Theresa Lanowitz, Head of Cybersecurity Evangelism, AT&T Business, joins Cheddar News to discuss the 2022 AT&T Cybersecurity Insights Report and how business owners can prepare to move their business to the edge, and ensure its security once there.

Opening Bell

Cybersecurity at the Edge

today's edition of creating connections is powered by A T. And T. Business, internet dedicated internet access that allows us to bring you the news. All right, everybody we all know that cyber risk are out there and they are real across industries, businesses are implementing edge computing solutions. While the business expectations for edge use cases are high security practices for the edge are still emerging. So joining us to discuss this more, is Theresa Atlanta would head of cybersecurity evangelism, A T. And T. Business, thank you so much for being here, Teresa, I gotta ask you, you know, uh this edge computing computing, what is it exactly? And who is moving towards the edge? Hi Shannon. Thanks so much for having me today. So at A T and T. What we recently did in our 2020 to A T and T cybersecurity insights report is we interviewed six different industry verticals around the world, health care, retail finance, manufacturing, energy and utilities in U. S. Public sector. And what we wanted to do was find out what they were doing is they were moving to edge computing. And one of the things we found is that the definition of edge was really in flux and the definition that everybody was using for Edge tended to gravitate towards the technology stack that they were using or to the technology stack that they were selling. So rather than one standard definition, what we found is that there's really three characteristics of edge computing. First is a distributed model of management intelligence and networks. Second is that with edge your applications, your workload hosting is closer to where that data is being generated and consumed. So we're moving out of the four walls of that big data center that were also used to. And the third characteristic is that it's software defined whether it's on premise or in the cloud and I think when people think of edge so much they think of oh autonomous vehicles, self driving cars and what we found is that there are big edge use cases that are going on in every industry vertical that we survey. So for example, two of our biggest edge use cases that we found were in retail for loss prevention and in manufacturing for real time video quality inspection as things are rolling off the manufacturing line. We also found financial services, for example, real time fraud detection, concierge services, healthcare medicine, anywhere that all that telemedicine that we've been so used to using throughout the pandemic and so we have all these different, really great edge use cases, 75% of our respondents said that they're moving to the edge despite this idea of a perceived risk. I see why they would want to move over there with so many different protections. But you mentioned the 2020 to a T and T cybersecurity inside report. And according to that, nearly 74% of participants believe that compromise at the edges very likely and will be impactful, but what's the perceived cyber risk at the edge. Yeah. And so that's a really important thing to really understand. So you mentioned that 74% of our survey participants said there's this perceived risk at the edge and every vertical has some type of different perceived risks and these are perceived risks because this is all very new. Of course, the number one thing is ransomware that people are concerned about. But if you look at manufacturing, for example, they're concerned about securing the endpoints, healthcare organizations, for example, they're concerned about securing the servers, making sure those servers aren't attacked. So each industry vertical has something that they're really concerned about. But the good news here is that yes, organizations said across the board were concerned about some type of perceived risk. And what that also means is that the line of business understands that there is this business impact if there is a cyber attack. And so the good news here is that if you think back where we were 34 or five years ago, the line of business and the security team tended to operate independently and separately from one another. So one of the things that we're seeing is that cybersecurity is now moving from being a technical issue to really being a business enabler. And this is really positive and good news. Well, there are a lot of people out there, they want to protect themselves. So what would you say is the best way to secure and safeguard your assets and your data by the way in the world. Moving towards this edge computing. Yeah. First thing, don't be afraid to ask for help. There are people organizations out there that have done this before and who are helping people along the way? Our research found that 65% of our survey participants said that they are working with a global systems integrator, a consulting organization, a telco, some type of vendor to really help them move to the edge. So don't be afraid to ask for help. And organizations are taking a look at this and saying our network controls and our cybersecurity controls, they're converging. So looking at things such as sassy secure access service, Edge zero trust really bringing that together and leading with that security first mindset to make sure that those silos that we've erected over the past decades are really now being broken down and we're working more cross functionally with security as the center point of what we're doing. You know, there may be some small companies out there, mom and pop shops that may believe that the average average businesses can't get this. But what are some of the ways that average business owners can prepare to move their business to the edge? Yeah, organizations are moving to the edge across the board and some of the things that they can do, as I said, don't be afraid to ask for help. But what they can also do is inside of their organizations really work cross functionally Remove those silos that have been erected over the past 10 15 2030, 50 plus years and we're proud class functionally to understand what your organization is really trying to achieve. So, working together, working as a team, working as one, really making sure that you're leading with that security first mindset and really saying, you know what, we need to protect our digital assets, we really need to be able to act with confidence if some type of cyber event does occur and we also want to be able to drive operational efficiency into the budget that we do have for security. Every type of company out there, from the largest of the large companies to the smallest of the small companies have a budget for cybersecurity, so be able to drive that operational efficiency into that budget and be able to focus on managing that complexity that's out there. Okay, well let's say a company is ready to secure the edge, they're about to just make the transition, what can they do to get ready? Do they have to update systems or, you know, train employees, what do they do? Yeah. One of the best things to do is look at the edges really, something that is new, This is a pivotal change in computing and so what you really want to do is take a look at what you're doing today and figure out where you're going to go in terms of understanding the cost benefit of the cyber security controls that you have in place. Now. Take a look at what you're using now to secure your systems to to secure your data, your applications, your endpoints and so on. And make sure that that that can work as you're moving to the edge. And what we found in our research is that some organizations are saying we're going to continue with things such as firewalls at the network edge intrusion threat detection. We're going to continue with those types of things. And as we move forward, we're going to maybe jettison some of the things that we've been using in the past and we're going to take a look at new types of security protections out there that are going to help me protect my data, those applications, those endpoints that that I'm now working with on the edge and making sure that I'm minimizing my attack surface. All right, thank you so much Theresa Atlanta. What's keeping everybody safe out there? Get ready to get to the edge, everybody. And she is the head of cybersecurity evangelism over A T and T business again, thank you. All right, everybody, just so you know, A T and T business is keeping your business connected with a T and T five G fast, reliable, secure visit a T T dot com slash network services for more information