Sample cybersecurity blog post

Most business ventures rely on lessons learned to improve outcomes. They analyze what they did right or wrong to fill gaps and adapt strategies is often a barometer of future success. The cybersecurity industry needs to follow this heuristic model. In 2021 we are already facing a variety of cyber-attacks and look to lessons learned to close cyber vulnerabilities.  Three trends to focus on include 1) the expanding cyber-attack surface (remote work, IoT supply chain), 2) Ransomware as a cyber weapon of choice, 3) threats to critical infrastructure via ICS, OT/IT cyber-threat convergence.

1)    Expanding Cyber-Attack Surface (Remote Work, IoT, Supply Chain)

According to cybersecurity ventures, The world will store 200 zettabytes of data by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. This includes data stored on private and public IT infrastructures, on utility infrastructures, on private and public cloud data centers, on personal computing devices. The World Will Store 200 Zettabytes Of Data By 2025 (cybersecurityventures.com)

There are several factors that have led to the Malthusian expansion of the global cyber-attack surface. These influences include digital transformation and the commercial model of more people doing business over the internet. We have moved into the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is highlighted by digital interactions and the meshing of machine and human. Our way of life is increasingly online.

The digital transformation was rapidly pushed by Covid19 and the need to move individuals working in offices to working remotely from their homes. That led to essentially millions of connected offices. It is estimated that nearly half the U.S. labor force is working from home, and that it is greater in many other countries due to lockdowns.  Home offices are not as protected as the fortified office sites that have more secure firewalls, routers, and access management run by Its security teams. Remote work has created new opportunities for hackers to exploit vulnerable employee devices and networks. Dorit Dor, vice president of products, Check Point Software elaborated on how the digital transformation. “Businesses globally surprised themselves with the speed of their digital initiatives in 2020: it’s estimated that digital transformation was advanced by up to seven years. But at the same time, threat actors and cyber criminals also changed their tactics so that they could take advantage of these changes, and the pandemic’s disruption, with surges in attacks across all sectors.” Check Point Software´s Security Report Reveals Extent of Global Cyber Pandemic, and Shows How Organizations Can Develop Immunity in 2021 | Nasdaq

Also, the reality of the Internet of Things has completely changed the dynamics and the size of the expanding cyber attack surface. With an estimated 50 billion connected devices and trillions of sensors working among those devices, hackers have a multitude of options to breach cyber-defense and exfiltrate data.  “By 2025, it is expected that there will be more than 30 billion IoT connections, almost 4 IoT devices per person on average and that also amounts to trillions of sensors connecting and interacting on these devices. State of the IoT 2020: 12 billion IoT connections (iot-analytics.com). According to The McKinsey Global Institute, 127 new devices connect to the internet every second.