The Current State of Cybersecurity Shows Now Is The Time For Zero Trust

These and many other fascinating findings are from Wipro’s State of Cybersecurity Report 2018. A copy of the report can be downloaded here(PDF, 96 pp., no opt-in). The study is based on four primary sources of data including primary research of Wipro customers, Cyber Defense Center (CDC) primary research, secondary research sources and Wipro partner content. 42% of respondents are from North America, 10% from Europe, 18% from the Middle East, 21% from Asia and 8% from Australia. For additional details on the methodology, please see pages 3 through 5 of the report.

Banking & Financial Services and Healthcare Breaches Most Common

Over 40% of all breaches Wipro was able to track using their CDCs are targeted at healthcare, followed by banking & financial services with 18%. This is consistent with Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations Reportwhich shows healthcare leading all industries with five times the number of breaches experienced than any other industry. Banking & financial services receive more server-based breach incidents than any other industry according to Verizon’s latest study. Accenture’s study, “Losing the Cyber Culture War in Healthcare: Accenture 2018 Healthcare Workforce Survey on Cybersecurity” found that 18% of healthcare employees are willing to sell confidential data to unauthorized parties for as little as $500 to $1,000.

Wipro’s State of Cybersecurity Report 2018 underscores how all industries are facing a security crisis today. The study shows how all industries need a more scalable approach to security that protects every attack surface by validating every access request on every device, for every resource.  Zero Trust Security (ZTS) continues to be proven effective in thwarting breach attempts across all industries by relying on its four core pillars of verifying the identity of every user, validating every device, limiting access and privilege, as well as relying on machine learning to analyze user behavior and gain greater insights from analytics. Leaders in this field include Centrify for Privileged Access Management, Idaptive, (a new company soon to be spun out from Centrify) for Next-Gen Access, as well as Cisco, F5 and Palo Alto Networks in networking.

ZTS starts by maturing an organization’s identity management practices ― be it to secure end-user access credentials through Next-Gen Access (NGA) or to secure privileged user credentials via Zero Trust Privilege (ZTP). NGA empowers organizations to validate every end user access attempt by capturing and then analyzing a wide breadth of data, including user identity, device, device operating system, location, time, resource request, and many other factors to derive risk scores. NGA determines in less than a second if verified end users will get immediate access to resources requested, or be asked to verify their identity further through Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Zero Trust Privilege is focused on privileged users that typically hold the “keys to the kingdom” and therefore are a common target for cyber adversaries. ZTP grants least privilege access based on verifying who is requesting access, the context of the request, and the risk of the access environment. By implementing least privilege access, organizations minimize attack surfaces, improving audit and compliance visibility, and reducing risk, complexity, and costs for the modern, hybrid enterprise. Every industry needs Zero Trust Security to secure the proliferating number and variety of attack surfaces and realize that each customer, employee and partner identity is their real security perimeter. – Forbes