Happy New Year 2018 very soon!!!
This is a good time to review the technologies that are shaping our lives which means what to Cybersecurity?
Amazon, iPhone devices, Android devices… these are technological breakthroughs that are quickly changing their technological landscape to either enhance user friendliness and features or to be the better brand or flagship product type in the technological category they belong. This means more Internet connectivity, not less.
What does more Internet mean? Does more function mean less security? Based on statistics, one thing is for sure, this means cybersecurity will be more important in 2018. Because as you will see more connectivity means a ripple will cause more problems, so we _have_ to focus on cybersecurity a certain amount or this decision of apathy to cybersecurity will cause you regret.
If we look back to the year 2015, in one of our blogposts, we discussed the relevance of the Cisco VNI (Visual Networking Index) forecast. In 2015, the projection as to how many devices will be connected to the Internet to be an immense 24 billion devices by 2019. Current day VNI projection are showing a much larger number than the 2015 projection, with numbers now at 29.1 billion, although closer, we should get even better projections as time goes on.
What is the relevance of this then? It means the number of connections to the Internet has grown exponentially, no mention of the data usage we have when plugged in to the net. More devices, means more occurrences of net usage. More net usage means a wider variety of data transfer and traffic. More data traffic means more open opportunity to risk factors that may lead to higher risk in cybersecurity.
What is alarming is when we think about how much of that number is criminal traffic and how much of that is checking your defenses. We want to advance to a new level by increasing capabilities but we may be overlooking that more capabilities mean more chances of risk. In many cases, we don’t see the possibilities of where risk may come about, because we are focused on making it work or creating revenue. So do we see the increase of possibilities and opportunities that we have increases technological capabilities and Risk analysis complexity?
That is why, developing a risk analysis process is important. It is not only a review of how much and what kind of Internet occurrences you have but a check on the data load you use. Alongside this realization of data transfer, it is pertinent that you do optimal checks and create regular controls updates within your your organization. Having an external risk auditor will help a lot in knowing how much more protection you need to uphold or how much risk oversight you need to work on. If you value the investment you have worked on, it always pays back to also value its maintenance through cyber protection. Contact us, to learn more.