Employees, contractors, and partners now access enterprise systems from homes in Warsaw, co-working spaces in Dubai, coffee shops in Singapore, or beach resorts in Bali — often across personal devices and unmanaged networks. 

While this global flexibility fuels productivity and agility, it also widens the attack surface for insider threats: malicious actions, careless mistakes, or compromised accounts that originate from within. 

In this borderless landscape, trust can’t be assumed — it must be verified, monitored, and governed. 

That’s where Privileged Access Management (PAM) becomes critical — ensuring every privileged session is secure, contextual, and auditable, no matter where it begins. 

At ARCON, we help organizations worldwide build a Zero Trust culture that protects what matters most — even when access starts halfway across the globe. 

Because in the hybrid era, visibility is the new perimeter. 

Notable incidents linked to remote/insider access paths 

1. Victim: A renowned password and identity management company (2022) 
   What Happened: Attackers targeted a DevOps engineer’s home computer, exploited a vulnerable third-party media app (Plex), planted a keylogger, and ultimately accessed cloud storage holding customer vault data. This is a classic example of home device ≠ enterprise hygiene. 

2. Victim: A popular ride-hailing and transport services company (2022) 
   What Happened: An external contractor’s account was compromised; the attacker used MFA fatigue (repeated push prompts) after malware on the contractor’s personal device exposed credentials. The contractor eventually accepted a prompt, granting access and information abuse. 

3. Victim: A renowned American technology conglomerate (2022) 
   What Happened: Initial access via an employee’s personal Google account that was syncing company passwords through the browser. From there, attackers accessed VPN and moved further. 

Best Practices for Managing Security Personnel in Remote Environments 

Airport lounges, hotels, cafés, conference centers—great for productivity, risky access. Executives handle the most sensitive systems, so treat every public network like it’s hostile. While there is an array of golden rules for the CIOs, CISOs, or CTOs while traveling, the organization also needs to have some policy notes in place. 

• Enforce phishing-resistant MFA, device posture checks, and PAM JIT for any privileged action from non-office IPs. 

• Geo-/risk-based access: step up auth on unfamiliar countries or networks. 

• Session recording & keystroke redaction for admin sessions; alert on anomalous commands. 

• Travel Mode profiles: auto-tighten DLP, disable copy/paste to personal apps, and block credential export while roaming. 

• With maker-checker workflow the accuracy and accountability are improved, errors and fraud are minimized, and compliance is ensured by implementing a segregation of duties. 

Indicators to Watch 

• Anomalous access: Unusual logins (new geographies, odd hours), bypassing MFA prompts, or sudden spikes in privilege use. 

• Suspicious data activity: Bulk downloads, mass mailbox exports, or repeated access to projects outside one’s role. 

• Policy evasion: Usage of unsanctioned file sharing, encrypted personal archives, or attempts to disable endpoint controls. 

• Behavioral shifts: Friction with management, financial stress signals, or disengagement—correlated (carefully and ethically) with technical alerts. 

Detection Strategies that work 

1. Identity-centric monitoring 
   Aggregate signals from IAM, SSO, and endpoint telemetry. Baseline normal user behavior and flag deviations with UEBA (User & Entity Behavior Analytics). 

2. Least privilege with just-in-time (JIT) access 
   Replace standing admin rights with time-bound, approval-gated privileges and detailed session recording. 

3. Data loss prevention (DLP) for the cloud 
   Apply content inspection and context-aware policies across email, storage, and collaboration suites; tag and encrypt sensitive data at creation. 

4. Zero Trust controls 
   Continuously verify device health, user risk, and session context before granting or maintaining access. 

5. Deception and canary assets 
   Plant honey tokens and decoy files; any interaction is a high-fidelity signal of malicious exploration. 

Prevention is a program, not a product 

• Strong governance: Classify data, define access by role, and enforce separation of duties for high-risk functions. 

• Secure-by-default endpoints: Mandatory disk encryption, automatic patching, and controlled USB/media policies. 

• MFA everywhere: Phishing-resistant methods (e.g., FIDO2) for privileged and high-value workflows. 

• Human-centric training: Short, scenario-based micro-learnings tied to real tools (e.g., “when to share, when to escalate”). 

• Clear consequences and safe channels: Documented policies, anonymous reporting, and supportive processes reduce both negligence and retaliation of fears. 

How ARCON Solutions Help 

ARCON | PAM 

• Just‑in‑Time Privilege: Elevate precisely when needed with reason codes and auto‑expiry; dramatically reduces standing admin rights. 

• Session Monitoring & Recording: Command‑level visibility and playback for SSH/RDP/SQL with tamper‑evident, immutable audit trails. 

• Credential Vaulting & Rotation: Centralize secrets, rotate on check‑in/check‑out, and eliminate hardcoded credentials. 

• Discovery & Access Path Mapping: Surface shadow admins, lateral paths, and over‑privilege hotspots. 

ARCON Secure Browser Extension & Gateway 

• Reverse‑proxy brokering for sensitive web apps; access is whitelisted only when brokered via the plugin to the gateway. 

• Contextual Controls inside the browser session (clipboard, download, print, screenshot) with granular exceptions. 

Immutable Access Audit (Roadmap/Option) 

• Blockchain‑backed audit to make session events tamper‑evident across long retention windows. 

