As cyber threats continue to grow in sophistication and scale, Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2024 arrives with a fitting and urgent theme: "Secure Our World." The annual event, aimed at educating the public and organizations about the importance of cyber hygiene and defense strategies, is particularly timely this year. Global organizations are grappling with a surge in unique and targeted cyberattacks, making the need for a solid cybersecurity posture not just a precaution, but a necessity.
Christine Gadsby, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at BlackBerry Cybersecurity, has become a leading voice in the field. She emphasizes that security teams must find ways to defend their systems without overhauling entire infrastructures, especially in light of the rising number of threats targeting endpoints—ranging from servers to mobile devices.
"As we celebrate this year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month theme, 'Secure Our World,' it’s essential to emphasize the importance of securing every endpoint in our digital landscape," Gadsby explains. "This is becoming increasingly difficult, but incredibly vital as cyberattacks continue to grow in strength and severity."
One of the most alarming trends is the 53% increase in new malware between the first and second quarters of 2024. Gadsby notes that this spike is indicative of a troubling shift: threat actors are becoming more calculated and precise, making their attacks harder to detect. For companies, the challenge is no longer just about deploying firewalls or antivirus software—it’s about constant vigilance and smart resource allocation.
“Efficiently monitoring endpoints, providing training to security teams, and ensuring organizations have the volume of staff on hand to manage a cyber incident is imperative,” she adds. Security teams must be equipped to not only detect anomalies but also quickly neutralize them to mitigate damage. This demands solutions that allow organizations to see their entire attack surface from a unified dashboard—one that integrates networks, cloud environments, endpoints, and applications.
Gadsby stresses that cyber resilience isn't just about knowing where attacks might come from, but about having the infrastructure in place to respond quickly. "As a CISO, I have to know that my team can see data from every aspect of our tech stack as the attack surface is forever expanding," she says. "Even more critical is knowing that once an anomaly is detected, it can also be neutralized."
With organizations juggling numerous tools and platforms, the complexity of today’s cyber landscape can be overwhelming. But it’s clear that looking for a simplified, centralized approach is key to success. "The more they can zoom out and look at their attack surface through a single plane, with everything in one place, the better off they will be," Gadsby notes.
The push to "Secure Our World" isn't just about reacting to threats—it's about being proactive. For organizations, this means training staff, fortifying endpoints, and leveraging cybersecurity solutions that make sense within their existing infrastructure. Overhauls aren’t necessary, but adaptability is.
As cybercriminals grow more emboldened and attacks increase in complexity, Cybersecurity Awareness Month serves as a reminder: in today’s digital age, every endpoint matters, and the ability to detect and neutralize threats swiftly could be the difference between resilience and disaster.
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