You can scarcely read a paper these days without stumbling over commentary regarding the breach of customer data at popular retailer Target. Up to 110 million customers saw their credit and debit cards exposed to potential fraud in the incident.
In today’s hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, service providers can take steps to protect against the high financial and reputational costs of this type of cybercrime by ensuring they have 21st-century security practices in place.
After all, increasing numbers of online transactions and more ways to process them offer incentives to cybercriminals, while the increased use of smart devices, climbing data volumes and widespread use of mobile apps come with increased risks to sensitive information.
To protect sensitive data and gain and maintain consumer trust, service providers should invest in the next phase of successful cyberdefence: security orchestration and automation. Here’s why:
• Automated workflow technologies reduce the time it takes to identify an intrusion and take immediate action to protect against attack proliferation
• Many providers already implement similar technologies in the dynamic activation and orchestration tools that enable the automation of complex workflows to support their commercial and consumer offerings
• Automated and semi-automated workflows enable providers to reallocate security personnel to more urgent areas that require manual intervention
• Devices across the enterprise can be co-ordinated (“orchestrated”) to combat intrusions at machine speeds, at various levels in the security architecture
• Automated plug-and-play solutions can work with a variety of hardware, software and implementations, to support a unified threat-response approach and streamline alert information
By responding to attacks in real time, providers can offer increased levels of business assurance, continuity, efficiency and risk management, while boosting the bottom line with lower overall security costs. But most importantly, they can protect mission-critical infrastructure – and the data within – continuously and securely.
Consumers expect their data to be, and remain, secure, but the gap between detection and response grows wider every day. Meanwhile, the speed, versatility, and sophistication of attacks reduce the effectiveness of traditional threat responses.
Controlled security automation and data orchestration technologies can reduce dependence on manual intervention and focus on the threat containment protocols necessary to keep providers’ complex networks online and secure.
The result is peace of mind for consumers, increased levels of trust between the public and service providers and exceptional 21st-century security.
