The past year has seen seismic changes in the cybersecurity landscape.

They’re forcing IT professionals to rethink and re-strategize their organization’s security. They’re being tasked with ways to better control access to their network, gain a deeper understanding of how vulnerable their network is to threats, and develop a faster, decisive response plan when a threat occurs.

If any of the above resonates with you, you’re not alone. The cybersecurity market is expected to swell to $100 billion dollars by 2019. And now that we’re a quarter of the way through 2017, there’s good reason to be forward-looking and take proactive steps to ensure that security is in your company’s DNA.

Gone are the days when traditional security management approaches of multiple point products, manual change processes, extensive policies and data silos, did the trick. Given the growing complexities of networks and rapid delivery of services and applications, a deep, up-to-date rebooting of how you approach your network security is not only crucial – it’s necessary.

And with that, take note of the following cybersecurity trends as the year progresses – and steps you can take to stay on the defensive:

More devices and apps, more risk

There will be a multitude of new devices going online every hour in 2017, and by 2020 that figure is expected to reach one million. That’s a lot of new devices – and with that new influx comes an elevated threat surface area for organizations, and a need to reduce risk and complexity.

Solution: Embed security within hardware and software solutions that is simple, open, and automated. Enable flexible deployment options that work together and provide integrated multilayered protection to cover all devices and apps.

The need for greater visibility of your network

To address threats before they become an issue – or come to the attention of your customers – it will be increasingly important to have full visibility of your network always. That means visibility across all applications, all users, and all devices.

Solution: Emphasize the need for networking and security teams to work closer together on your network’s infrastructure to extend visibility everywhere. That way, you’ll have a complete picture of your company’s security posture, and you’ll be alerted to any attack in progress or better still – before it happens.

Analytics, analytics, analytics

Just four years ago, when few organizations were actively leveraging security analytics platforms, IDG ran the prophetically-titled piece “Security analytics will be the next big thing in IT security.” They were right. Fast forward to 2017, and there’s a growing awareness of the value of analytics – companies are moving beyond analytics solely for detection and response, and are using them to measure and improving their overall risk posture.

Solution: Employ analytics tools that automatically discern activities and user behaviors across the network that deviate from the norm. Your security team can then better identify indicators of compromise that pose a potential problem and quickly remediate threats. Cisco Networks offers a trio of effective analytics-based tools that meet this need:  Cognitive Threat Analytics, Stealthwatch, and Network as a Sensor

Cloud security adoption is on the rise

Cloud computing will continue to do great things to transform your business. It’s flexible, scalable, simple, and will accelerate time to market and business agility.

But as cloud technology evolves, there are security gaps and human errors to consider. As 2017 progresses, you’ll see an increase in the need to protect data and applications in the cloud, e.g., blocking threats earlier; extending protection by removing blind spots and protecting users anywhere they access the internet; securing users data and apps against compromised accounts; malware; and data breaches.

Solution: Cisco Umbrella provides the first line of defense against threats on the Internet, wherever users go. And Cisco CloudLock, a cloud access security broker, protects against compromised accounts, data breaches, and malware. Learn more about Cisco Security Solutions

In summary, ask yourself this: What more can I do to secure my network from threats? Continue the conversation by contacting your Zones account executive or by calling 800.408.ZONES.

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