexibility they crave while maintaining the security that is so crucial to the modern enterprise."

Cyber hygiene

Pleasingly, achieving sufficient cyber hygiene to rebuff the overwhelming majority of cyberattacks doesn't require sophisticated technology or a highly skilled security department. Instead, it just requires organizations ensure the basics of cyber hygiene are adhered to. This includes:

Multi-factor authentication. Multi-factor authentication (MFA or 2FA) prevents the majority of credential-based attacks. This is easier than ever with the kind of passwordless technology that is increasingly the norm in modern software. MFA should be enabled wherever possible.

Least privilege access. As well as deploying MFA to protect login to key accounts, it's also important to ensure that each account only has access to the systems they really need. Indeed, the researchers argue that distinct accounts should be used when accessing privileged systems than when browsing the internet or using email.

Keep devices up to date. A basic requirement for any device on the network is to ensure that it's both configured correctly and has the latest patches and updates from the manufacturer. Endpoint management software can be a useful aid in ensuring this happens across the network.

Deploy anti-malware software. Another simple step to take is to ensure that malware protection software is installed and used in addition to more standard anti-virus software. This software can often not only provide protection against attacks but warnings that attacks are being attempted.

Protect data. All of the aforementioned steps can prove highly effective at protecting key organizational data, but it's also highly important that organizations have a good understanding of the data they have, and its relative sensitivity and importance to the organization. Indeed, under regulations such as GDPR, this is often mandated and underpins a risk-based approach to data governance.

As we get used to a more hybrid way of working, the introduction of cyber hygiene training into employee onboarding is likely to be a key part of ensuring that the disparate workforce is a secure workforce.

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The Cybersecurity Challenges Of Working From Anywhere

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With workers increasingly operating from anywhere, does this present a cybersecurity challenge, and how can this be overcome?

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One of the largest trends in the cloud security is the use of AI to protect cloud information. AI has been used for numerous purposes over the past few years but recently it has been used more in cloud security. This is because of the development that has gone on within AI capabilities but also the creativity of some of these cloud developers. The technology is here to stay and something that all companies will need to use in order to take advantage of their resources.

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2024 Cloud Security Trends and Predictions | FEATURE SEGMENT