Cybersecurity, Confidential Computing, and What’s Ahead

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast I was joined by my partner and fellow Futurum analyst, Daniel Newman, for a conversation about cybersecurity. Security breaches are frequent, inevitable, can have a big impact on customer trust, can also impact corporate profitability, and quite often can cost a CISO or CIO his or her job. From the Microsoft Exchange Server attack this past week, to the SolarWinds attack of the last few months – both at the hands of state sponsored actors, one suspected to be of Russian origin and the other Chinese, to well-known cybersecurity breaches like Equifax, Target, Capital One, JP Morgan Chase, Marriott, what we’re seeing in the industry is a massive difference in risk between organizations that take effective cybersecurity precautions versus organizations that don’t. With the financial impact of a data breach in 2020 averaging about $3.86 million, not taking into consideration what is often millions of dollars in fines, cybersecurity and the inevitability of a hack is something that needs to be addressed at the highest levels in the organization. Cybersecurity must be a board-level concern and resonate on down through every level of the organization, from the CEO and CIO/CISO and beyond. Cybersecurity must be a foundational part of business strategy and more training and more processes isn’t always the answer — technology will likely play a big role here as well in the months and years ahead. In our conversation we touched on what we do with data and the problems with the status quo. Think about it for a moment. When it comes to data, we: Decrypt it to use it What happens when the administrators or our data repositories leave? When the data relies on the public cloud, how do we ensure the container or the virtual machine operators are operating in a trusted way? Are process and certification and compliance standards enough? We don’t think so. Yet, anyway. This is the first of several conversations we’ll have on this topic as we are also working on a research brief on the topic of Confidential Computing, which is all about how to manage and more accurately and safely secure data that is in use, and protecting data in use by performing computation in a hard-ware based Trusted Execution Environment. Confidential Computing is in the nascent stages, but we’re certain we’ll all be talking much more about this in the months to come.

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Futurum Tech Webcast Leading tech analysts from The Futurum Group share weekly deep dives on the latest tech news, new products and services, mergers, earnings, regulations, and more. The Futurum Tech Webcast will keep you current on what’s happening in the tech space — from startups to industry leaders, emerging tech, and what’s ahead for industries across the globe, along with interviews with tech industry leaders and experts. Subscribe now and stay connected to this exciting journey into the world of technology and the future of work. For more information, visit https://www.futurumgroup.com As a reminder, the Futurum Tech Webcast is intended as an informational webcast/podcast only. While publicly traded companies and equities are frequently discussed, the analysts on this show are not in any way offering financial or investment advice.