• Post‑quantum readiness: roadmap to transition critical cryptography to lattice‑based schemes to protect vault credentials and session logs against future threats. 

ARCON CCM (Configuration Comparison Management) 

• Detects drift across privileged targets; flags high‑risk changes linked to insider activity. 

Outcome: Customers report sharper detections, faster investigations, and measurable reduction in standing privileges—without strangling productivity. 

Conclusion 

In the hybrid work era, insider risk is almost inevitable — but its impact is entirely preventable. As organizational boundaries blur and remote access become the norm, trust can no longer be static; it must be earned continuously through identity assurance, contextual controls, and behavioral intelligence. 

Forward-looking enterprises are moving from reactive defenses to identity-first, Zero Trust architectures, where every access request is verified, every privileged session is monitored, and every anomaly is investigated in real time. 

The key lies in unifying people, process, and technology — embedding cybersecurity not as a gatekeeper, but as a strategic enabler of productivity and trust. With ARCON’s advanced PAM suite and continuous behavioral analytics — organizations can detect early, respond intelligently, and prevent breaches before they occur. 

In an era where digital ecosystems are expanding at lightning speed, the protection of sensitive systems and data has become non-negotiable. At the heart of modern cybersecurity strategies lies Privileged Access Management (PAM)—a solution that no longer simply supports IT security but defines its future. PAM is not just a shield but a strategic tool to navigate the evolving threat landscape. 

From identity-centric breaches to sophisticated state-sponsored attacks, threat actors are zeroing in on privileged credentials as the quickest route to compromise. This makes PAM essential—not just a good-to-have, but a must-have. With hybrid work, multi-cloud adoption, and DevSecOps becoming the norm, PAM has emerged as the unifying force in cybersecurity architecture. 

PAM’s Top Predictive Roles 

• AI-Enhanced Threat Detection 

PAM platforms are getting smarter. By leveraging AI and machine learning, they now detect anomalies in privileged behavior in real time—stopping breaches before they unfold. Expect more proactive defense powered by behavioral analytics. 

• Zero Trust Security Enabler 

PAM isn’t an add-on—it’s foundational to Zero Trust Architecture. It enforces least privilege access, continuous verification, and dynamic risk-based authentication, fully integrated with IAM and endpoint security systems. 

• Securing Multi-Cloud and SaaS 

With organizations operating across AWS, Azure, GCP, and dozens of SaaS tools, PAM is the gatekeeper. It ensures secure credential management, automatic key rotation, and policy-driven access to cloud-native environments. 

• DevSecOps Integration 

PAM safeguards CI/CD pipelines, source repositories, and IaC workflows. It enables secure code delivery without sacrificing speed, ensuring that innovation and security move together. 

• Support for IoT and OT Networks 

PAM now covers IoT and industrial systems, helping secure ICS (Industrial Control Systems) and operational tech. With ransomware targeting critical infrastructure, this extension is vital. 

Core Features of a Future-Ready PAM Solution 

Today PAM is not optional — it’s foundational. The strategic steps for organizations should revolve around a robust, feature-rich, and future-ready ARCON PAM solution. The array of features that stands out ARCON from the rest include: 

1. Unified Access Visibility: One dashboard to monitor, control, and audit privileged accounts across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid systems. 

2. Granular RBAC: Role-based controls and session recordings to enforce least privilege and ensure traceability. 

3. Just-In-Time (JIT) Access: Temporary, time-bound privilege elevation to reduce the attack surface. 

4. Automated Workflows: Seamless integration with ITSM tools for access provisioning and incident response. 

5. Advanced Auditing and Compliance: Real-time logging, alerts, and compliance-ready reporting capabilities. 

Conclusion 

PAM, today, is not just a cybersecurity solution — it’s the embodiment of digital trust. As threats intensify and organizations digitize faster, ARCON PAM will be the linchpin holding IT and security together. The future belongs to organizations that are PAM-ready, PAM-aware, and PAM-optimized. 

The increasing sophistication of cyber threats has led to the emergence of stronger cybersecurity regulations worldwide. In the European Union (EU), the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Directive was the first comprehensive cybersecurity legislation introduced in 2020 and aimed at improving critical sectors’ overall cybersecurity posture. With the evolving digital landscape, the European Commission introduced the NIS2 Directive, an updated and more stringent version of the original NIS Directive, in 2023 to enhance the cybersecurity resilience of essential entities across the EU. 

The EU emphasizes the need to be technologically sovereign, ensuring that all connected services and products are resilient. The strategy outlines a plan to work with international partners to ensure global cybersecurity and stability in cyberspace. It also provides the digital transformation respects fundamental rights, democracy, and the rule of law. 

Why is the NIS2 Directive necessary for the EU Organizations? 

