Cybersecurity in Today Business

Similarly, today businesses are adopting the open economy technology platform, interacting, interfacing and integrating with internal and external business software applications such as Business To Business (B2B) and Business To Consumer (B2C). Because of this, companies looking to start or extend their use of cloud-based solutions quickly come to the question of IT security, such as ‘do cloud-based solutions expose companies to higher security risks? Are cloud-based systems more secure than on-premises?’

In reality and in fact, there is no single answer to the question whether cloud technology is more secure than on-premise technology. It is better to ask companies whether cloud-based service/solution providers have configured their solutions, not only correctly, but also proper cybersecurity protection solutions implemented.

Of course, common IT business sense dictates cloud solutions that have been configured correctly are more secure than on-premise solutions. This can be explained as The Power of ONE. 

From a Cybersecurity standpoint, vendors push platforms but (and we know) features, functionality, and definitions vary.

Attended any Cybersecurity Conference events lately? If you have, no doubt you would have seen on the event show floor every Tom Dick Harry security vendors pitching their respective technology platforms from the likes of FireEye and McAfee (both merged to form Trellix), Symantec, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Webroot, Forcepoint, Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro, Cisco, and many others.

Cybersecurity Technology Platform

The description of the word platform is generally agreed by Cybersecurity vendors, to describe an integrated amalgamation of point products that creates a common and interoperable architecture. In other words, Platform Security refers to the security architecture, tools, and processes that ensure the security of an entire computing platform that uses bundled/unified security software, systems and processes to enable the security of a computing platform’s hardware, software, network, storage and other components.

Cybersecurity platform requirements cover the following:

• Coverage from endpoints to data centres to cloud provides comprehensive coverage that includes endpoints (such as PCs, mobile devices, IoT devices, etc.) and networks, as well as physical servers, virtual servers, and cloud-based workloads (VMs, containers, etc.).
• Prevention, detection, and response capabilities offering best-of-breed security efficacy while the platform should provide incremental threat protection.
• Hybrid deployment options offering flexible implementation alternatives so customers can pick and choose the best fit.
• Cloud-based services covering myriad cloud-based services like threat intelligence analysis/sharing, static/dynamic file analysis, reputation list compilation and distribution, machine learning modelling, etc.
• Central Management and Reporting with individual tools plugged into a central management plane offering role-based access control that can be customised for different users, views, and functions where management functionality include policy management, configuration management, and detailed reporting from individual tools, from groups of tools, or across the entire architecture thus management data can be easily exportable to other tools such as SIEM (Security Information and Event Management, GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) tools, automation/orchestration systems, etc.).
• And last but not least, Openness, that is, given the market reality, security technology platforms should be open for easy third-party technology integration by offering developer support, technology partnerships, and well-documented and standards-based APIs (application programming interfaces) as a core part of the platform.