| | June 20168The world moves swiftly; the IT security world even more so. Just a couple of years ago, securing the enterprise would basically consist of protecting an organization from external intruders. Today, the battle has changed ground.Education efforts from industry players have created higher levels of IT security awareness in the business world, and more firms have implemented basic security measures that can thwart direct attacks effectively.This development is forcing hackers to up their game by figuring out alternative ways to get their hands on valuable enterprise assets. One new strategy that is becoming more common across the world is for hackers to gain entry to a corporate network by targeting its weakest points. Such points can include an unsecured employee mobile phone or a workstation with limited access to corporate data. These weak points typically reside in low value segments of the corporate network. Once the hacker breaks in and gets a toehold, however, he can often navigate to other more valuable parts of the network - which tend to be much more rigorously protected from external attackers - quite easily. This "lateral movement" modus operandi proves to be effective most of the time because many organizations do not isolate different segments of the network from one another. Moving from segment to segment is usually a breeze once hackers get into the network.A few trends will make such attacks from within the organization more common in the coming years:1. The increasing adoption of employee-owned mobile devices in enterprise environments. These are often poorly secured and provide a weak point of entry into the organization for hackers. 2. The exponential growth of IoT devices. Early and even current versions of these devices are not designed with security in mind, and are very tedious if not impossible to secure properly. 3. Advancement in hacking techniques.Battling the Enemy WithinBy Michael Xie, Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer, FortinetFortinet is a global leader and innovator in Network Security. With constant innovation of its custom ASICs, hardware systems, network software, management capabilities and security research, Fortinet continues to set the pace in the Network Security market.IN MY OPINION
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