Telcos Worldwide a Target for Cyber Breaches

According to a recent report published by Grand View Research, Inc., the global cyber security market is anticipated to reach USD 241.1 billion by 2025. There is an increased focus on combating malware attacks in Telcos, Defence, IT, and other Government sectors.

The cyber security ecosystem has become increasingly prone to the risk of cyber-attacks. Right tools to analyze, detect, and respond to threats along with latest up-to-date solutions and highly trained personnel are essential to cope with global digitization.

Safe data transmission across networks, which is prone to data breaches, is an increasing concern for governments around the world.
On account of recent high-profile data theft and breaches, organizations are scrambling to implement measures to curb future threats. An online attack can cause steep financial damage and harm the organization and its reputation.

The exposure to attack surfaces and becomes much broader due to systems becoming more interconnected and complex leading to a vast amount of information being vulnerable to gaps in security systems. New business models and technologies such as IoT extensively rely on global digitization for their growth. Connectivity through the use of cloud, big data, mobile services, and social media leads to cybercrime activities.

According to a recent report published by Grand View Research, Inc., the global cyber security market is anticipated to reach USD 241.1 billion by 2025. Cyber security focuses on data protection to prevent unauthorized access and provides a solution to combat unforeseen challenges while strengthening safety infrastructure.

Rapid technological advancements and increasing threats to cyberspace is reshaping the global market. Several industries are affected by cybercrimes since online threats are one of the highest global risks propelling the demand for internet security solutions.

There is an increased focus on malware attacks in defence, IT, Telcos and government sectors, with a rise in reports of cybersecurity threats, cyber breaches, and cases of compromised data records worldwide.

Identity theft and rising cases of illegal financial access incidents are also a cause of concern for small and medium-sized enterprises.

For instance, in Q3 2016, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks posed a major threat to telcos and targeted websites in over 50 countries. Another incident, was a case of data breach at Dixons Carphone, a British electronics company in 2017. This breach involved 5.9 million payment cards and 1.2 million personal data records.

Cost effective solutions incorporated by organizations for cyber security include employee training prioritization along with employing advanced technology including tools such as real time intelligence.

Security audits, installation of proper backup systems, examination of entry points into the system, assessing system threats and several other tactical steps are used to combat threats.

Devising a multi layered defense strategy that covers all end points in the organization will protect connected mobile devices, data, and applications. Other safety precautions include improving access controls with monitoring access to data of both third-party suppliers and two-factor authentication. Organizations can also partner with 3rd parties to detect security flaws, which is a new trend as it is a practice adopted to root out bugs. Some of the major companies that have such arrangements include Google and Dropbox to AT&T and LinkedIn.

According to Gartner cyber-security experts, worldwide spending on IT security will jump 8.7% this year, up USD124 billion. The industry has witnessed increased spending by organizations on different technologies to secure internet protocols, improve capabilities, analyze vulnerabilities, and test software.

Top three major drivers for security spending include business needs, industry changes, and security risks. Another key factor for organizations facing security risks is privacy concerns. Spending on security hardware, software, and services is on account of lack of skilled staff, increased security threats, and other compliance requirements.

In addition, responsibilities of CTOs and CIOs in medium and large scale organizations regarding data and IT security have increased. In order to combat security threats effectively, CIOs and CTOs need an effective strategy that promotes a culture of security by implementing right tools and technologies.

For a variety of IT based services, business customers have to rely on telcos for bandwidth. These services provided by the telcos include network communications, remote access, hosting, cloud based services, and mobility. There is a necessity for improving the provision of security with hosted customer systems to provide IT solutions and reliable connectivity along with secure billing systems, applications, and IT environment.

Troubleshooting, investigating, and resolving issues and threats as they occur and having sufficient information and context regarding the same plays a major part in meeting security service management objectives. These risks that pose a challenge due to connectivity must be thoroughly understood and controlled.

Cybersecurity risk management is a long process as it can affect the entire organization and in order to mitigate the risk, multiple departments are needed to be focused on. Limiting access to highly sensitive data and information ensures information safety and with increasing cases of threats and vulnerabilities, focusing on reducing potential consequences is the solution.

Government agencies are at the top of cyber threats and foreign intelligence often target telco providers for eavesdropping. Computer Network Attack (CNA) threat is eminent along with bad actors who seek to disrupt communication.

With organized criminals and criminal groups targeting banks, many telcos are finding themselves in a difficult position. In order to respond to the cyber threats, highly-effective security is required to enable organizations embrace new technologies, identify strategic risks, and protect their most critical IT components. This may include a range of actions such as working with experts, improving resilience to APT, and implementing effective controls.

In order to determine risk posture of the business, a cybersecurity framework can be developed from each area of the business. This is possible with the use of new technologies, which can be used to map data in an organization. This helps companies in making informed choices and to improve decision making on data management to reduce future risk. For instance, even with implementation of strong security, sensitive information can accidently reach unwanted places. This can be prevented by scanning the enterprise for sensitive data and removing any data stored, which highly decreases the risk of accident and loss of sensitive data.

Increasing number of targeted attacks has led to high demand for cyber security solutions with major governments and venture capital firms constantly investing in cyber safety. Rapid advancements in technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, and IoT are expected to promote the demand for these solutions over the next decade.

(Ed. Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, headquartered in San Francisco.)