2019 is right around the corner, and CIOs are prepping for the new year. Specifically, CIOs are making plans as it relates to cybersecurity and data privacy management. Grappling with how to make informed business decisions with real-time technologies, increasing the use of orchestration and automation along with continuous monitoring, to enable real-time detection, decisioning and remediation.
However, before they focus entirely on what lies ahead, we encourage CIOs first to analyze 2018 to avoid repetitive mistakes and achieve continued success. What were the pitfalls? The solutions or opportunities?
Looking Back At 2018 Obstacles & Solutions
2018 marked the rollout of data privacy protection laws with enforcement of data regulations; companies experienced the implementation of EU's GDPR and the passing of the State of California's Consumer Privacy Bill. The EU GDPR exposes organizations to potential fines up to 4% of global revenue while the CA privacy bill touts that "potential statutory damages can be up to $7,500 per CCPA violation. Also, CIOs were provided a front seat view of how the largest consumer data companies handled large-scale consumer information data breaches (e.g., Facebook, Google+, etc.).
As a result, for 2019 CIOs should work to better incorporate cybersecurity and authentication systems to manage and better protect consumer data so as not to increase the liability of that the organization may face if they are found to be in violation of these mandates. It's safe to say CIOs will be spending more time with their operations, security, compliance and legal teams to better understand their policies and the legal implications of technology and process decisions that handle the transmission and storage of consumer data in order prevent reputational, legal and financial liabilities.
As technology stacks continue to grow to include a myriad of networks, cybersecurity and IT tools that store, process or transmit consumer data, there is a real need to better understand, select and optimize their application to better manage consumer and operational data through orchestration so as not to actually increase potential liabilities and provide greater value to organizations. If not done correctly, simply adding technological capabilities may produce minimal, or negative returns, potentially overtaxing understaffed IT, network and security teams with the burdens of managing new tools, new data sources and a confusing set of alerts for prioritization.
However, there is an even more significant challenge which CIOs must overcome.
Looking Ahead To 2019 Dilemmas
One of the most significant issues CIOs are now facing heading into 2019 is time, specifically how they can make significantly better and more accurate decisions in less time. CIOs need solutions that result in shorter decision loops; improving their time to detection and time to remediation in parallel to addressing growing demand and increasing rates of data creation. Much has been written about the staggering financial exposures associated with delays in the mean time to identify (MTTI), detect and mean time to contain (MTTC) breaches and violations (source: Ponemon, Cost of Data Breach.) Regardless, many operations and security teams are dealing with the analysis of "yesterday's news to make today's decisions."
Additionally, the growth of disparate IT tools contributes to an increasing attack surface which can negatively impact the reliability and accuracy of the metrics used to identify and contain breaches. Recently, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger's stated that VMware and other organizations are looking to decrease their tool sprawl to "start getting rid of products." It is an initial signal that network, IT and security solution providers need to increase the value in the tools they provide in the form of multi-purpose solutions to help relieve overtaxed company IT and technology teams.
Companies’ reliance on data and data analysis for business operations is increasing at a monumental pace. The volume, variety and velocity of that data which must be shared, monitored and analyzed for compliance and security, is exploding. (source: IDC, Data Age 2025). Likewise, the impending introduction of 5G services, providing fiber-like speeds and low latency capabilities, to consumers and businesses is another compounding factor to bring increased data hurtling across your services at even higher rates. Additionally, given the global nature of distributed cloud services, the data in question may traverse multiple geographies, jurisdictions, applications, protocols and technologies, in a near real-time. This increases the need for continuous, real-time visibility and analytics solutions that can monitor, identify and remediate data and technology issues.
However, there are new capabilities that may help to simplify as well as improve performance and effectiveness.
The Possible Solution For The 2019 Crisis
Emerging forms of continuous monitoring, in-memory processing and real-time decisioning systems using event stream processing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) analytics combined with automation and orchestration, enables organizations to make better use of a wider spectrum of data sources to produce more valuable intelligence. These new technologies also provide the ability to make better decisions, as well as to speed up and enrich decision making capabilities with newer, richer and better sources of data than previously possible.
Real-time network intelligence and visibility solutions like the Reconfigurable Frame Processor, Next Generation (RFP-NG) function as a highly intelligent virtual sensor and traffic management system. At a basic level, the RFP-NG is a distribution and filtering solution that interacts with analytic, monitoring, and security (AMS) tools.
The RFP-NG allows for decisions to be made and actions to take place in real-time through wire-speed processing and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With an RFP-NG, AMS platforms can IMMEDIATELY respond to suspect or malicious network traffic. The RFP-NG can not only (just) filter, manipulate and distribute data, but can also (under the direction of the AMS) reach back and take action on the network traffic. This new dynamic, two-way approach is the principal value that the RFP-NG delivers to users.
Looking ahead to 2019, the new monitoring, analytics and automation tool (RFP-NG) will help to bring relief to CIOs and overtaxed IT teams as the organizations begin to turn to more intelligent automation and orchestration to improve the resiliency and agility of their IT infrastructure to reduce risk and meet the demands of the business.
Not Just Relief; Tangible Support
In addition to the relief provided by the RFP-NG, we work closely with CIOs, cybersecurity and DevOps teams to make sense of the growing real-time technological advancements, growth in data privacy management issues and how they impact the day-to-day network and security operations of their organizations.
Don't hesitate Contact Us with any questions about the RFP-NG or to schedule a technical overview related to your environment.
