5 of Today’s Top Cybersecurity Challenges

By Eric Kratz

Apr 5, 2023 10:46:24 AM

About 5 minutes

When companies think of cybersecurity challenges, they may envision a risk landscape peopled with bad actors who use ransomware and other malware to stage attacks. However, many security challenges come from the way IT environments evolve. As IT infrastructure expands and diversifies, it creates weak spots that can be exploited by cybercriminals.

These vulnerabilities may not be readily apparent to your IT and information security teams. Recognizing the security challenges presented by your devices, applications, and network is the first step to finding the right strategy and solutions to meet them.

Forbes recommends changing your mindset to try to see things from a hacker’s perspective. Awareness of vulnerabilities is key.

Here’s a quick look at 5 of the cybersecurity challenges your company needs to meet.

1) Proliferation of Endpoints

Today, organizations are relying on more endpoints than ever before. Most organizations haven’t transitioned back to the office completely, so employees are still using their mobile devices to do work. Companies in many industries use IoT devices to automate processes and generate data using sensors.

Endpoints present security challenges by decreasing the network visibility needed to monitor for threats. Endpoint visibility is important because every endpoint is potentially an entry point for hackers that want to stage attacks. Data being transmitted to and from endpoints is also vulnerable to being lost, stolen, or compromised. 

2) Sprawl of Applications

As IT systems grow, they use more applications, resulting in application sprawl. Organizations are also developing more applications to engage with and serve customers. Companies may not have enough resources, including security, to meet the needs of these applications. 

Applications are being run in the cloud and at endpoints, meaning security needs to extend to protect mission-critical applications. To protect these applications, businesses must first identify and inventory all their APIs and then ensure that policies are set for controlling access.

3) Expansion at the Edge

Increasing use of endpoints and the cloud means that companies are expanding at the edge. More applications are running at the edge of the network, meaning more data is being generated there. Security tools and strategies must be adapted to accommodate this shift to the edge.

Network visibility should expand to the edge, and IT administrators need a way to set and enforce security policies all the way to the edge of the network, including those for identity and access management.

4) Need to Orchestrate Security Products

Some companies try to overcome security challenges by deploying more security tools. Implementing many security products can introduce complexity that makes cybersecurity hard to manage.

Organizations need orchestration to help their security solutions work together. Orchestration integrates and connects security tools. When security products work together, incident detection and response is optimized. Managing the security stack is also unified and simplified.

5) Increasing Complexity

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported that company systems, operations, and environments have become so complex that cyber risks have multiplied to the point where cyberattacks have gone undetected for a shocking amount of time. PwC pointed out 3 key areas of complexity:

  1. Business Models
  2. External Partners
  3. Internal Systems

One way to overcome the security challenges presented by business complexity is to simplify these areas of the business. Another approach is to update security tools, policies, and strategies to cover the demands of a geographically distributed and increasingly remote business architecture.

Tackling Cybersecurity Challenges

The one thread that seems to hold these cybersecurity challenges together is that business and IT environments are expanding and becoming more complex. 

The answer to these problems isn’t implementing more security solutions. Instead, companies need to develop comprehensive and integrated security strategies.

ProActive Solutions takes a consultative approach to helping our customers meet security challenges with meaningful and successful strategies. We focus on key areas of IT security, such as security operations, identity and access management, and threat prevention and management.

Find out how to adapt your security strategy to bridge any gaps and eliminate vulnerabilities. Ask for an IT security consultation from ProActive.

Tags: cybersecurity, IT security, endpoint security, Network Security, information security, edge security, cybersecurity challenges