answers to your top cybersecurity questions

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Answers to your top cybersecurity questions

You asked, we answered: Q&A from our recent cybersecurity webinar




After our recent webinar, “5 trends to impact cybersecurity in 2016,” we took your questions about security on the Internet of Things (IoT), funding issues for cybersecurity projects, and more. Here’s how we responded to some of those queries.




What can I do to protect devices that lack security measures strong enough to mitigate cyberattacks when connected to the IoT?

As you move to the IoT, taking a holistic ecosystem approach is critical. By starting your deployment with IoT in mind, you can take steps to enhance your IoT security as you roll it out.

Through risk assessment and understanding what needs to be protected and where it resides, you can ensure that you’ve implemented recommended security measures like password management functions and patch procedures for any software associated with IoT devices.




Funding for cybersecurity tools is always an issue. Are tools being developed by the open source community?

We’re starting to see a lot of people use open source to create security programs. However, there are two big challenges with open source: scale and support. Many open source tools can’t scale to the enterprise level and, since there is no single source of support, it can be difficult should questions or problems arise with a tool.

It’s also important to remember that while open source can provide opportunities for cost savings, funds will be needed for support and maintenance, patching, and other procedures to keep it up-to-date.




Where should I focus my cybersecurity efforts? On protecting my perimeter? On reacting to attacks? Or someplace else?

While you should never stop investing in perimeter protection, it can be challenging to find and define perimeters since today’s networks often reach far beyond corporate walls. The focus is now shifting to identifying threats before they affect your perimeter and stopping cyberattacks as early as possible, preferably before they even enter your environment.




What can I do to address internal threats?

Depending on the type of environment you’re operating, there may be a number of steps you can take to help neutralize attacks that originate inside your company:

– Virtualize your IT environment. By virtualizing your IT, you can help protect individual applications—not the network as a whole—and give you more flexibility to customize protection where necessary. Virtualization also allows you to manage policies at a more granular level.

– Automate whenever possible. Automation supports app-level protection by helping give the degree of control you need to, for example, regulate many firewalls around individual programs.

– Use behavioral analytics. Looking at data on certain actions can help identify malicious actors.




Can standards like ISO help me communicate security issues to my leadership and get buy-in for upgrades and other projects?

Communication to all levels is critical. The biggest challenge is often the lack of risk management and risk acceptance programs. International frameworks like ISO can help establish that, but it’s important to involve executives proactively.

Take the initiative and communicate up to the executive suite weekly or even daily. This helps keep security top of mind for them, and could make it easier for you to secure funding for a tool or project.




For answers to other questions on protecting your company and your customers:

– Watch the replay of our webinar,

“5 trends set to impact cybersecurity in 2016”

– Read the latest edition of AT&T Cybersecurity Insights

– Get details on cutting-edge solutions and services in the

AT&T Network Security Portfolio

http://engage.vevent.com/index.jsp?eid=1823&seid=1060

https://www.corp.att.com/cybersecurity/

http://www.business.att.com/enterprise/Portfolio/network-security/

answers to your top cybersecurity questions

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