There has been a distinct shift in my conversations with customers over the last year. Most have gone from asking ‘can we still keep our assets secure as we adopt cloud services?,’ to declaring, ‘we are adopting cloud services in order to improve our security posture.
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing environment. It offers customers three primary service delivery models including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS).
Innovation in the attack space is constant as adversaries increase in both determination and sophistication. In response to increased investments in defense, attackers are adapting and improving tactics at breakneck speed. The good news is that defenders are also innovating and disrupting long reliable attack methods with new technologies.
By 2021, worldwide cybercrime damage is expected to reach $6 trillion—double what it cost businesses in 2015. As digital transformation sweeps the globe, the imminent threat of cybercrime grows alongside it. As a result, new techniques in cybersecurity must be developed at a growing rate to keep pace.
With digital transformation, technology becomes increasingly central to every business and organization. This makes ensuring cybersecurity increasingly important. And, as employees increase their use of mobile devices and cloud-based apps, protecting their work requires a new approach for IT.
Shadow IT is on the rise. More than 80 percent of employees report using apps that weren’t sanctioned by IT. Shadow IT includes any unapproved hardware or software, but SaaS is the primary cause in its rapid rise. Today, attempting to block it is an outdated, ineffective approach. Employees find ways around IT controls.
Recently, I hosted a Chief Information Security Officer roundtable in Washington, DC. Executives from several US government agencies and systems integrators attended to share cloud security concerns and challenges, such as balancing collaboration and productivity against data protection needs, cyber threat detection, and compliance.
In November, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined a new comprehensive, cross company approach to security for our mobile-first, cloud-first world. To support this approach, Microsoft invests more than a billion dollars in security research and development, every year.
The latest Government Office of Accountability report dealing with the security of high impact information technology (IT) systems continues to point out opportunities for improvement in cybersecurity across the US Federal Government. While improvements have been made, the persistence of the challenge is disquieting.
Sun Tzu wrote that mastery in the art of war is about subduing one’s enemy without having to fight. As the modern world contends with increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks from both criminal and political adversaries, this 2500-year-old cliché is key to enterprise security strategy.
