Practically speaking, cybersecurity is a state of both awareness of and defence against many types of theft and attack aimed at our data, our intellectual property, and our finances. Some of the key challenges involve the fact that cyber-attacks are often lucrative for the people who launch them. These are full-time jobs for threat actors, so they spend every working minute thinking of new ways to break into the places where our data and our money are stored. Security teams inside organizations can put powerful tools and processes in place to harden defences, but if the people inside those organizations don’t use the tools or follow the processes consistently, it can leave openings for future attacks. One key to success is to make both tools and processes as simple as possible to use.

All of us need to take strong action with regard to our personal data privacy and security. In many regions, laws and regulations give us the right to opt-out of data harvesting for sale to advertisers, for example. Take the time to read pop-up notices on websites and opt-out of anything that can leave your data and your activity records online open for sale to other organizations. All of the traditional ways of practising security hygiene remain effective at protecting all of us to a large degree, including using complex passwords that differ from site to site, double-checking the ratings and developer reputation of any app you’re considering installing on your devices, and using two-factor authentication wherever it’s offered. It’s also important for both individuals and organizations to keep their applications updated, as security holes are constantly being closed to keep up with new types of cyberattacks.

Some new technologies are coming along that can help software development teams prevent some of the newest supply chain security threats. As risk and security officers have always said, a system is only as secure as its weakest link, and sometimes the code that is brought in from open source repositories, for example, isn’t as secure as it should be. Checkmarx specializes in constantly innovating our application security testing tools and platform to make it extremely simple for software developers to push a button and check for a vast variety of code vulnerabilities that can be fixed before an application is ever released. In addition, the use of machine learning in analyzing and predicting the likelihood of certain types of threats continues to evolve. 

All of the traditional ways of practising security hygiene remain effective at protecting all of us to a large degree, including using complex passwords that differ from site to site, double-checking the ratings and developer reputation of any app you’re considering installing on your devices, and using two-factor authentication wherever it’s offered. It’s also important for both individuals and organizations to keep their applications updated, as security holes are constantly being closed to keep up with new types of cyberattacks.