As more organizations prioritize digital transformation, CISOs need to re-evaluate their cybersecurity processes and how they will mesh with their new cloud-based systems. With 91% of enterprises currently having a digital-first business strategy or planning to adopt one, legacy security strategies are falling to the wayside in favor of more comprehensive solutions. Perimeter security, for example, has been a cybersecurity staple, but today, it ignores an important area: insider risk. With proactive user risk mitigation technology, your organization can protect itself from the inside out.
Perimeter security refers to the process of protecting and fortifying an organization’s security perimeter to keep out threats, hackers, and other unauthorized parties. Firewalls and intrusion detection provide defense, but these tactics are outdated when faced with sophisticated hackers breaching your data hosted in the cloud. With proactive user risk mitigation technology, you can prevent security incidents from unintentionally being brought into your network, tackling both internal and external risk at once. Let’s dive into the insufficiencies of perimeter security and discover why proactive user risk mitigation is better suited for modern cybersecurity needs.
Why is Perimeter Security No Longer Enough?
Cybersecurity now has to keep up with constantly evolving technology, rather than only secure on-premises data. While perimeter security is still necessary, in today’s world, enterprises need adaptable, preemptive, and inclusive solutions.
With the growing use of the cloud, perimeter security has become less effective. The cloud doesn’t have a perimeter to secure. As businesses adopt these more sophisticated technologies, employees will have a learning curve, which can cause an uptick in user risk. In fact, 53% of cybersecurity professionals believe that detecting insider attacks has become harder since shifting towards the cloud. And with 86% of companies believing that cloud technology is critical to digital transformation, it seems perimeter security is not fit for the job.
Perimeter security has also become generally less reliable, especially in the wake of recent breaches. For example, 21 million records were leaked (including 10 GB of data) on Telegram in May, exposing the emails and passwords of 21 million users of multiple VPNs. While typically secure, VPNs and other remote work options require more sophisticated security measures to stand up to increasingly more tech savvy hackers like proactive user risk mitigation tools.
Proactive User Risk Mitigation is Zero Trust Architecture
90% of organizations state that zero trust architecture represents one of their top three IT and security priorities. Is it one of yours? 🤔
Zero trust protects systems from both external and internal risks with the core principle of “never trust, always verify.” With continuous verification and validation, zero trust architecture secures your networks from outside risk while mitigating unintentional insider risk, protecting your systems from all angles.
While perimeter security focuses on keeping threat actors out, it does not consider insider risk. Proactive user risk mitigation solutions, like Elevate Security, focus on managing user risk to decrease the likelihood of cyberattacks. Proactive user risk mitigation provides a more comprehensive cybersecurity solution for your business.
Final Thoughts
As organizations migrate to the cloud and adopt other technology to achieve their digital transformation, their cybersecurity needs to modernize as well. As perimeter security becomes less effective with new technologies like the cloud, new methods of cybersecurity will need to fill its place. Proactive user risk mitigation technology is the perfect solution to take up this mantle. Rather than only focusing on external risk, proactive user risk mitigation technology hones in on unintentional user risk to lower the chance of cyberattacks and keep your company data secure.
Check out three examples of the impact user risk and discover how Elevate Security can minimize the possibility of these attacks happening to your users and organization.