The European Commission revised the NIS Directive to clearly define the organizations covered and their specific requirements in the form of NIS2. The NIS2 directive expands the scope of the original NIS Directive to include a broader range of organizations, increasing the number of “entities” covered, including public administration, digital providers, space, research, postal services, waste management, foods, manufacturing, and chemical products. The main goals of NIS2 are to: 

• Strengthen cybersecurity requirements for a broader range of sectors and entities, including critical infrastructure 

• Improve cooperation between EU Member States on cybersecurity matters 

• Emphasis on securing the supply chain and ensuring that third-party vendors and partners comply with cybersecurity standards 

• Enhance incident reporting and response mechanisms 

• Introduce stricter enforcement and penalties for non-compliance 

Key Enhancements of NIS 2 Directive 

The NIS2 Directive introduces several key requirements to enhance the security of network and information systems within the EU. It covers the principal areas of:  

• Risk Management: Organizations must implement measures to minimize cyber risks, including incident management, supply chain security, network security, access control, and encryption.   

• Corporate Accountability: Management must oversee and approve cybersecurity measures, receive training on cyber risks, and face penalties for breaches.   

• Reporting Obligations: Essential entities must promptly report security incidents with significant impact, including a 24-hour “early warning” notification.  

• Improved Cooperation and Information Sharing: Member states must coordinate more effectively to prevent and respond to cyber threats.  

• Business Continuity: Organizations need plans to ensure business continuity during major cyber incidents, including system recovery, emergency procedures, and crisis response teams.  

Moreover, NIS2 mandates baseline security measures such as risk assessments, security policies, cryptography, incident handling, procurement security, cybersecurity training, and multi-factor authentication. These requirements aim to bolster Europe’s resilience against cyber threats and improve overall cybersecurity standards. 

Role of NIS2 in IT Risk Management 

The NIS2 Directive today plays a crucial role in IT Risk Management by enhancing cybersecurity resilience across the EU. It replaces the original NIS Directive, expanding its scope and introducing stricter requirements. Here is how it influences: 

1. Strengthening Risk Management Requirements: Organizations must adopt a risk-based approach to cybersecurity. NIS2 directive mandates risk assessment frameworks to identify and mitigate threats and enforces incident response plans, ensuring quick recovery from cyberattacks.  

2. Broadened Scope of Industries: Expand coverage to more sectors (e.g., healthcare, energy, finance, ICT, digital infrastructure) and introduce essential entities, each with specific obligations.  

3. Mandatory Cybersecurity Measures: Organizations must implement technical and organizational measures, such as access control and authentication, encryption and data protection, supply chain security, business continuity, and disaster recovery.  

4. Stronger Governance & Accountability: Organizations face non-compliance or non-governance penalties that can reach 2% of global turnover. This requires regular security audits and risk assessments.  

5. Supply Chain & Third-Party Risk Management: Organizations must assess the cybersecurity posture of their suppliers and ensure end-to-end supply chain security, reducing third-party risks. 

How ARCON’s Privileged Access Management can be Pivotal in Complying with NIS2 Directive? 

ARCON’s Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution, with its threat analytics algorithms and risk mitigation mechanisms, helps EU organizations comply with the requirements of the NIS2 Directive. ARCON PAM enforces – 

• Least Privilege Access: Users get access to only those assets that are relevant/ required 

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Access is assigned based on predefined roles and responsibilities 

• Just-in-Time (JIT) Access: Temporary and time-bound privileged access is granted only when it is required, reducing risk exposure 

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA helps to prevent credential-based attacks/ abuse 

• Secure Gateway Access: Ensures secure access to privileged accounts without exposing credentials 

• Session Monitoring & Recording: Seamlessly tracks activities and generates detailed reports of remote access activities 

• Real-time Alerts: Provides real-time alerts for suspicious activity, enabling security teams to respond to potential threats or credential misuse 

• Anomaly Detection: Powered by AI algorithms, it offers behavioral analytics of every privileged user 

• Audit Trails: Provides regular audit logs for forensic investigations 

• Account Discovery: Automating Privileged Account Discovery & Management to eliminate shadow IT risks 

By integrating ARCON’s solutions, the EU entities can effectively mitigate cybersecurity risks, enhance digital resilience, and stay compliant with NIS2, especially after 2023. 

Conclusion 

ARCON’s Privileged Access Management solution is pivotal in helping EU organizations comply with the NIS2 Directive by ensuring robust access control, real-time monitoring, secure remote access, and comprehensive audit capabilities. By implementing ARCON PAM, the EU organizations can significantly reduce cybersecurity risks while ensuring regulatory compliance. 

In today’s prevalent hybrid data hosting models, organizations generate data more frequently and regularly. The IT security team not just has to secure on-prem and cloud resources/ applications but also a host of other IT assets. Managing machine identities, enforcing access control around APIs, ensuring role-based access control (RBAC) are some of the other daily use-cases. 

Moreover, there are hundreds of end-users, third-party users, partners, and suppliers who continuously require access to the critical systems to perform daily tasks. It is the IT security team’s responsibility to ensure that enterprise data is accessible only to authorized end users regardless of the hosting models (on-premises or on-cloud). 

Business enterprises under these changing circumstances are facing more challenges. Against this backdrop, global regulatory compliance standards are continuously upgrading their respective laws, modules, and guidelines to strengthen IT security infrastructure in organizations. It is happening across the globe in multiple geographic regions so that the practice of identity and access management (IAM) can control and restrict access to the IT environment where each identity is administered and governed. 

• The regulatory compliance landscape in India took a new turn after the official announcement of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, August 2023. This new act adopts a more improved, and advanced approach to data protection and data privacy. Whether it is leisure (hospitality industry), finance, health, education or even official government work, this new law is going to enforce and entrust data fiduciary across every industry for better data security practices. 

