CyberSecurity: Requires more than Traditional Approach

Once cybersecurity was purely a matter of technology, but as the attacks grow with evolving threat, it's no more only technology. Security experts bundled various threat issues that can be handled with traditional security approach. As it's not about knowing the threat, it's about guarding even before they occur.

Recently DataQuest and Forcepoint organize a series of events to discuss recent cybersecurity issues and what are the right approaches to deal with them. The event hosted distinguished guests from various industries to share their thoughts.

The first event was organized in Chandigarh where more than 60 security experts joined the discussion. Harshil Doshi, from Forcepoint, presented the opening note and talked about the security concerns in terms of data protection, threats, and attacks.

Dr. Divya Bansal, Head, Cyber Security Research Centre cum, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, PEC University of Technology took the first session and shared her thoughts.

If you are online, you are compromised

Dr. Divya Bansal raised her voice against various online sources which are producing different fake contents. Be it online or on social media, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp etc. They aren't creating the content, its humans. Still, we get a plethora of fake contents and information about different events, including politics and history. Now machines are replacing humans, but don’t forget that behind each machine there is a human. Same goes with contents, humans are creating those content as well as using machines to attack us.

Dr. Divya Bansal, Head, Cyber Security Research Centre cum, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, PEC University of Technology

We all are using various social channels in our daily lives; Facebook and WhatsApp are two most common platforms. Where we share our personal plus professional info with our friends and family. But as we go online, we are compromised. For instance, if a person is not using WhatsApp but is on Facebook, simply invite him using his mobile number to join WhatsApp. From next day, he would start getting some ads related to WhatsApp, suggesting like how many people or your friends are one WhatsApp. What does it mean; simple his mobile number and Facebook profile have been compromised.

Let's take another example, we all are using smartphones nowadays, and several apps with permissions to get access to your contacts, SMS, mic, etc. Now, what if you deny to those permissions, you won't be able to use that particular app. This means you are compromising your contact list and other sensitive information.

Now think about an organization having hundreds of employees and each of them is using smartphones. They are using various devices to communicate or share some kind of official data. They are accessing those data on their phones and sharing with each other. As their phones are compromised, it can lead to a potential loss to the organization that is why we all need protection to our data.

In the second session, Harshil Doshi, from Forcepoint, talked about the technology and how we can protect the data.

Our data is being misused

We all are generating some kind of content and data which is being used by data brokers to profile us. They can further use the data to either sell a product or call for insurance. And in the worst scenario, they can misuse the data to steal our money or other valuable info.

As every coin has two faces, similarly the technology can be boon or become curse depending on how we are using it. So if we use the data in the right manner it can lead to a lot of benefit to the society. Technologies like AI, machine learning, analytics, etc. have proved to be boon for large enterprises, governments, and defense.

Harshil Doshi, Forcepoint

Rethinking CyberSecurity

Cybersecurity is being discussed for many years. Numerous innovations came and more to come. What are we all looking at - protecting our business data? Data has become new oil, Forcepoint taken a step ahead to secure the data with its human-centric security. The innovative technology goes beyond the modern security technology and observes the behavior to predict the potential loss even before it occurs.

The major challenge is to control the data as employees are using different devices, the data moves from one to another source. While the traditional security technology only focuses on the outside attacks, Forcepoint developed the technology that focuses on the cyber behaviors of employees/humans and protects against malicious activities that can lead to critical data and IP loss.

Feedback Attendees

Shweta Srivastava, CTO, Paul Merchants

Shweta Srivastava CTO Paul Merchants

Events like this are very enlightening, you get to know about what’s happening in the latest in the market and trends. Cybersecurity is defiantly an important topic as we all are facing such issue through their career and trying to protect the data. Forcepoint helps us to understand the issues and products that can protect us.

Abhinesh Goyal General Manager KDMS

Abhinesh Goyal, General Manager, KDMS

These interactions are very nice, where you understand, what kind of threats are there with data moving to another and using lots of tools and technology. First of all, it’s important to understand the threats and the available solutions and tools which can help us to mitigate the risk of those threats.