ZeroFOX says poor communication hampers cyber security efforts

Today’s constantly-evolving threat landscape is creating new and unexpected challenges for even the most seasoned cybersecurity professionals. Increasingly sophisticated and complex threats, together with adversaries who are more cunning and determined than ever, are making staying ahead of new attack vectors a daunting prospect for businesses of every size and type.

“While it is extremely hard to understand the nature of threats among every type of business, large or small, across every vertical, and identify a single looming issue, I would wager that poor communication is not only a common theme, but also a common origin of security incidents for many organisations,” said Gabe Goldhirsh, VP of MEA/APAC sales from ZeroFOX.

Security, he continues, is a team sport, and the responsibility for two-way communication about operations, activity and stakes lies with everyone.

Speaking of what he sees as being the biggest security trend in 2020, Goldhirsh says for obvious reasons, securing the remote workforce has been one of the most discussed topics this year.

“With that, organisations are applying a critical eye more than ever to the remote worker as a rule and not the exception. This has driven increased interest in device protection, the security of cloud and SaaS resources, and brand monitoring or protection.”

Another trend that Goldhirsh says has generated a lot of interest this year is automation, which is enabling far faster analysis and, in the event of a breach or compromise, more rapid detection, intervention and remediation.

In terms of how he sees the threat landscape evolving over the next five years, Goldhirsh says preserving authenticity is a significant challenge for many platforms at the moment, and with the rapid and consistent progress of artificial intelligence, this challenge will only increase in difficulty.

“Beyond the basic blocking and tackling of common security issues, I expect us to see more advanced products, services, and technologies designed to assist human operators in discerning real from fake, whether at the granularity of a single piece of content, or a broader campaign of communication and online interaction.”

Offering a piece of advice about cyber security, Goldhirsh says organisations need to ensure they are covering the basics first.

“However, doing this can be surprisingly tricky, as it requires extensive planning, execution, and evaluation across each organisation’s people, processes, and technologies, which are – in and of themselves – continually moving targets.”

During the summit, ZeroFOX’s chief security officer, Dr Sam Small, will cover two different topics. Firstly, he will review a taxonomy of digital threats, giving practitioners the ability to not only organise and classify the risks and attacks they face across the digital landscape, but also to help them evaluate any related strengths, gaps, and weaknesses in their current security program.

Next, he will offer some practical advice and anecdotal stories about third-party platform takedowns.