23 November 2024, Sat |
10:59 AM
By Mazen Dohaji, Vice President, LogRhythm, iMETA
Over the past two years, an increase in digital transformation has driven the rapid adoption of cloud services across the Middle East. Recent initiatives such as UAE Vision 2021 and the adoption of smart technologies are advancing the cloud landscape across the region. However, as with all innovation, new threats will continuously emerge and cloud technologies will become a top target for hackers.
According to Ponemon, the cost of a data breach is now a staggering $3.92 million, on average. Businesses across the Middle East and the rest of the world need to be aware of the potential cost of leaving their newly adopted cloud technologies vulnerable and without proper protection.
In a new era of threats, organisations in the region need to prioritise securing their cloud services by implementing enhanced security capabilities efficiently, such as automated detection and advanced investigation capabilities.
The acceleration of digitalisation increases the already growing pressure on organisations to keep users safe when using online platforms and cloud services. Trust and security are now more essential than ever to maintain a competitive advantage.
Cloud security is vast, and can become confusing for organisations trying to manage a variety of cloud solutions such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Communication Platforms-as-a-Service (CPaaS).
The challenge they now face is to ensure cloud applications are secure and move forward with new innovative technologies while ensuring the entire organisation and its customer data is protected.
Right now, full visibility over where data is and what it’s being used for is yet to be achieved, leaving organisations highly vulnerable to attacks. At the same time, the skills and ability to prevent, detect or mitigate attacks when they happen are missing.
This puts organisations in a difficult position and creates a continuous battle between deploying new technologies and streamlining their security operations with innovation efforts. On top of this, all-new technologies must pass a rigorous security approval process before they are deployed. This can cause timely delays to the technology’s launch/time to market.
To overcome the security-based challenges that come with digital transformation, organisations in the Middle East need ensure they have proactive measures in place to achieve greater visibility and efficiency within their cloud security environment.
To best ensure cloud services security, organisations need to invest time and money into deploying an updated cybersecurity strategy that will work long-term, in an evolving threat landscape.
Without rapid and accurate threat detection, the average time to detect and respond to damaging cyberattacks allows attackers more than enough time to steal or destroy sensitive data, potentially compromising the entire organisation. Early detection and response in the cyberattack lifecycle is key to protecting your company from large-scale impact and to keep progressing in digitalisation.
As more and more organisations understand the need to adopt a Zero Trust approach, having a quick, efficient and easy way to integrate technologies is more important than ever before; security teams need to be able to verify every interaction.
Organisations in the Middle East also need an automated detection and mitigation solution which will allow CISOs to make innovative business decisions, without worrying about the potential security implications.
Combining Zero Trust, automated detection and regular cybersecurity strategy assessments allows organisations to meet the security expectations customers now demand, while also meeting evolving requirements for new technologies.
C-Suite executives from organisations across the Middle East should be confident in security operations, moving the business forward with long-term innovation. It is no longer possible to maintain business growth without adopting digital technologies and accelerating cloud security simultaneously.
Although rapid digitalisation has brought new cloud security implications upon organisations throughout the region, it can be combatted with a combination of best practises and advanced cybersecurity solutions that are available today. It is in the interest of both customers and the organisation to do this, immediately. Deploying automated detection and mitigation capabilities alongside a Zero Trust model will give their technologies the security measures needed to succeed in a highly competitive digital environment.
