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The Shifting Landscape of Cybersecurity: Top Considerations for CISOs
/by Sukesh Garg, Vice President, ProductAs we venture into the second half of 2023, it is crucial for CISOs and security professionals to stay ahead of the curve by understanding the trends that are poised to shape the future of the industry. In this blog, we will explore the key takeaways from the first half of 2023, which highlight the game-changing potential of AI, the influential role of market forces on security and resilience, the prevalence of multiple vendor architecture, the impact of public oversight on private operations, and the convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT).
Accidental Cloud Exposure – A Real Challenge
/by Dr. Mike Lloyd, CTO, RedSealThe recent disclosure that Toyota left customer data accidentally exposed for a decade is pretty startling, but can serve as a wake up call about how cloud problems can hide in plain sight.
It’s not news that humans make mistakes – security has always been bedeviled by users and the often foolish choices that they make. Administrators are human too, of course, and so mistakes creep in to our networks and applications. This too is a perennial problem. What’s different in the cloud is the way such problems are hard to see, and easy to live with until something bad happens. Cloud isn’t just “someone else’s computer”, as the old joke goes – it’s also all virtual infrastructure.
What Is Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), An Extension of CSPM
/by Venkat Ayyer, Technical Marketing DirectorModern businesses are increasingly storing data in the cloud and for a good reason — to increase agility and cut costs. But as more data and applications migrate to the cloud, the risk of data and systems being exposed increases. Conventional methods for addressing security aren’t equipped to manage containers and server-less environments. Therefore, gaps, silos, and overall security complexity increase.
This is where Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), an extension of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), excels. This new cloud platform combines the features of CSPM, Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPPs), CI/CD security, and other capabilities into a unified, end-to-end encrypted solution to secure cloud-native applications across the full application lifecycle.
The Hidden Attack Surface: What’s Missing in Your Cloud Security Strategy?
/by Venkat Ayyer, Technical Marketing DirectorIt happens all the time. A company has the right security policies in place but misconfigures the environment. They think they are protected. Everything looks fine. They locked the doors and boarded up the windows to the room where the crown jewels are kept, but nobody noticed that the safe that holds the jewels is no longer in that room. Accidentally, it was moved to another location, which is left wide open.
Here’s another common scenario. When working in the cloud, someone in your company can easily turn on a policy that allows anyone to gain access to your critical resources. Or, maybe you grant temporary access to a vendor for maintenance or troubleshooting but then forget to revoke the access. There may be legitimate reasons to grant access, but if that resource is compromised, your cloud can be infected.
Tales from the Trenches: Vol 10 — You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
/by Michael Wilson, Senior Network Security EngineerIn my customer’s environment, the network is segmented and managed by both the customer and several contracted partners. It is a difficult task to have visibility into an entire network that is distributed across several different contracted partners, let alone keep track of all of the devices and changes that can occur across a network. The adage of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ is very relevant in a situation like this. RedSeal has the ability to provide my customer with a single pane of glass to see all these network segments that are managed by different contracted partners.
Top Reasons State and Local Governments Are Targeted in Cyberattacks
/by Anthony Grasso, Sales Director, CARansomware attacks affected at least 948 U.S. government entities in 2019 and cost local and state governments over $18 billion in 2020. These agencies are prime targets for cyberattacks. Their dispersed nature, the complexity of their networks, the vast amounts of valuable personal data they process and store, and their limited budget prevent them from staying current with the latest best practices.
Strengthening your defense starts with understanding the top reasons why threat actors choose to target state and local governments. Then, implement the latest technologies and best practices to protect your organization from attacks.
Tales from the Trenches: Vol 9 — The Law of Unintended Consequences, OR Some Doors Swing Both Ways
/by Bill Burge, RedSeal Professional Services“The law of unintended consequences” states that the more complex the system, the greater the chance that there is no such thing as a small change.
While working with a customer in the early days of my RedSeal Professional Services tenure, I looked for an opportunity to prove the capability of Zones & Policies. In an unfamiliar environment, the easy starting point is creating a policy that examines the access from “Internet to all internal subnets.” It is easy to setup and easy to discuss the results, UNLESS the results say that most of the Internet can get to most of the internal network.
Top 4 Cyber Challenges for Credit Unions
/by Venkat Ayyer, Technical Marketing DirectorCredit unions continue to be the primary targets of cyberattacks like phishing, ransomware, and supply chain attacks. This is due to the highly confidential nature of the data they collect and store. If this data falls into the wrong hands, the outcome can negatively impact the institution’s reputation, as well as its legal and financial standing.
Cyberattacks aimed at credit unions come at a high cost. Financial loss can range from $190,000 for small credit unions to as high as $1.2 million for large credit unions.
As technology advances, so have the cyber threats targeting credit unions. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has continuously encouraged credit unions to “strengthen their institution’s cyber vigilance and preparedness efforts” to protect themselves and their members.
National Cyber Strategy — What We Know So Far
/by Dr. Mike Lloyd, CTO, RedSealI’ve run into several folks who wanted to ignore the Biden Administration’s recently announced National Cybersecurity Strategy – “isn’t that just for Federal agencies?”. That would be a dangerously flawed assumption! This is a major shift in strategy, and regardless of how small your organization is, it’s going to change how you get to a secure state, and how you show that you’re doing it.
The administration makes no secret of its goals, even if they are controversial. They openly describe a target of shifting the playing field, and as always, this creates winners and losers. You need to be agile to ensure you’re on the winner side of this equation! The tilted playing field is aiming for two effects. One goal is to change the economic risk/reward so that bad actors think twice. The other is a significant shift in the burden of defense, pushing it up from smaller mom-and-pop scale organizations, transferring it to larger, more capable companies.
Tales from the Trenches: Vol 8 — Is that what you are going to say to the Auditor?
/by Brad Schwab, Senior Security Solutions ConsultantOne of the biggest elephant in the room questions for Security Operations groups that deal with Vulnerability Scanners is very simple to state, but very, very tricky to answer, “are you sure you are scanning the entire network?” Sounds like it should be a simple yes or no answer. However, with any network of scale, the answer can be almost impossible to verify.
I was in a high level meeting for a large Health Organization with the CTO, head of Network Operations (NetOps), the head of Security Operations (SecOps), along with other people that had different stakes in the performance and security of the network. Since the network was the main instrument supporting the “Money Engine” of the operation, all attendees were laser focused on answers to any questions.