Radio interview on KXL-FM (Portland)

Large-scale cyber attacks will continue to pose a substantial risk to companies, individuals and economies in 2022. Several factors contribute to this trend, and unfortunately, policies and technical responses have yet to reduce the frequency and impact of cyber attacks.

Cybersecurity has always been a critical task that must be handled effectively. However, cloud—and more recently—COVID 19—have exacerbated cybersecurity issues and changed the security landscape. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guest, Ascent Solutions’ Kayne McGladrey, discuss cybersecurity in the context of cloud, and vis-à-vis the changes wrought by the pandemic. Kayne’s take is that the transition to cloud and the pandemic have exposed and magnified issues that have always been a problem, and that companies should not skimp on cybersecurity, in favor of spending on other “more pressing” projects. The key to success is to focus on data, automation, and risk assessment.

Tune in live to WCCO-AM (Minneapolis, MN) at 10:10 AM Eastern. I’ll be discussing artificial intelligence and cyber security with the host, John Hines.

Another way to thwart cyberattacks is to increase the number of cybersecurity experts, McGladrey says. According to the 2017 cybercrime report from the Herjavec Group, cybersecurity firms estimate such crimes are going to cost about $6 trillion annually by 2021. Companies are experiencing shortages in qualified applicants for cybersecurity jobs. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates there are now about 350,000 unfilled positions, and that number is only going to increase. McGladrey says.

Device location and user behavior can shed a lot more light on a login attempt, yet not all MFA solutions currently incorporate them, says McGladrey. If organizations switched to better access management systems, the cost to successfully infiltrate accounts would rise exponentially, barring “all but the best-funded nation-state actors and APTs.”