When I worked as a junior security consultant developing security policies and procedures for enterprises and public organizations, my senior advisor used to say, “Don’t make too many exceptions” as a sort of maxim. That’s because if a policy contains too many exceptions, these excess exceptions could become an altogether new policy that could replace the original.
This maxim can be applied to any new phenomena, because regardless of expected or unexpected chains of events, any change to a system can create unforeseen side effects. As COVID-19 made its way across the globe, it affected all of our lives regardless of lifestyle, culture, economy, politics, and country of origin. Because of this, cybersecurity cannot remain unchanged.Market assessment and prediction agencies alike predicted that the next era of security trends ushered in by 2020 would be led by AI and Cloud.
I believe that this prediction is still valid, and the challenges faced in 2020 only confirms this prediction. To address the challenges created by COVID-19, I have identified three attributes associated with successful remote cybersecurity postures: strategic automation, collaborative remote workforces, and learning.
1. Strategic automation
First, the COVID-19 era necessitated that the cybersecurity industry analyze the threat landscape even more quickly and precisely than before because of the increasing number of threats. According to IBM Research, incidents of compromise (IoCs) containing malware or the intention of a cyber-attack dramatically increased at a ratio of at least 4,300%.
Automation technology can be utilized in situations like these to create improved security procedures and policies as unprecedented numbers of attacks are launched.
2. Collaborative remote workforces
Secondly, cybersecurity companies and businesses of all kinds have worked to transition to working from home. Though working from home is not always associated with successful collaboration, cybersecurity companies have had to figure out how to address new threats efficiently while also cooperating with other branches like HR, Legal, Marketing and 3rd parties -remotely!
Successful remote transitions to the Cloud prove that successful collaboration is possible remotely, as cybersecurity specialists can seamlessly analyze and respond to cybersecurity threats from anywhere. As an example, IBM released a case study at Think 2020 featuring a German financial organization, which converted its cybersecurity team to a remote workforce in just one week.
3. Learning
Learning and expertise is essential. I urge companies to make more education available to cybersecurity teams with a variety of experience levels. I also urge companies to utilize AI technology where possible so that cross experience teams can learn faster so that they can more quickly address the increasing number of cybersecurity threats.
We cannot avoid the changes caused by COVID-19, especially when it comes to how we approach cybersecurity. Life will not be the same, and thus, the way we approach cybersecurity cannot remain the same.
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