Experts Offer Advice on Keeping Businesses Safe From Cyberattacks

The rise of digitization has been revolutionary for industries, yet it has also opened businesses up for a litany of potential security breaches as information shifts increasingly online. Ahead of Data Privacy Week earlier this month, Industry experts shared advice on how to keep applications and software secure from data breaches, and what the future holds for cybersecurity.

Shiva Nathan, CEO, Onymos:

In the current year and probably into 2024, there will be problems with security and data privacy. One of the reasons is that with companies struggling to make ends meet, there will be budget cuts in security spending. Whenever the economy goes down, crime goes up, and a lot of these crimes are going into the cyber-space. This will be felt worldwide, and with the current geopolitical situation there are going to be a lot more nation-state actors.

Enterprises can take their example from the military, and implement a need-to-know culture when it comes to data. In enterprises, we currently have this thing about transparent management. Everyone needs to know everything. While this isn’t always a bad thing, when you have large enterprises seeing labor shortages and financial problems, any data an employee collects could be worth something for someone else.

The process should start from data creation. Ask ‘do I need to capture this data?’ And then do I need to store this data? And finally, decide how long the data should be stored, right when you are creating it as that’s the best time to make that determination. A lot of businesses miss out on this last point, and I think the problem of data ‘nostalgia' is a significant one.

Because of the current economic conditions, I don’t think many companies are going to invest in new security tools. To safeguard, it’s more likely that they’ll have to work with existing tools and address the things that are within their control; their people and their processes.

Carl D’Halluin, CTO, Datadobi:

A staggering amount of unstructured data has been and continues to be created. In response, a variety of innovative new tools and techniques have been developed so that IT professionals can better get their arms around it. Effective and efficient management of unstructured data is critical to maximize revenue potential, control costs, and minimize risk across today's heterogeneous, hybrid-cloud environments. However … this can be easier said than done, without the right unstructured data management solution(s) in place. 

The ideal unstructured data management platform is one that enables companies to assess, organize, and act on their data, regardless of the platform or cloud environment in which it is being stored. From the second it is installed, users should be able to garner insights into their unstructured data, and quickly and easily organize it in a way that enables them to achieve their highest priorities, whether it is controlling costs, carbon dioxide, or risk – or ensuring end-to-end data privacy.

​​Don Boxley, CEO, DH2i:

The perpetual concern around data privacy and protection has led to an abundance of new and increasingly stringent regulations around the world. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 71% of countries now have data protection and privacy legislation, with another 9% having draft legislation. 

This increased scrutiny makes perfect sense. Data is being created and flowing not just from our business endeavors, but countless personal interactions we make every day – whether we are hosting an online conference, making an online purchase, or using a third party for ride-hailing, food delivery, or package transport. 

Today, as organizations endeavor to protect data – their own as well as their customers’ – many still face the hurdle of trying to do so with outdated technology that was simply not designed for the way we work and live today.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel … the Software Defined Perimeter (SDP). This approach enables organizations to build a secure software-defined perimeter and use Zero Trust Network Access tunnels to seamlessly connect all applications, servers, IoT devices … without having to reconfigure networks or set up complicated and problematic VPNs. With SDP, organizations can ensure safe, fast and easy network and data access; while ensuring they adhere to internal governance and external regulations compliance mandates.

Andrew Russell, chief revenue officer, Nyriad: 

Data Privacy Day serves as a great reminder of the value and power of data. In addition to your people, data is without question the most strategic asset of virtually any organization. Data and the ability to fully leverage, manage, store, share, and protect it, enables organizations to be successful across virtually every facet – from competitive advantage to innovation, the employee experience, and customer satisfaction, to legal and regulations compliance competency. 

Consequently, savvy data management professionals recognize that while a storage solution that is able to deliver unprecedented performance, resiliency, and efficiency with a low total cost of ownership is priority number one to fully optimize data and intelligence for business success; they likewise need to ensure they have the ability to protect against, detect, and restore data and operations in the event of a successful cyber-attack in order to protect their data, for business survival.

Brian Dunagan, vice president of engineering, Retrospect: 

Every organization, regardless of size, faces the real possibility that they could be the next victim of a cyberattack. Today’s ransomware is easier than ever for even the novice cybercriminal to obtain via ransomware as a service. 

As an IT professional, it is therefore critical that beyond protection, steps be taken to detect ransomware as early as possible to stop the threat and ensure their ability to remediate and recover. A backup solution that includes anomaly detection to identify changes in an environment that warrants the attention of IT is a must. In order to ensure its benefit, users must be able to tailor the backup solution’s anomaly detection to their business’s specific systems and workflows; with capabilities such as customizable filtering and thresholds for each of their backup policies. And, those anomalies must be immediately reported to management, as well as aggregated for future ML/analyzing purposes.