The physical imagery of castles and moats is compelling. To protect what’s most valuable in your organization – the people and property – you build tall, solid walls and establish a perimeter that can be crossed only where you determine and allow.
Seems logical. Feels safe.
That’s why for decades the “castle and moat” approach to protecting networks and applications was the most popular form of cybersecurity.
At one time, the method succeeded most of the time. Albeit, largely when most of your workforce, the bulk of the information necessary to run your company and nearly all applications users accessed for daily operations resided mostly within one virtual location.
But those conditions haven’t existed for a long time, just as castles and moats haven’t been protection standards since medieval times. So, the time has come for cybersecurity fit for today’s hybrid age, not the middle ages.
Why? Because as economies work their way out of the pandemic, hybrid IT environments – i.e., where workers operate inside the virtual castle walls only some of the time, while more and more often they work far beyond the virtual moat – are becoming enterprise standards.
Here’s the evidence:
- The global mobile, remote workforce is growing rapidly – Research by international advisory firm Gartner predicts there will be 1.87 billion mobile workers around the world by 2022.1 In simple terms, more people are crossing virtual drawbridges than ever before.
- Applications continue to move to multi-cloud environments – Per IBM’s Mobile Workforce Report, eight of every 10 enterprises are running applications with at least two cloud providers.2 In short, more business property is operating outside virtual castle keeps than ever before.
What You Risk by Clinging to Castle-and-Moat Cybersecurity
As your workforce spreads regionally, nationally and/or globally and your applications follow, your cybersecurity measures must do the same.
“Medieval” IT security relied on checking identities at the network gate. Once verified and allowed into your virtual keep, users – whether employees, customers, partners or other guests – were trusted to operate freely and responsibly.
Trouble today is cybercriminals have become exceptional at swiping credentials from the information flowing between your network, mobile users and applications residing in the cloud. At a virtual gate, cybercrooks can look just like trusted identities, opening virtual doorways to fraud, data theft and account takeover (ATO).
By sticking to outmoded castle-and-moat security practices not only do you risk losses to crimes such as ransomware, but you can limit business growth potential and the capacity to innovate.
How CompuNet Can Help Protect Your Network and Applications in the Hybrid Age
With solutions from F5 and Microsoft Azure Active Directory, we can help secure your applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) against today’s motivated cyber-attackers. Here’s how:
- Mitigating App Vulnerabilities – Shielding against emerging software and code-level vulnerabilities
- Protecting User Credentials – Deflecting the most common penetration tactics
- Extending Cyber Protections – Treating APIs with the same robust security as web and mobile applications
- Preventing Account Takeover – Thwarting the credential stuffing that leads to breaches and fraud
- Empowering “Zero Trust” – Checking identities whenever, wherever and however users request access to your network and applications
Learn more about what we can do with F5 By Reading This Infographic.
For more insight into fueling your business growth through the efficiencies of secure, integrated API access and delivery solutions, schedule an in-depth assessment with us today Right Here
We can help advance your cybersecurity posture from the middle ages into the hybrid age.
Notes:
1 “Why Organizations Choose a Multi-Cloud Strategy,” Gartner
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