• The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has issued the final Reserve Bank of India (Information Technology Governance, Risk, Controls and Assurance Practices) Master Directions 2023 that has come into force from April 1, 2024. It is to consolidate instructions on rules and regulations framed under various Acts, including banking issues and foreign exchange transactions and serves as a single reference point for regulatory matters. 

• The United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersecurity council issued a statement that it is developing three new policies aimed to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity system and expected to be regulated by the end of 2024. These upcoming laws and regulations are going to focus on data encryption, data protection and data transmission. Therefore, data integrity, data security and data privacy will be the core of these foundational security policies. 

• With the growing cyber security awareness in the UAE, NESA (National Electronic Security Authority) has taken collective responsibility for information technology, digital innovation, and data security. There has been a new set of security guidelines for most government entities and others which are identified as critical by NESA. Hence, compliance with NESA becomes mandatory for most of the business entities. 

• A pivotal European Union regulation DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) is designed to enhance the operational resilience of digital systems that support financial institutions operating in European markets. The stringency of DORA aims at strengthening the IT security of financial entities such as banks, insurance companies and investment firms and ensuring that the financial sector in Europe can stay resilient in the event of a severe operational disruption. 

IAM solutions ensure Compliance 

Based on region and industry, organizations must follow the regulations on data privacy, data integrity, and data security. Complying with regulatory mandates becomes extremely easy as the IT security staff can ensure effectiveness and continuity of IT operations and build a baseline security policies of Identity & Access Management (IAM) posture. Business enterprises can have effective policies that protect end-user accounts, conduct regular audits, and revoke elevated rights of any identity if anything anomalous is found.  

A robust IAM posture enables an organization to take control of the management and monitoring of all the identities to comply with the access control requirements that are consistent with regulatory standards. It is critical for organizations seeking to strengthen their adherence to compliance standards. 

A couple of statistics show that investments in IAM are not keeping up with the number of identity breaches. “2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report” claims that 40% of breaches are credential (identity)-related. Gartner, at the same time, in “Gartner IAM modernization Preventing Identity-first Security Survey” reveals that 66% of organizations are not investing enough in IAM and 47% of organizations are understaffed in IAM. It shows the lack of necessary investments in IAM space among organizations.  

How can ARCON solutions help to meet the regulatory compliance requirements? 

Post deployment, ARCON’s stack of IAM solutions helps organizations to meet compliance mandates automatically without any manual intervention. 

• Privileged Access Management (PAM) builds an identity security posture where every identity is managed, controlled, monitored and governed to meet access control related compliance requirements and prevent chances of unauthorized access. 

• Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) helps organizations to detect insider threats, compromised identities, and other malicious attempts on the endpoints. It has a powerful tool that meets any compliance requirement related to User Behavioural Analytics of the anomalous identities in the network. 

• Security Compliance Management (SCM) solution enables organizations to identify compliance irregularities by assessing the systems against the organization-specific information security and configuration baseline policies resulting in identifying the possible risks. It enhances visibility towards the information security posture of an organization for disparate technology platforms and enables enterprises to adhere to various IT security standards for compliance purposes. 

• ARCON’s Cloud Governance (CG) solution helps organizations to ensure cloud compliance including the mandates of FedRAMP, NIST, SOC2 etc. It automatically builds access control frameworks, least privilege access, remote access, authentication management, continuous monitoring, audit & accountability etc. 

• ARCON’s My Vault assists organizations with a centralized repository to protect, store and share confidential and sensitive business information securely. Regulatory compliance rules demanding data security, data privacy and data integrity can be met with this integrated tool. 

• Global Remote Access (GRA) solution supports organizations to meet remote access or remote security related compliances in the most secure way. It provides third-party access to the IT infrastructure as it is built on a zero-trust framework. 

• ARCON’s Drift Management enables organizations to proactively eliminate threats that arise from application drifts before they become a challenge for the resilient IT posture and digital ecosystem. Hence, it effectively identifies discrepancies, non-compliances, or variances allowing IT security pros to investigate and rectify as soon as possible. 

Conclusion 

The proliferation of identities in hybrid work environments and increasing stringency of regulatory compliances necessitate the adherence to meeting the mandates of IT standards. Deployment of ARCON’s IAM solutions helps organizations to comply with the mandates automatically with no manual intervention. 

By having a well-defined IT security policy in place, organizations can ensure that every employee follows the security framework. A comprehensive and stringent IT security policy should cover a wide range of topics, including the structure of workstations and how (and when) the employees should log in. It establishes safe IT practices. 

On the other hand, an organization’s information assets, including any intellectual property, are vulnerable to compromise if information security mechanisms are not in place. There could be various reasons behind the lack of an IT security policy, including lack of resources to assist with policy development, poor management adoption, or lack of knowledge about the necessity of an efficient IT security program in place.

Why is it required?

When designing business information security rules, it’s critical to remember the principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The major purpose of an IT security policy is to create the discipline of reliable IT security practices. IT security policies are intended to address security risks, execute measures to mitigate IT security vulnerabilities and specify how to recover from any cyber disaster.

