Internet Of Things? No, Internet Of Threats

The vast digital world holds the key to many of the industries’ locked doors today. Our society, economy, and critical infrastructures have become largely dependent on computer networks and information technology solutions. This dependence gives rise to a new and recurring threat in the digital world.

Cyberattacks have morphed away from being a buzzword around email phishing scams, and are now more calculated and sinister than ever. As our dependence on IT systems increases, cyber threat actors gain a foothold to deploy potentially devastating attacks.

The great digital unknown can be exciting in many situations, but in a world where any number of cyber threats could bring an organisation to its knees, the excitement quickly turns to terror. This is where threat intelligence comes in. Like a superhero to a crime scene, threat intelligence can help organisations gain valuable knowledge about these threats, build effective defence mechanisms and mitigate the risks that could damage their bottom line and reputation.

“Threat intelligence is important to understand the various tactics, techniques and procedures that adversaries are developing to infiltrate systems and networks,” states Dr Bright Gameli Mawudor, Practice Lead, Managed Security Services and Consulting at Dimension Data, Middle East and Africa.

He continues, “It uses machine learning to automate data collection and processing, integrate with your existing solutions to bring out the context from disparate sources.”This gives rise to the intricate detail needed for threat intelligence solutions to gather raw data about emerging or existing threat actors and threats from several sources. This data is then analysed and filtered to produce threat intel feeds and management reports that contain information that can be used by automated security control solutions.

Mawudor then explained how the cybersecurity landscape has been altered by threat intelligence. Already such a rapidly evolving sector, it is well underway to shifting towards evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms and indicators to enable change in responses when cyber threats occur.

 “Threat intelligence has changed how organisations response to incidences as well as deal with forever changing threats. Incidence response time has changed in organizations to be able to address cyber issues as they occur.” explains Dr. Bright.

With several emerging trends in the cyberspace being noticed, one such trend that is here to stay is cyber resilience. Leveraging threat intelligence is a big part of becoming more aware. Insufficient risk awareness, analysis and assessment are some of the top barriers to cyber resilience, are just some of the plugs of cyber resilience that threat intelligence can help fill in.

“As Cyber Resilience involves Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover, the phases of threat intelligence get to be incorporate resilience in their everyday activities. This helps to ensure business continuity and minimising of risks to reduce mean time of exposure to known and unknown threats.” expounds Dr Bright.

Actionable threat intelligence is part of the core of cyber resilience. A cyber resilience strategy is about making sure there is continuity of operation with minimum impact to business despite an incident. A threat intelligence program must keep leaders, stakeholders and users informed about the latest threats and repercussions they could have on the business, this would allow them to enforce policies for better business integrity and continuity.

Dimension Data, staying in tune with the developments in the cybersecurity world, has enhanced its threat intelligence centre services with industry-leading capabilities that aim to empower business enterprises with data-driven automation, incident response and improved security operations.

The enhanced capabilities will enable organisations to collect data about security threats from multiple sources and respond to them with limited human assistance. The threat intelligence centre integrates existing cybersecurity solutions for improved efficiency in physical intervention and digital security operations, empowering organisations to develop well-structured standard operating procedures for cybersecurity.

Dimension Data has sponsored the CIO100 awards and symposium. The event will unfold virtually. The 100, in CIO100, represent a culmination of organizations and their commendable teams who use smart technology to their inventive advantages which then transcend into growth of business value, economy, interpersonal relationships with various customers and overall digital enhancement of the market.

The CIO100 Symposium and Awards will offer invaluable insights on the innovative tactics used by top tech people, and company’s, in today’s historically demanding environment. Plus, details of innovative projects that are positioning companies for current and longer-term success. CIO100 holds a space for the narrative of the industry, telling its stories through technologies.

With a changing technology landscape being the playing ground, through the CIO100 Symposium and awards, the linking together of industry players and connecting them with engaging workshops on various aspects affecting information, technology, and insights will be well received. Plus, the learning of new automation and ways in which they can be used to drive the digital transformation.