Top three security tips for 2020 from the experts

'Secure inbound email' advise the experts. Computing speaks to luminaries from end user and vendor organisations, and learns that it's not about 'patch management'

Whilst some cyber attacks are growing in sophistication, basic vulnerabilities are still causing major headaches at many organisations.

Computing has recently spoken to several security experts to ask for their top tips for 2020, and securing inbound email has come top of their list.

Tip 1: Securing inbound email

"In the last 12 months, the industry has recorded a substantial rise in the number of business email compromise (BEC) attacks," began Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress. "So, going into 2020, businesses need to be alert to the risk that these attacks pose to both their staff and their sensitive information."

Many of these attacks lack sophistication, but are still successful, Pepper added.

"‘Traditional' spam emails from long-lost foreign relatives may still occasionally slip through your filters, however a combination of education and tell-tale signs like poor grammar make these easier for employees to spot.

"But BEC and impersonation-based spear phishing attacks will continue to be successful into 2020 because they leverage human nature and human error.

After all, no-one wants to be the employee who doesn't reply promptly to the CEO's email! Unless they look to emerging technologies like deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to combat these risks, organisations are going to have an increasingly uphill battle on their hands."

Nick Ioannou, head of IT at RG Partnership, a firm of architects, agreed with Pepper.

"Protect your users from phishing with two-factor authentication," Ioannou advised, adding: "Regularly check your users email rules for any suspicious outgoing forwarding rules."

Rik Ferguson, vice president of security research at Trend Micro also cited email security as his top tip, explaining that most attacks exploit that vector.

"The one thing that enterprises should be doing, over and above any other security initiative now and in 2020 is to properly inspect and secure inbound email.

"The vast majority off attacks start with an email. In the case of ransomware and targeted attacks, that figure remains at over 90 per cent. Effective email security should be blocking known bad, whether source IP, domains and senders or content, fast-tracking known-good and sending anything unknown or suspicious off to a sand box for further automated investigation.

"Many organisations believe that email security is an 'older technology' and as such one that maybe doesn't need re-evaluating, this couldn't be further from the truth. If you are relying on legacy security technologies for your email, attackers are already bypassing it."

[Next: Tip 2 - It's about vulnerabilities, not patches]

Top three security tips for 2020 from the experts

'Secure inbound email' advise the experts. Computing speaks to luminaries from end user and vendor organisations, and learns that it's not about 'patch management'

Tip 2: Patch Management

Continuing the theme of doing the basics right, the next most popular piece of advice from the experts is to identify vulnerabilities rather than focusing on patches.

"Security procedures are still architected around 'patch management', an approach which sets you up for failure," said Ferguson. "The priority is not the patch, but the vulnerability.

"Priority should be placed on identifying vulnerabilities within your infrastructure and deploying tools, techniques or design changes to mitigate against their exploitation until such time as the patch can be deployed, think more 'vulnerability management' than 'patch management'.

"Comparatively, patching is the easy part, working out what to do to maintain availability without exposure in the window between patch availability (or vulnerability disclosure) and patch deployment is where it gets tricky."

However, whilst Ferguson may cite patches as 'the easy part', there are pitfalls there too, with Ioannou warning the industry to be vigilant against fake patches.

"Watch out for fake Windows 7 security patches and support deals," added Ioannou.

[Next: Tip 3 - Focus on the users]

Top three security tips for 2020 from the experts

'Secure inbound email' advise the experts. Computing speaks to luminaries from end user and vendor organisations, and learns that it's not about 'patch management'

Tip 3: Focus on your users

It's all too easy for CIOs, CISOs and others in the domain of protecting organisations from cyber threats to focus on those threats, and lose sight of the business needs, and ultimately the users.

Pepper warned the industry to put users first.

"As well as addressing your security issues, make sure you're focusing on users' pain points too - for example, usability and disrupted workflows. Traditional security technologies have gone some way to reconcile this but ultimately, they often fail because users become increasing restricted and it's difficult for them to work productively.

"So they push back until security standards are lowered or they use a less-secure workaround instead. In 2020, organisations should look to emerging machine learning-based human layer security solutions, which proactively support users to protect data without hampering productivity."

Ferguson added that teams may need to be skilled up to cope wth the threats and opportunities ahead.