As a result of the policies, employees are also advised on what they should and shouldn’t do. Having comprehensive security measures has several advantages for the organization. Policies can aid in the improvement of a company’s overall security posture. There are minimal access security cases involving the organization, and employees may turn to the policies to handle them. 

Creating a robust IT security policy also helps to prepare audit reports, that ensures  compliance with regulatory standards. Additionally, it enhances user and stakeholder accountability inside an organization, important to maintain checks and balances. 

How does IT Security Policy help?

A standard and detailed IT security policy is a part of an organization’s entire governance program. It provides security technologies and processes the legitimacy and clear accountability, ownership, and transparency for auditing reasons.

For the following reasons, an information security policy is required:

• Data integrity: A well-defined policy allows organizations for a systematic approach to detect and reduce risks to data confidentiality, integrity, availability, and proper response measures in an incident.

• Reduction of IT Risk: An information security policy outlines how a company detects, analyses, and mitigates IT vulnerabilities to prevent security risks & the procedures for recovering from a system outage or data breach.

• Implement and monitor security policies across every department: A unified information security policy avoids departmental decisions that aren’t aligned to the business objectives, and those departments that don’t have any policies at all. It outlines how the company determines which technologies or processes aren’t performing useful security functions.

• Third parties and external auditors should be aware of the policy: A standard IT security policy helps organizations to explain the procedures to external auditors, contractors, third parties, business partners and of course employees and internal stakeholders.

• To aid regulatory compliance: An organization must have a well-developed and well-defined security policy to comply with the global regulations and standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOX etc. Auditors frequently seek records of end-user activities, and the information security policy can assist to demonstrate who has performed which task and for what reason:
  • Examine the effectiveness of the policy in the current IT security context
  • Perform a risk assessment to identify and mitigate IT security loopholes
  • Examine the efficacy of the systems involved with overall access management

Conclusion

IT security policies play a vital role in any company’s success. The objective of security policies is not to fill up the gaps, but to ensure that no gaps are created. If security policies are not constantly updated, they might not be able to withstand the emerging threats. IT Security policies should be reviewed and revised annually and revised as and when required.

According to a research by Microsoft Security Intelligence, 44% of overall cyber attacks in 2021 were in the education industry. This is alarming given the fact that cyber attacks are typically associated with banking and government organizations. 

Starting from 5 years old pre-primary kids to 20 years old college students – the entire education sector has come down to virtual mode due to the global pandemic. To learn alphabets, solve mathematical problems, know historical facts, teach chemical formulas – both students and teachers are counting on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops to ensure continuity of education. Not just in virtual classes, but also for the administrative procedures in schools, colleges and universities like new admissions, preparing academic calendars, examinations or even report cards have gone digital for convenience and safety. However, questions have been raised by parents, teachers and cyber experts – are we digitally safe in the education industry?

IT Security Scenarios in Education

Cyber criminals have targeted institutes to breach confidential personal data. The most vulnerable targets among them are :- 

• Names, addresses, contact details of students and their parents
• Social security numbers of students, their parents and local guardians
• Transaction history and payment mode of parents who paid admission fees and tuition fees online
• Digital annual report cards, promotion certificates, school-leaving certificates, character certificates and more
• Institute database consisting of students’ records, teachers’ records, details of non-teaching staffs and even investor/ investment history

Since everything has been digitally transformed and most of the communication between students, parents and school authorities are done through emails, virtual meeting applications and other online modes. Thus the IT security risks escalate.

Where are the IT Risks?

The roots of cyber risks in educational institutions lies in both IT and non-IT circumstances. These risk factors in this industry are less discussed but highly affected. Let us delve a bit deeper.

Conclusion

Cyber Criminals have started to misuse pandemic as a weapon to target the education sector. The sudden shift from on-prem classes to remote learning has deteriorated the situation. With the students increasingly using their personal computers, laptops, smartphones and unsecured networks to join online classes, the threat vector of the education sector is proliferating. It’s high time for the education leaders to prioritize cybersecurity immediately and steer their organizations towards digital safety.

Information Security has taken a center-stage in the nation-building process. It significantly influences the annual GDP of every nation. 

While digitalization is adopted rapidly, the business data flows unceasingly from one device to another, from one IT environment to another. Data generation, processing and analysis of the same builds the foundation for any organization. This is a growth enabler for businesses and organizations. Big data helps businesses and organizations to understand the trends and patterns leading to innovation and experimentation. That in turn contributes to the nation’s economic growth. 

Now, if this sea of information that is generated, shared and stored every minute is not protected from cyber criminals, organizations and businesses might suffer irreparable loss in terms of both finances and reputation. This in turn can impact the national GDP. 

While explaining the role of the internet in GDP growth, McKinsey, in one of its reports, has stated that the internet contributes to 3.5% of global GDP, which is definitely a respectable portion. Moreover, the wave of digitalization has impacted significantly on the wealth and standard of people’s living. 

And it is not just the IT or e-commerce industry, the role of cybersecurity has become critical for manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, financial services among many other traditional industries. It is estimated that around two-thirds of the economic value created over the internet is from traditional industries. 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health, hence, the role of IT security cannot be ignored.

Who are the threats to IT infrastructure? 

