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Author: Adelle Starr

How the Emergence of Artificial Intelligence Will Affect Cybersecurity

Posted on by Adelle Starr

The potential threats posed by cybercriminals remain on the rise. As a result, cybersecurity has become a major focus of businesses, government entities, and individuals alike. With so much valuable data at risk of being stolen or misused, organizations are looking for innovative solutions to protect themselves from cyber threats.  According to IBM’s, “Cost of a Data Breach 2022” report it takes a security team an average of 277 days to identify and contain a breach. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most promising solutions for enhancing cybersecurity.

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the world of cybersecurity should be considered a game-changer. AI can help organizations protect themselves from cyber threats and also aid in incident response and investigation. AI will enable businesses to become more efficient and cost-effective by helping them quickly identify suspicious behavior, investigate security incidents faster, and accurately identify attackers.

First of all, AI will be used to detect malicious activity faster than ever before. AI-powered security systems will use sophisticated algorithms to quickly detect potential threats and malicious activity, giving companies time to act before a breach occurs. With the right system in place, companies can identify an attack almost as soon as it starts and act accordingly to stop it before any significant damage is done.

Second, AI will help improve incident response time. Currently, when a cyberattack takes place, organizations often have difficulty responding quickly because they must manually investigate each event individually. However, with the help of AI, they will be able to automatically investigate each incident at lightning speed without human involvement. This will enable them to react quickly and effectively if an attack does occur.

Thirdly, AI-powered cybersecurity solutions can provide more accurate identification of attackers. AI can learn how different attacks work over time and use that knowledge to more accurately detect when a new attack is launched against a system. It can then trace back its source to identify the attacker and their intent more accurately than ever before. This information can then be used for future protection strategies against similar attacks in the future.

Finally, AI-driven solutions are already being deployed in areas such as network security analytics which allows for the examination of network traffic patterns in real-time so malicious activity can be spotted much quicker than humans would normally be able to do so manually. These solutions are becoming increasingly advanced as they incorporate machine learning techniques which allow them to adjust their scanning criteria over time as new threats emerge making them even better at identifying possible threats before they even have a chance to do harm.

All in all, AI will bring unprecedented levels of efficiency and accuracy into cybersecurity operations as it becomes increasingly deployed across multiple industries worldwide. With its ability to scan huge volumes of data quickly while providing deep insight into network activity and possible attackers’ intentions, companies are poised to make greater gains than ever before against the threat landscape with minimal effort required on their part. This makes it imperative for businesses today to take steps towards implementing these innovative solutions if they wish to stay secure now and in the future.

FedRAMP Authorization Act

Posted on by Adelle Starr

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fedramp-authorization-act-securitybricks-inc

FedRAMP provides a standardized approach to security authorizations for Cloud Service Offerings within the Federal ecosystem and is a crucial cybersecurity certification that cloud service providers must obtain prior to working with U.S. government data. Gaining this certification in advance means placement in the FedRAMP marketplace, from which government divisions and agencies can choose a provider at the level of security they choose.

Cloud Service providers have a multi-billion dollar federal market to address with some clarity on security requirements.

President Joe Biden has signed a legislation that will reform the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a cybersecurity authorization program, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The act is designed to promote the federal implementation of FedRAMP government wide.

The latest iteration of FedRAMP Authorization Act makes sure that the FedRAMP program has a board to continue improving the quality and shorten the time for a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to attain an Authorization to Operate (ATO). The act also creates a new cloud advisory committee consisting of five representatives from cloud service companies with the specification that two of those positions will be filled by small cloud vendors.

Why is this important to cloud service providers (CSPs)?

There are hundreds if not thousands of cloud service providers who need to be FedRAMP certified and the journey for many has been long with millions of dollars in investment.  The old rules made it difficult to cross sell to federal agencies as each agency can have additional security requirements extending the sales process.

One of the most significant aspects of the FedRAMP reform language is a “presumption of adequacy” clause, which would allow FedRAMP-authorized tools to be used by any federal agency without additional cost, or time increasing CSPs market size.

The cloud advisory board will have voice of the CSPs’ making the rules relevant and effective for continuous compliance and ensure highest level of data protection. The shortage of 3PAOs increased the assessment timelines and the single assessment approach will free up 3PAO’s to get more CSPs certified.

If a CSP wants to make a business case to pursue the Federal market, they can start with the NIST controls benchmark with approved FedRAMP services from GCP, AWS and Azure GovCloud instances.  Once they complete their readiness and demonstrate compliance to NIST 800-53 controls, they can now find a 3PAO to validate the controls and submit the package to FedRAMP board for approval.  Once approved, they are listed, and every Federal agency can now subscribe to the service. A FedRAMP certified CSP has demonstrated highest security control implementation and monitoring eliminating the need to chase less known commercial security certifications. FedRAMP has now millions of dollars in funding to market its program to State agencies.  Many states are adopting FedRAMP as their security framework and this only increases the addressable market.