In a world where businesses are increasingly relying on cloud computing and cloud applications, organisations need to rethink their traditional network and security architecture to combat the evolving cyber threat landscape. Furthermore, they need to find new and better ways to protect cloud data.
Traditional network security
The way IT teams build network security architecture has changed. Traditionally, IT teams create security parameters around business assets in data centres and police the traffic coming in and out. However, in the era of the cloud, this is no longer enough to protect cloud data.
The role of the pandemic
The arrival of the pandemic accelerated the amount of remote working for businesses to survive. Remote working meant that employees had to juggle work and home life over a mixture of corporate and personal devices. Furthermore, the reliance on cloud applications exploded.
However, as teams moved to authorised cloud services to carry on working, Netskope’s data revealed that 97% of their cloud apps organisations were using were unauthorised. Having this many cloud applications allows for too many overlapping legacy networks and security controls. As a result, this is a nightmare for the IT team to police security and protect cloud data.
Increased cyber threats
Cybercriminals are taking advantage of this new landscape. They deliver more than two-thirds of malware via the cloud, predominantly through cloud storage apps. Phishing attacks are as common as ever as they link back to a cloud service when they outsource their architecture to help bypass an organisation’s security controls. Cybercriminals also target cloud infrastructure and applications looking for misconfigurations.
Employees ask security teams to enable direct access to their new cloud service but bypass these policies to allow continuity. Continuity without security controls means that cybercriminals will exploit these gaps.
As a result, IT teams have less control over company data because they cannot use traditional methods to protect cloud data. Data is more at risk of user error when applying security settings to cloud-stored data.
The answer
Companies want zero-trust network access but not with multiple disparate products. Instead, they want their users to connect securely with the same security policies across all traffic and data flow.
By using one tool in the cloud to spot security gaps, you can automate remediation and coach employees to deal with inappropriate high-risk behaviour in your network. As a result, this makes the security team more proactive than reactive against cyber breaches. Comprehensive security products often offered as-a-service have layers of security from identity to behaviour.
Our Example: Bitdefender
For those with less budget, a great tool is Bitdefender. As well as providing malware protection, it also has a comprehensive set of tools to help with multi-layered security. One example is the Ransomware protection feature. This service is based in the cloud and can be added to any device no matter where you are. The services use a small amount of space on each device to store a copy of your files before they are compromised, allowing easy rollback after an infection. Using Bitdefender means you don’t need to purchase loads of software that provide different security protection. You can add the ransomware protection feature from an easy-to-use portal.
For more information about Bitdefender Ransomware protection, click here or contact Northstar today.