Compromised Corporate Insiders: The insiders are privy to confidential information and business sensitive data, sometimes with privileges to access critical systems. 

Unethical Third-Parties: Third-party vendors/consultants control organization’s data indirectly – they have access to systems and applications for maintenance and storage purposes that can be compromised. 

Organized Cybercriminals: Call them hackers, “hacktivists”, or by any other terminology – the objective is to harm businesses and organizations by stealing/encrypting/or misusing the data for financial gains. 

What Measures can be taken to secure Information Assets?  

IT Security plays a pivotal role in securing global enterprises from cyber threats. At the same time, it ensures that business continuity is unhindered, and the graph of GDP remains stable. 

At the macro level, the national-level cyber-defense strategies help enterprises to reinforce their IT ecosystem by providing

•  Laws to define what constitutes a cyber-crime
•  Incident Response and Disaster Management Agencies to thwart and detect cyber-attacks
•  Cyber-security Awareness Programs at the national level

Besides, 

• Every organization from both traditional and unconventional industry should educate and train the workforce on safe IT practices 
• Regardless of geographical location, every organization from every country should cooperate and communicate with each other to stay updated with safe IT practices. 
• There should not be any alternative to following standard global regulatory compliances. Every industry from every region needs to follow the applicable mandates to ensure smooth IT operations.

• And of course at the micro level, businesses and organizations should assess the critical IT infrastructure, its vulnerabilities and how the data can be best managed securely in a large ever-growing IT infrastructure. 
• Endpoint security, Identity and Access Management, Vulnerability Assessment tools, Privileged Access Controls are some of the critical safeguards that can strengthen the IT perimeter. 

Conclusion

Human capital, technology and disciplinary law tops the list of factors that contribute to GDP growth across the world. And the technology part is arguably inclined towards new-age digital transformation. That’s why Securing IT processes and operations is at the core of nation-building. 

While preparing for a long drive, we take necessary safety precautions like a stepney, spare tyre, extra fuel and other accessories to ensure a smooth journey. Just in case there is any mechanical hindrance, we can repair and resume our journey. Without any accessories, there could have been an unexpected halt.

Similarly, the business journey of any organization might face unexpected halt if there are inadequate IT security measures. In order to ensure smooth IT operations and business continuity, specific IT security policy and stringent IT security measures are required for business continuity.  It ensures that even if there is any cyber threat or malicious activity, the organization has the ability to withstand it.

Facts 

There are around 40,000 MNCs and 42.6 lakh registered SMEs in India as per statistics of 2020. Among them, 52% of organizations experienced cyber threats in the last one year. Among them, 57% of organizations suffered downtime with whopping financial losses in just one calendar year of 2020.

What are the threats?

There is a long list of cyber threats that organizations witnessed in the last few years. While many organizations successfully predicted and prevented cyber attacks, several others suffered unexpected monetary and reputational losses due to IT infrastructural loopholes. The most typical and predominant IT threats that loom large round the year consists of:

• Malicious Insiders’ Threat
• Privileged Access Misuse
• Data Theft
• Cyber Espionage
• Non-Compliance to global Regulatory Standards

How to ensure a Safe Business Journey?

Business growth and escalating revenue graph are the primary objectives of any MNC or SME across the globe. However, digital evolution has pushed organizational objectives to a topsy-turvy. To ensure business continuity and survive the cut-throat competition, most of the organizations from various industries need to have a dedicated IT security team with focus geared towards Information Security. 

• Stringent IT Security Policy: The internal organizational policies of the IT department that are meant to ensure stringent cybersecurity practices and safeguard data assets from IT risks need to be robust enough. Every role of the employees should be specified and all IT activities should be rule-and role-based. A single loophole in the policy or deviation from the standard rules might wreak havoc. 

• Dedicated & Trained IT Security Team: The robustness of IT security in an enterprise largely depends on the people of the organization. Starting from managing the data center, monitoring all the user activities, controlling all the critical accesses – an organization must have multi-layered IT security teams. It includes the IT risk management team, IT security team and audit team. A mere lackadaisical attitude in any area could be catastrophic.

• Additional Security for Privileged Accounts: Privileged accounts are the gateways to the most confidential information of an organization. A robust Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution seamlessly monitors all privileged activities even at a granular level. Misuse of privileges is one of the biggest sources of data breaches and compromise of business-critical information. It helps organizations to enforce the principle of least privilege and supports the Zero Trust security framework that is adopted by most of the organizations. In addition, it ensures prevention of cyber espionage. 

• Mechanism to detect Insider threats: Malicious insiders pose the biggest threat to organizations by obtaining unauthorized access to the business-critical systems and applications. Disgruntled employees, unauthorized third-parties, or suspicious inside agents are likely to access confidential information without any intrusion alert and cause damage. Tools like User Behaviour Analytics (UBA), Just-In-Time Privilege (JIT), Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) and frequent randomization of passwords help organizations to overcome the insider threats. Also, it builds a robust and effective risk control framework to predict cyber anomalies.

• Regulatory Compliances: Regulatory compliances like EU GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO etc. help organizations to keep their data safe from breaches. The compliance bodies are extremely stringent on the norms and policies and expect organizations to abide by the standard regulations. Any kind of non-compliance costs hefty penalties to the organizations and eventually suffers a business setback.

