Here’s a few predictions from Cradlepoint for 2024 on AI, IoT, Zero Trust, 5G wireless strategy and private 5G networks.
1. AI will become one with the network, impacting all business operations
If 2023 was the year of flashy AI investments, 2024 will be the year of AI impact—which may not be as visible to the naked eye. AI will move from a “tool you go to” (such as ChatGPT) to being integrated into the applications we are using everyday and empowering network connectivity. As such, we’ll begin to see the benefits of AI being integrated into all applications related to the network, bolstering network predictability, troubleshooting, security and more. Businesses will need to ensure AI transparency and security practices are adequate in order to make the most of AI.
2. IoT will finally bring the “smart” society to life — from cities, to malls, to businesses
From powering smart infrastructure to traffic management to smart parking, IoT devices throughout cities are actively creating seamless experiences and empowering the cities of the future In 2024, we’ll see an increase in industries that leverage IoT devices to bolster connectivity opportunities to increase efficiency, bolster productivity, and meet the need for consumer and customer experiences. As such, we’ll begin to see the inklings of a “smart society” as IoT-enabled establishments from shopping malls to public transportation to modern businesses take flight.
3. A 5G wireless strategy will become a key boardroom decision as connectivity moves from foundational to essential
Fixed wireless access, private networks, satellite, WAN—today’s enterprise connectivity options are as expansive as ever. In 2024, enterprises across verticals will have more opportunity to choose which solutions may work best on their end, but will ultimately need to pick the option that will cater to their specific business needs and operations. As such, the wireless conversation will move into the C-Suite and become a strategic decision for the modern business. As part of this decision, organizations will need to weigh their decisions and engage in debates such as satellite versus 5G, to determine what will work best for them.
4. The move to nearshoring will be a catalyst to private 5G and the edge
In the next year, we’ll see an increased need to drive cost savings while manufacturing in home countries and neighbouring regions. In order to do this, we’ll see more enterprises and the manufacturing space invest in edge computing technologies to increase efficiencies and drive down the costs of product inspections, management and overall plant operations. The manufacturing space will specifically look to technologies like private 5G networks and IoT in 2024 to create networks and tools to give us more control over products.
5. Zero Trust evolves with a growing risk landscape in 2024
Over the last few years, companies have taken steps to get ahead of ransomware threats by enhancing their internal security measures while training their employees on security best practices. While these implementations have seen success, the unpredictable, disruptive, and costly nature of cyber-attacks has left companies tired of playing cat and mouse with ransomware actors. Looking ahead, businesses will look to proven, yet not widely adopted technologies such as zero-trust web browser solutions, like remote browser isolation, to air-gap their employees’ web and email sessions. By running web browser sessions in an isolated cloud container, information will be rendered in a safe stream to an employee’s device.
Authors:
Eric Purcell, Senior Vice President of Global Partner Sales, Cradlepoint (1 and 2)
Donna Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer, Cradlepoint (3 and 4)
Vancouver-based Camille Campbell, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Cloud Management & Orchestration Platform, Cradlepoint (5)
HHS Announces New Strategy For Healthcare Cybersecurity
Posted in Commentary with tags HHS on December 9, 2023 by itnerdThe Department of Health and Human Services released a concept paper outlining its healthcare cybersecurity strategy and establishing goals for improving the sector’s cybersecurity posture, including future updates to HIPAA and the establishment of voluntary performance goals.
According to the HHS Office for Civil Rights, cyber incidents in health care between 2018-2022 saw a 93% increase in large breaches reported to OCR, with a 278% increase in large breaches involving ransomware.
The healthcare cybersecurity strategy consists of four pillars and focuses on strengthening resilience for hospitals and patients impacted by cyberattacks:
“Taken together, HHS believes these goals, supports, and accountability measures can comprehensively and systematically advance the healthcare sector along the spectrum of cyber resiliency to better meet the growing threat of cyber incidents, especially for high-risk targets like hospitals. Acting on these priorities will protect the health and privacy of all Americans and enable safe access to health care,” reads the paper.
George McGregor, VP, Approov Mobile Security had this to say:
“It’s a good thing that the initiative aims to provide financial and technical resources for healthcare providers in combination with enforcement.
“However this announcement is light on specifics about exactly what the voluntary Cybersecurity Performance Goals may be. Further communication needs to detail these or tie them to guidelines which exist already.
“The HSS also continues to push for sharing of PII and clinical data between providers as well as third-party apps and services and these developments present security risks to providers.
“This means that two critical areas which should be addressed directly with enhanced security guidelines for healthcare service providers are:
Troy Batterberry, CEO and Founder, EchoMark follows with this:
“Once again, these government policy papers fail to fully acknowledge the large and disproportionately growing threat of information breaches done by insiders. Historically, leaks or theft by insiders are some of the most damaging types of information breaches.
“While conventional insider risk management tools including logging and monitoring activities are important, and must be implemented as soon as possible, we know they do not go nearly far enough to prevent insider leaks and theft. Insider leaks continue to accelerate at well run government and commercial organizations all over the world, even with sophisticated monitoring activities in place. The leaker (insider) simply feels they can hide in the anonymity of the group and never be caught. Sadly, today, many of them are right.
“An entirely new approach is required to help change human behavior and prevent insider leaks. The best way to do that is to catch leakers which will help deter other leakers in the future. Information watermarking is one such game-changing technology that can help keep private information private.”
Stephen Gates, Principal Security SME, Horizon3.ai follows with this:
“After reviewing the Healthcare Sector Cybersecurity: Introduction to the Strategy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paper, one strategy they have completely missed is in the form of continuous security self-assessments. Although the paper does reference the Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices, which mentions the term assess or assessment 17 times, no mention of assessments can be found in the prior publication just noted. This should be a wakeup call to those responsible for cybersecurity in the healthcare industry to petition HHS to duly note the value of cybersecurity self-assessments, making them an industry-wide best practice.
“Today, organizations in every industry are beginning to take a preemptive approach to cybersecurity improvement. This preemptive approach is not in the context of deploying more defensive-based security technologies. In place of more defenses, this approach encourages organizations to begin assessing themselves using the same tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that attackers are using so they can preemptively identify their truly exploitable weaknesses and fix them before falling prey to attackers.
“There is a considerable movement throughout all industries and geographies whereby a call for action in the form of continuous self-assessments using manual and automated adversarial exercises (aka red team exercises) is beginning to surface. These exercises are not in the form of the once-per-year penetration tests or periodic vulnerability scans. Instead, organizations are beginning to adopt and deploy autonomous assessment solutions that can be run continuously so that organizations can rapidly act upon the weaknesses these solutions are discovering in their environments.
“If readers would like to learn more about what this preemptive approach is all about, this whitepaper can help.”
Having a strategy is a good thing as long as it makes measurable progress towards having an IT infrastructure that is resilient to cyberattacks. Let’s see how will this works.
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