Undoubtedly, technology has evolved at a rapid pace over the past several decades and continues to do so. But some legacy machines that may be unfairly viewed as obsolete still hold tremendous value in today’s marketplace.

Enter IBM i – a family of mid-range computers that has gone through many name changes during the course of its lifetime.

As the image below illustrates: The evolution of IBM i began in the late 1970’s with the AS/400 (Application System/400) being introduced in 1988 as the successor of the previous two models.

“If security were all that mattered, computers would never be turned on, let alone hooked into a network with literally millions of potential intruders.” - Dan Farmer, Cyber Security Analyst, Researcher, Programmer

If you have read the previous post in our Cyber security series: Emergence of XDR, Importance of MDR, Importance of MFA and the True cost of a Data Breach, you might be wondering: “How do I solve these for the long term?"

Well, the answer is not simple. It starts with organizational policy review, revision, and enforcement.

As technology has continued to evolve, the importance of cloud computing has too. According to Flexera’s 2021 State of the Cloud Report, investing in cloud is steadily on the rise in 2021. Businesses of all sizes are reaping the immense benefits of cloud adoption. From SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – the ability to be more agile, innovative and reach customers in multiple ways has enabled businesses to significantly streamline operations and improve overall customer engagement.

“The knock-on effect of a data breach can be devastating for a company. When customers start taking their business—and their money—elsewhere, that can be a real body blow.” – Christopher Graham

In January 2021, we witnessed the largest ransomware demand in history: the $50 million ransom demand from Acer by REvil gang. Although the actual amount paid will be considerably less then the original demand it is still extremely lucrative for cybercrimals.

The past decade has seen a major transformation in the realm of enterprise network and security.  The traditional data center approach no longer fits the changing landscape that we are in today. With cloud-based security solutions and with the pandemic elevating the need to work and access devices and applications virtually, the need for enterprise network security to become more agile and adapt accordingly has become more important than ever. 

According to Flexera’s 2021 State of the Cloud report, for the 5th year in a row, optimizing cloud is the top initiative for the year ahead, with migrating more workloads to the cloud a close second.

One of the biggest problems with traditional user ID and password login is the need to maintain a password database. Whether encrypted or not, if the database is captured it provides an attacker with a source to verify their guesses at speeds limited only by their hardware resources. Given enough time, a captured password database will fall.

As processing speeds of CPUs increase, brute force attacks have become a real threat. GPGPU cracking can produce more than 500,000,000 passwords per second even on lower end gaming hardware. Depending on the software, it can take as little as 160 seconds to crack a 14-character alphanumeric password. A password database alone does not stand a chance against such methods when it is a real target of interest.

2020 brought unprecedented global changes and cyber security was no exception. From the widescale shift to remote working triggered by the pandemic, to the record-high cryptocurrency prices, to one of the worst cyber attacks of all time. The tools and tactics we started with in 2020 are no match for the threat landscape of 2021.

“If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too. Criminals are using every technology tool at their disposal to hack into people’s accounts. If they know there’s a key hidden somewhere, they won’t stop until they find it.” Tim Cook

In the game of cat and mouse between data security and bad actors, extended detection and response (XDR) is the latest weapon that organizations can utilize to strengthen their security posture.

XDR is a new approach to threat detection and response, a key element in defending an organization’s infrastructure and data from damage or unauthorized access and misuse. 

As businesses continue to evolve with the rapid advances in technology, the role of the Cloud continues to play a pivotal role in the delivery of flexible, agile IT services. Hybrid IT, also known as the hybrid cloud, is essentially a combination of a private cloud foundation with the strategic use of public cloud services to fulfil the requirements of an organization's entire IT enviroment. 

Among the many priorities businesses are positioning themselves for in 2021, network and data security remain at the top of the list as 'anywhere operations' becomes more rampant in an era of rapid digital transformation. With the current state of times, external attacks have become more sophisticated with the pandemic being a channel to lure unsuspecting users in. Organizations must make every effort to start the year off right and ensure their networks are protected from modern hacking practices.