Conclusion

Any organization desires to have a smooth, growing and uninterrupted business journey – just like a pleasant and safe long drive. All the necessary IT security measures once taken and relevant solutions adopted, an organization ensures a safe business journey.  

ARCON is named a Leader

in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management Report

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About DevSecOps

DevSecOps is a tool that integrates security practices into the DevOps processes. It works on “security-as-a-code” technology, fostering communication and collaboration between the security team and software developers.

Previously, the software developers had concentrated on DevOps and a separate security team on vulnerability monitoring, detection, and management.

Nonetheless, with time, the two-tiered structure has been replaced with a continuous delivery approach system. It is none other than DevSecOps, helping organizations to incorporate agile and lean security testing tools. Using the software will not interrupt the delivery cycle or slow down any of your processes, and it is the most important thing in today’s time.

Benefits of DevSecOps

Today’s organizations require easy and quick cloud computing solutions, containing flexible data solutions and storage, and other things. There were times when DevOps was sufficient for developers. But it failed to meet the security aspects, which was further attained by DevSecOps. It encompasses both security and DevOps by integrating security in the software development process. Many benefits indicate why organizations choose DevSecOps for software delivery, and they are:

● Cost-efficiency

The solution helps creators in detecting and addressing the security aspects quickly. They can do this step at any time throughout the delivery cycle while limiting the risks. The time-insensitive security vulnerabilities will protect the end-users and the organization from being a victim of cybercriminals. Additionally, the developers can decrease outages and downtime by increasing the speed of the response.

● Enhancing the overall security

The software helps in reducing security breach and strengthen monitoring, security auditing, and notification efforts. A single flaw can put the entire organization in trouble, affecting the image and putting their revenue in danger. But due to DevSecOps, the software developers are better equipped now and can identify security threats. It is done before they cause any damage to the business, which is a significant aspect.

● Maintains transparency

DevSecOps has encouraged security teams and software developers to work side-by-side. It has resulted in maintaining openness and transparency, increasing efficiency and productivity. Not only that, but it also promotes continuous management. By monitoring the failures and successes of an organization, the organization can find out the best result to eliminate problems. It has helped to enhance the entire software delivery cycle and improvise the software delivery efforts. The organization can also use metrics differently, which eventually separates them from the competitors.

Sooner or later, DevSecOps could become the first priority for companies globally. It’s because the earlier an organization incorporates the technology, the sooner results can be enjoyed.

DevSecOps and DevOps: What is the difference?

The DevOps is an amalgamation of two aspects of computer science. Here Dev indicates software development, and Ops refers to information technology operations. The objective of DevOps is to enhance the speed of software delivery enabling continuous communication, collaboration, integration, and automation.

Briefly, the demand for DevSecOps has increased dramatically, and more than 74% of IT professionals have claimed to use it. DevSecOps uses both SecOps and DevOps, creating a cyclical practice for technology operations, software development, and cybersecurity. The objective is to enhance the development of a secured codebase. Here are some key elements of both DevSecOps and DevOps that will help you understand the same.

Key aspects of DevOps

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): It is a way to use code to manage and automate computing resources, like virtual machines and physical equipment, etc. IaC is also used in automating maintenance and decreasing the time spent on overseeing IT operations.
• Policy as Code (PaC): It is a way of using code for automating and managing procedures. Policies include defining the proper use of technology IT practices, the standard security, etc. it helps make the policy available in the code format enabling automated deployment and testing.

Key aspects of DevSecOps

• Automating security:Automation is a key aspect in every stage of the development lifecycle. It helps the team to handle more security responsibilities in a short span. It also includes compliance monitoring, automated code analysis, security training, and threat investigation.
• Continuous feedback loop: It ensures every team member is promoted to enhance the maintenance and development of the tool frequently. Getting continuous feedback will help in monitoring the software threats and providing security professionals to eliminate threats.

In a word, DevSecOps has increased the development time while ensuring security while DevOps concentrates more on security. Every company must start using DevSecOps if they wish to save their reputation and eliminate becoming a victim of hackers.

Getting started with DevSecOps

You must have already done so much hard work in integrating different operations in workplaces. If not, it is the right time to consider the perfect solution to secure the software development process from beginning to end. PAM or Privileged Access Management can be a great way to begin with. Here’s why:

• Privileged Access Management (PAM)

It is an ideal solution using which you can control, manage, and monitor privileged user activities. It offers the IT team a centralized policy framework governing and authorizing users depending on specific responsibilities and roles. The tool will ensure security to every system by implementing the least privilege principle.

The bottom line

DevSecOps helps to empower companies and takes a proactive approach to security. The invention of the new technology has helped software developers and security professionals to work hand-in-hand. It has led to the identification of security vulnerabilities and eliminating them before penetrating the organization.

Companies that have already incorporated the tool have started receiving the benefits. It offers the security and software development team an effective and user-friendly tool. With that, maintaining transparency, communication, openness, etc., has been smooth. After knowing everything about DevSecOps, are you ready to incorporate the solution into your company? Integrating successfully will enhance the daily operations and save your company from cybercriminals.

