The continual development of the internet is great for consumers and businesses alike, however, with each new technological development comes a new exciting challenge for hackers to overcome. Cyber security should therefore always be of the utmost priority!
Speaking at a recent press session, David Goulden, CEO of IT services company EMC, claims that the current status of cyber security calls for big data-led intelligence defences.
He stated: “If you look to the past, firewall and antivirus technologies came up as the main solution in the second platform but at this stage in IT the apps were generally used within the enterprise so it was manageable. But this is no longer the case in the third platform.”
In a statement that is sure to worry both consumers and businesses, Goulden said that these days’ companies are going to be at a loss when trying to defend their systems against evermore determined and daring cyber criminals. He commented that the only solution for overcoming this threat is to utilise big data analytics solutions.
Big data analytics have come on a huge amount over the last year and whilst many companies have been utilising big data to better connect and engage with their audiences, they have not yet seemingly embraced the intelligence to help them overcome the ever-present threat of malicious cyber activities.
Goulden said that business have been overlooking the fact that two of the biggest security issues can be aided by using big data.
The first challenge to overcome is how to authenticate the person using the network/ completing the transaction and the second challenge, “is the identification of anomalies occurring in your network in real time.”
EMC is just one organisation to rate the adoption of big data analytics solutions as a way for businesses to help identify and combat cyber threats. Cyber security firm Darktrace also stressed the importance of a strategy change, highlighting the fact that businesses are too reliant on perimeter-based defences, which leaves them extremely open to hacker attacks and enables hackers to stay in a company’s systems, undetected, for months at a time.
Leader in the IT security services sector, Verizon, attributes a lot of blame for breaches in company security to a lack of employee awareness, stating that this lack of awareness accounts for the success of 1 in 4 cyber scams!
Goulden stated that, when it came to cyber security, EMC are a “generation ahead of people at this [big data analytics-based security].” He claimed that more and more companies, many of whom have experienced security breaches in the past, are now realising the importance of big data analytics-based security and are moving across to use RSA technologies. (RSA is the Security Division of EMC and provides intelligence-driven security solutions)
There’s no denying that companies require more effective threat detection and faster rates of investigation. A system which therefore combines big data security collection, management and analytics, alongside full network access, log-based visibility and automated threat intelligence is something every company should strive to have.
Not only would this lead to increased visibility of a company’s network and systems but it would also help speed up a response in case a threat is detected, thus stopping hackers squatting in the system for months on end, and thus prevent, or at least significantly reduce the likelihood of a full blown cyber-attack.