Cybersecurity Priorities in 2021: How Can CISOs Re-Analyze and Shift Focus?

2020 was a year of relentless disruptions. The protective layer
of secured enterprise networks and controlled IT environments of
the physical premises did not exist. Over the past year, CISOs (Chief Information Security
Officers)^[1]
have had to grapple with the challenges of bolstering the security
posture, minimizing risks, and ensuring business continuity in the
new normal. The rise in volumes and sophistication of cyberattacks
in the rather borderless IT situation only compounded the
challenges. All this has necessitated a shift in cybersecurity
priorities in 2021.

In this article, we have put together the top cybersecurity
priorities for 2021 and beyond that will enable businesses to be
fully equipped for future disruptions, without compromising on
security.

Cybersecurity Priorities for 2021

Strengthen the Cybersecurity Fundamentals

CISOs must focus on security fundamentals, including asset
management, password management, cyber hygiene, configuration,
vulnerability
management^[2], patching, threat
detection and prevention, user education, reporting, documentation,
and so on. Without a solid foundation, any investment in
cybersecurity will not yield the kind of benefits it should.

Organizations must redesign their security defenses in such a
manner that it works, with or without the secure, controlled
environment of the office premises. The security solution chosen
must offer always-on, multi-layered, intelligent protection against
existing and emerging threats. The solution must be continuously
updated based on global threat intelligence and past attack
history. In addition, it must assure zero false positives.

Cybersecurity Must Be a Boardroom Agenda

Cybersecurity is a business concern and needs to be treated as
one, instead of being looked at as an IT issue. CISOs need to be
aware of the business risks, that’s a given. Similarly, the other
leaders and executives need to be aware of the threat landscape,
the security risks involved, and the level of investment required
to counter them and strengthen the security posture. After all, in
the case of a security breach, the CEOs and the boards will have to
answer questions on how it occurred.

Further, organizations need to create a culture of cybersecurity
that starts with the board and percolates down. When the leaders
lead from the front, buy-ins are easier among the employees in
adopting and maintaining standards of security in their routine
work.

Leverage Intelligent Automation and Other Advanced
Technology

The level of sophistication of attacks has increased manifold in
the past couple of years. Attackers leveraging advanced technology
to infiltrate company networks and gain access to mission-critical
assets.

Given this scenario, organizations too need to leverage
futuristic technology such as next-gen WAF, intelligent automation,
behavior analytics, deep learning, security analytics, and so on to
prevent even the most complex and sophisticated attacks. Automation
also enables organizations to gain speed and scalability in the
broader IT environment with ramped-up attack activity. Security solutions like Indusface’s
AppTrana^[3]
enable all this and more.

Shift to A Zero Trust Architecture

Remote work is here to stay, and the concept of the network
perimeter is blurring. For business continuity, organizations have
to enable access of mission-critical assets to employees wherever
they are. Employees are probably accessing these resources from
personal, shared devices and unsecured networks. CISOs need to
think strategically and implement borderless security based on a
zero-trust architecture.

Zero-trust architecture mandates that organizations always
verify and never trust with respect to data, employees, networks,
and devices. So, CISOs need to redesign their security controls and
identity and access management policies to reflect the current
scenario.

To this end, they must have full visibility into connected
devices and the rapidly expanding endpoints.

They must have updated intelligence on what data is produced by
the connected devices, who is connecting to company networks and
from where, what are they accessing, are they authorized to access
that and so on.

Focus on Securing Your Cloud
Infrastructure

Even though cloud adoption was on the rise, the pandemic led to
an almost instant surge in the use of public cloud and cloud-native
resources. However, this isn’t a momentary surge; the shift to
cloud usage is permanent.

This essentially means that CISO’s need to rethink their
security policies to secure the cloud infrastructure. They must
deploy new intelligent tools & technology, holistic processes, and
comprehensive governance models that provide visibility into the
cloud environment and help secure the cloud infrastructure.

Develop Robust Continuity Plans

Organizations typically have security incident response plans
and business continuity plans. But neither factored in worldwide
impact events such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The cybersecurity
priorities for 2021 and beyond require CISOs and business leaders
to develop robust continuity and resilience plans for such
events.

The Way Forward

The Covid-19 pandemic has furthered the case for creating
autonomous teams in a hybrid work environment to ensure increased
agility and responsiveness to the relentless changes in the future.
The cybersecurity priorities for 2021 and beyond provide an insight
into how CISOs can redesign security to be better equipped for the
future.