The new Thales Data Threat Report produced with The 451 Research codifies and questions enterprise security spending priorities. Among the key points: 26% of organizations responding experienced a breach in the last year and 30% say their organizations are very or extremely vulnerable; and organizations are spending on endpoint & network security. 451 analysts urges organizations to embrace newer security technologies. IT security experts from Balabit, STEALTHbits Technologies, CipherCloud, VASCO Data Security and Prevoty commented below.
Sándor Bálint, Security Lead for Applied Data Science at Balabit:
“It’s all too easy to chastise organizations for a perceived misalignment of security spending priorities – it is another thing to actually be at the helm and making the calls. For many security managers, it feels like trying to plug a thousand holes in a boat, while behind you someone’s pointing out that the water’s rising and you haven’t plugged everything yet.
“The best advice I can give other security professionals: if you have the basics in place, then spend your first security budget dollars to improve monitoring. Collect and analyze logs, preferably using tools that allow fast drill-down and also help connect the dots with features such as advanced anomaly detection and behavioral analytics. Do vulnerability scans, perform audits. Once you understand what is going on in your organization, you’ll know where the risks are and where to spend your next budget dollars. Read reports and vendor recommendations, but know that ultimately the buck stops with you.”
Adam Laub, Sr. Vice President, Product Marketing at STEALTHbits Technologies:
“Are new technologies needed to stop today’s threats? Absolutely. But, at the end of the day, every attacker is after two things; the data they want to steal, and the credentials they need to access that data. Focus on securing the very two things attackers are after, rather than how they get there, will ultimately yield the best results in the end.”
Mark Wilson, Director, Partner Enablement, EMEA at STEALTHbits Technologies:
“By far the most prevalent method for Ransomware delivery is email – a platform that virtually circumvents end-point and network layer security. It’s also worth notig that “Insider Threat’, where an administrator who has escalated privileges and therefore the encryption keys to sensitive data at rest can circumvent encryption level security. The Thales report highlights the need to protect – at source – the two most critical elements: Credentials and Data.
“Credentials are used to gain access to data, and those credentials in 95% of organizations are held and managed by Active Directory. Protect Active Directory and you massively reduce the risk to data at rest. The next step is to add a secondary layer to protect organizations from the insider threat, and that could be to override underlying weak native permission models. Build your security model outwards from the targets of the attack – data-at-rest and credentials.”
Willy Leichter, VP of Marketing at CipherCloud:
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Shane Stevens, Director of Omni-Channel Identity and Trust Solutions at VASCO Data Security:
Julien Bellanger, CEO and Co-Founder at Prevoty:
The opinions expressed in this post belongs to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.