Top Five Emerging Cyber Security Technologies

The war between cyber security professionals and hackers has always been a cat and mouse game. As soon as one cyber attack is mitigated, a new sophisticated attack raises its head in a dangerous form. Although following a good cyber hygiene protects us from cyber attacks up to a certain extent, it is not a permanent solution. It has become increasingly necessary to invent new technologies, which are free of flaws and have the potential to remove the threats from its roots. In order to achieve this, many innovations have begun to gain traction and change the way businesses are conducted. The sole objective of these emerging technologies is to identify the attacks and neutralize them immediately before it causes trouble. Here are the top five emerging cyber security technologies to keep on your radar.

1) Blockchain

Most of us have heard about Bitcoin, a digital cryptocurrency that can change the way payments are done. However, only few people know about its underlying technology – Blockchain.

Blockchains are shared, tamper proof, peer-to-peer digital ledgers which enable a single, global version of the way the transaction are made. Some of the leading banks and technology giants and other firms are making a significant investment in research and development to see how they can harness this technology and transform the different aspects of business, including our thinking about cybersecurity. The main objective of the cybersecurity policy is to build a perimeter wall to keep out intruders. The concept of block chain is already being used in several innovative ways to enhance cybersecurity and protect the organizations and its applications against cyberattacks.

Blockchains once evolved completely has the potential to be a powerful solution for many of the cyber security problems faced by the financial institutions. The blockchain transaction technology can spread its wings to manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transportation industry, or any sector that makes important products, which need to be secured. Due to its sequential hashing and cryptography, combined with the decentralized structure, it makes virtually impossible for third parties to unilaterally alter data on the ledger. Blockchains can successfully increase the security on three fronts - blocking identity theft, preventing data tampering, and stopping Denial of Service attacks.

2) Cloud Security

Hackers are proving again and again that the on-premises network infrastructure integrated by many businesses are easy to attack. The most recent high-profile examples are attacks on Yahoo network, US DNC system, and attacks on healthcare industries. It’s understandable that businesses consider taking a defensive posture with respect to cyber security. But, it is essential to be aware of the fact that hackers from around the world are constantly looking for flaws to attack corporate networks, steal valuable data, information about customers, personnel, finances, trade secrets, and other critical assets - and to compromise their technology in other malicious ways. But imagine a different kind of cybersecurity, which no longer demands a dependence on IT department to ensure the safety of a network.

Cloud security is one of the best solutions that enables businesses to move their digital operations off-premises to be managed by companies that are experts in cloud infrastructure and security. This approach uses technology at its best to sense and respond to the threats and vulnerabilities, and it would be highly effective at eliminating vulnerabilities. The standard approach to protect company's data from cyber-attacks includes using the IT systems efficiently to detect and prevent unwanted efforts to gain entry and cloud security exactly does that. The cloud on which the company's data is stored is bolted with different types of security measures to keep the bad guys out who try to render these networks.

3) Machine Learning

Machine learning is gaining its momentum as new technologies and algorithms have been developed. As machine learning becomes more advanced and sophisticated, it is possible to harness even more powerful analytics tools to forecast where hackers may strike next. In order to mitigate the potential cyber attacks successfully, companies should have the potential to predict where hackers eye in the future. If the predictions go right, companies can better prepare for attacks and ideally neutralize it.

Machine learning, when used with advanced authentication and encryption techniques, it can offer businesses with interesting and sophisticated tools that help keep their data safe. According to the ABI research, machine learning in cybersecurity will enormously bolster spending in big data, intelligence, and analytics, which may reach up to $96 billion by 2021.

4) Advanced Authentication

Passwords are always considered as the weakest link of cyber security because not everyone cares to have a strong password and change them every three months. Henceforth, in order to neutralize this weakest point, a multi-factor authentication need to be implemented across all vectors and not just the highly sensitive ones. The concept of multi-factor authentication is simple, just after entering the username and password – the first factor of authentication; the user would receive a code on his phone to confirm that he or she is, in fact, logging in to the application. This strategy is already applied in so many vectors to reduce the risk of third-party access, but in future, we can expect different types of authentication.

Other types of two factor authentication are biometrics where the user are supposed to enter his fingerprint or retina scan to gain access. Scientists from the Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia) are developing a mobile app called InCallAuth, which allows a smartphone to recognize its owner by a characteristic movement of the hand while answering a call. It is just an example of the sophisticated authentication method implemented by the companies to help users and organizations to protect their data against breaches.

5) Built-In Encryption

Encryption is the process of encoding the messages or data. Although it is not a new technology, it is the one, which has not been widely used beyond military operations and government agencies until the recent years.

After so many devastating data breaches, however, it has become as tandard procedure in many communication platforms, such as Gmail, and messaging applications like WhatsApp, and most famously iPhones to use message encryption. Widespread use of this strategy will undoubtedly make life harder for hackers, because even if they gain access to the data, it can be worthless without decryption.