The perimeter is no longer present, but in its place, a new normal has emerged where context rules and identity plays a crucial role. To address these challenges brought on by the human element, insider threats, social media attacks, and BEC, businesses must secure the new perimeter if they don’t want to bear the cost of a catastrophic breach.
In a landscape where people are working remotely, identity is often called the new perimeter. In fact, it is the context that represents today’s new perimeter. Anytime a user’s behavior deviates from their usual pattern, context can raise a red flag. One prominent piece of contextual information is the time of authentication. Contextual information like their location, the specifics of the data they’re attempting to access, and the device they’re using can all be utilized to block access when an account acts unusually.
An alarming rise in the creativity of phishing attempts, in which hackers impersonate reputable cybersecurity firms or utilize a proxy site to duplicate an MFA authentication page, is a clear illustration of the necessity to place identity and context at the core of cybersecurity.
A significant strengthening of cybersecurity is necessary due to the increasing sophistication of today’s threats. Here are four strategies that businesses can adopt to secure themselves in today’s threat landscape.
Address Internal Threats
This year’s Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report indicates that approximately half of all attacks are because of stolen credentials.
Also Read: Leverage VPN to Secure Data in High-Risk World
As data is distributed across ever-expanding networks by the cloud, the risk increases because it is simpler for insiders to acquire confidential information or login credentials. Identity services must be able to recognize anomalous and suspicious behavior if they are to combat this threat. Identity-based security systems like Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) are crucial tools for managing unapproved access to the network. Additionally, they can link network activity to a particular identity, regulating data access or even in-app downloads.
In order to detect unauthorized behavior before it results in a breach, an effective IDaaS solution must apply context-aware, identity-based rules throughout an organization’s ecosystem.
It should be able to function independently to authenticate the right people depending on contextual data and also restrict access based on anomalous conduct.
Organizations should establish a zero-trust environment that safeguards against both internal and external threats as they build complex and larger cloud-based data landscapes. They can implement systems that evaluate a lot more than just a one-time code or password when deciding whether to provide users access to a system or data by using autonomous, intelligent defense technology. IP addresses, historical behavior, geolocation, and endpoint IDs are just a few examples of the data that an intelligent IDaaS platform should gather and examine to determine if an access request should be allowed. Insider attack risk can be reduced with a modern identity management strategy within the network.
Defend Against Social Engineering
Phishers are getting more audacious and sophisticated by the day, with Business Email Compromise (BEC) and CEO fraud representing a growing and serious threat.
Company policies can aid in mitigating the threat. In addition to multi-layered email security that incorporates threat intelligence, content analysis, and executive name checking, awareness and training are required. This means that if an employee receives an email with words like “urgent wire transfer” or something similar, they should flag it. However, this is only the first step, and it falls short of providing a complete defense against CEO and BEC fraud. The next step is to use executive tracking and tag external emails to locate senior leadership names in the envelope and header fields. Additionally, reducing the risk and the number of false positives can be accomplished by comparing emails against a list of safe domains.
Also Read: Defeating the Challenges of Zero-Trust Networks for Cyber Resilience
Addressing the Human Element
The workforce of a company may be its most valuable resource. Unfortunately, they may also pose a cybersecurity risk. Companies should foster a security-conscious culture that trains the workforce to scrutinize email content and educates them about phishing scams.
IDaaS has a special role to play since it can extend enterprise identity protections across every application while also preventing the use of unauthorized apps and limiting risky behaviors within them.
Organizations can improve their cyber resilience and lower the risk of a breach by locking down the vulnerabilities related to the human element of cybersecurity risk.
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