A] ARCON | Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Almost two-thirds of global data breach incidents happen due to compromise of privileged accounts. The typical challenges that organizations face while managing privileged accounts in both on-prem and remote work conditions are inadequate monitoring of privileged sessions, no rotation or randomization of passwords, no password vaulting, no multi-factor authentication (MFA) of users, and no report on logs for IT audits.

 ARCON | Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a comprehensive solution that seamlessly manages, monitors and controls the activities of privileged users in an enterprise network. If we consider the general use cases of PAM today, especially in remote work conditions, most of the organizations are prioritizing password-less access on the target devices where the users can seamlessly connect with the VPNs (extensiveness of RDPs). But VPN-led approach is risky. It is prone to hacking, does not provide granular access control and Multi-factor authentication. On the other hand, ARCON | PAM has a complete set of Identity Governance tools that includes MFA, Session monitoring, command restrictions (granular control) capabilities, password vaulting including an application streaming server that streams only required data to end-user machines from target devices in an encrypted manner.

Moreover, organizations are getting extra-cautious over time management and manpower management. No organization would like to spend an army of employees to manage PAM solutions. ARCON | PAM, in this context, is user-friendly and safeguards enterprise OS, security devices, routing devices, telecom equipment, business applications, cloud applications, IT operational technologies, robotics, and IoT. It secures and automates password rotation policies of the privileged accounts of critical systems by offering a strong password vault and managing the overall PAM lifecycle with minimum manpower.

B] ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics (UBA)

The preamble of modern IT security has changed a lot in the last few months after remote work culture became the ‘new normal’. The global IT community now believes in ‘predicting risks’ rather than ‘preventing risks’. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) has transformed the way Information Security is analyzed today. It is a highly effective risk predictive & user behaviour analytics tool built for daily enterprise use cases in WFH conditions. The AI-ML component of ARCON | UBA understands the behavior pattern of the end-users round the clock and in case of any deviation from the baseline activities, flags to the administrator about a probable anomaly. For instance, if a user downloads approx. 10MB of data files every day but suddenly downloads gigabytes of files, UBA tool would consider it as an anomaly and alert the admin immediately.

Demand of ARCON | UBA solutions from SMEs are soaring every day and will keep on rising. Not just helping to implement secured access control, this tool ensures that the IT security team can monitor remote users in WFH conditions where chances of data misuse are high.

C] Secure Remote Access

IT security in remote work conditions has been a huge challenge altogether. Organizations from every industry worldwide are striving hard to ensure every remote access is seamlessly monitored in WFH conditions to ensure security. It necessitates the organizations’ IT security team to stay alert and aware of how the confidential information is handled by the users while working remotely. Otherwise, cybercriminals might exploit the situational (pandemic) vulnerabilities to cause data breach, data exfiltration, unauthorized access, password abuse etc.

 ARCON | Secure Remote Access provides Single-sign-on (SSO) to securely access applications and data from remote work conditions. It supports several Identity protocols. SSO ensures that all important privileged credentials are not shared and compromised. Moreover, the tool offers privilege session management that monitors and records all the activities. Just-in-time privileges approach ensures that users are granted access strictly on a ‘need-to-know’ and ‘need-to-do’ basis.

D] Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

“To be or not to be” – the age-old soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes in our mind while discussing ‘Trust’ of IT users. This is a never-ending dilemma and its seriousness has increased too much in the post pandemic times. Global organizations are shifting their focus from typical perimeter-centric security towards advanced IDS (Intrusion Detection System) models. Hence Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) security model has been so discussed, desired and accepted as the whole world has cocooned itself at home.

ARCON | PAM solution helps organizations to build the foundation of ZTNA. Since assessment of trust is a continuous process and it is going to be never-ending in the WFH circumstances, ARCON sticks to the credo “we trust you, but we will continuously assess the trust”. As the ZTNA security model suggests, it is mandatory to have a unified data security policy for all applications and databases that are accessed by privileged accounts. ARCON | PAM solution seamlessly inspects all the tasks happening around privileged identities and ensures trustworthiness. Moreover, ARCON Zero Trust architecture ensures continuous adaptive risk assessment (establishing trust over IP address, devices, facial recognition, bio-metrics, geo-location, etc), secure segmentation of identities, and robust detection and incident response. All these components enable the IT security team to have a comprehensive visibility over segmented and dispersed Identities.

E] Endpoint Security

Compromise of the endpoint privileges has been proved to be one of the biggest sources of data theft worldwide. Almost 60% of the organizations fail to monitor their endpoints. Poor endpoint management not only leads to data theft but also creates ambiguity over access to business-critical applications. The situation in remote working conditions has turned worse.

In WFH scenarios, it is hardly feasible for the administrators to track whether the users are using unauthorized and unrecognized endpoints in the enterprise network. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) bridges the security gap between unmanaged endpoints and IT administrators in an enterprise network. It grants endpoint access to the privileged users by segmenting them strictly on their roles, responsibilities and duration (granular  control). The access right is revoked immediately after the task is accomplished and thus helps organizations to avoid unnecessary standing privileges. It is highly recommended in WFH conditions, especially during flexible working hours.

Conclusion

In a genre where inadequate cybersecurity measures have become a burning topic among the IT community, the recent ‘new normal’ conditions have accelerated the necessity for secure remote access. ARCON offers a stack of robust technologies to overcome these challenges.