Customer Infrastructure Trends that Can Make or Break Security

Jon Bove

Enhanced network security requires continuous research and evaluation of cyberthreat trends. That’s why Fortinet conducts regular threat research to share with partners, clients and the broader security community. Understanding the entryways, attack vectors and evasion techniques that cybercriminals are focusing on at any given time allows security teams to make critical changes to controls and stay a step ahead of those who mean them harm.

Our most recent Global Threat Landscape Report for Q3 of 2018 revealed such trends, including the detection of 7,925 unique exploits and 34,148 unique malware variants. In addition, some of the main threat trends we identified include mobile devices remaining a primary focus of cybercriminals, cryptojacking continuing to be prevalent — and increasingly dangerous — and that the persistence of IoT botnets is on the rise.

This latest report also reveals more than just recent threat trends — it offers visibility into infrastructure trends we’re seeing across organizations that are having a serious impact on network security.

Infrastructure Trends in Q3 of 2018

As partners provide guidance to their customers on the strategies and tools to better secure their networks, that guidance should be informed by these most recent findings. Specifically, partners should ensure their customers are adjusting security strategies for success as they act on the following infrastructure trends.

There were three primary infrastructure trends across networks in Q3, revolving around digital transformation as well as security.

• HTTPS and web traffic encryption increased from 55.4 percent in Q3 of 2017 to 72.2 percent in Q3 of 2018
• The average number of IaaS apps in use increased from 26 in Q3 of 2017 to 32 in Q3 of 2018
• The average number of SaaS apps in use increased from 32 in Q3 of 2017 to 38 in Q3 of 2018

All three of these infrastructural elements hit their highest points to date in Q3 of 2018. These three trends and their correlation make sense — cloud utilization has increased because of its lower upfront costs and scalability. As a result, organizations, especially small to midsize businesses, are increasingly moving workloads to the cloud, and relying on encryption to secure communication and data as they move between their various IaaS and SaaS deployments.

In terms of security, these changes represent positive trends for your customers. When implemented properly, cloud adoption can be equally as secure as on-premises data centers, and when working with modern security tools, encryption acts as an additional safeguard to protect data in transit and at rest. However, these trends also present some new security risks.

Potential Security Risks for Customers

For increased encryption and cloud use to enhance network security rather than hinder it, partners must help customers avoid common missteps.

Encryption is often thought of as a fail-safe step toward securing data. However, this is only true if …