Sachin Bhardwaj, eHosting DataFort, Director, Marketing and Business Development, discusses how data centre managers can ensure cyber-resilience.
The increasing use of Big Data and the onset of the Internet of Things has only added to the intensity of the need to prioritise cybersecurity within data centres. One is also mindful of the ongoing regulations and compliance needs that have shot up.
This sets the pace for a far more holistic approach to cybersecurity which comprises of a well-rounded security strategy that involves both governance and the operations angles.
It includes a combination of information security, information system security as well as physical security. And the framework must be in a strong position to identify, protect, detect, respond as well as recover data.
At a time when attacks are only getting to be more sophisticated and increasing in numbers, there is evidently a gap in the requisite security professionals where supply does not match demand. It is important that data centres keep pace with the changing threat landscape and minimise the risks.
Now is the time to ensure that data centres equip themselves with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and implement automation processes where the rate of identifying breaches is far higher. This will strengthen their threat detection capabilities, make them quicker to respond to threats and they will also be fortified with an analytical approach to cybersecurity. It helps in developing a far more effective, efficient and agile security posture with the added ability to forecast future threats. Service providers and end customers are investing heavily on SOC capabilities for creating an enhanced cyberdefence environment against security threats and vulnerabilities.
Visibility into the networks and the integration of advanced visual dashboards will enable clarity in what is transpiring between devices, will identify current and possible attacks as well as ensure that compliance requirements are being met.
Higher network visibility will provide greater communication flow between network operations and security operations teams and will be able to proactively identify and mitigate threats. Simultaneously, workloads tend to fluctuate and organisations may not be prepared for scalability which can hinder the security environment. This calls for strong network performance monitoring tools to help reduce threats by alerting security teams of any irregular network behaviour.
While a lot is being done by data centre owners to ensure that the networks, servers and endpoint devices are secured, there is also a need to pay heed to other aspects of security that include the cooling and heating systems, power supplies and the security systems.
