Every IT pro that is responsible for protecting their organization’s data has plenty of cybersecurity concerns. That can be especially daunting when you look at protecting end-to-end operations, where crucial data is being generated and used throughout your organization. As our CEO noted in a recent post, with ransomware, phishing, and ineffective patch management now the top cybersecurity threats, those concerns will continue to grow.
If your organization isn’t already using the cloud today, you will likely be soon. Gartner says that “More than half of enterprise IT spending in key market segments will shift to the cloud by 2025.” But cloud security is a crucial concern for any organization, given recent headlines. And, with cloud cybersecurity becoming even more complex with hybrid- or multi-cloud infrastructures, it’s hard to know where you should focus your efforts.
The DOD adopted CMMC just prior to 2021 to enforce the protection of federal contract information and ensure control of unclassified information throughout its supply chain. That information is referred to as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). It is defined as digital and physical information created by a government or entity on its behalf that, while not classified, is still sensitive and requires protection. Even though it isn’t classified, this information can be secret or top secret. Past supply-chain breaches that may have exposed some of this very sensitive information that could adversely impact national security have made headlines.
In mid-2021, Gartner forecast that more than half of global knowledge workers would be remote by the end of the year. While those year-end numbers aren’t in yet, if you’re in IT, you’re already dealing with this growing trend, not necessarily in a good way. A global industry study found that 74% of organizations attribute recent cyberattacks that affected their business to vulnerabilities resulting from pandemic-driven changes like the massive spike we’ve seen in remote and mobile workforces.
The dispersed workplace creates new kinds of cyber threats, and many organizations face urgent cybersecurity challenges. The rise in remote and hybrid work environments brought about by the pandemic was estimated by Gartner to include 51 % of global workers at the end of this past year. And the prevalence of Work From Home (WFH) will almost certainly continue.
Cybersecurity is already top of mind for every IT pro. And for good reasons. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) recently released its U.S. data breach findings for the third quarter. The good news is that publicly-reported data breaches decreased 9 percent in Q3 2021 compared to Q2 2021. The bad news is the total number of data breaches through the end of September 2021 already exceeds the total number of events for all of 2020 by 17 percent.
