Page 26 - Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

Cybersecurity Strategies That Protect Business

Operations Now and Tomorrow

Planning for the future means moving secure remote access toward the top of your list

By Leo Taddeo,Chief Information Security Officer, Cyxtera Technologies and President, Cyxtera
Federal Group

In terms of a global cyber conflict, data centers are the modern-day equivalent to the ball bearing plants
of WWII. Just as ball bearings were essential to the tools of mechanized warfare, data centers are key
components of the infrastructure that supports the modern economy. The effects of a successful
cyberattack on a few data centers would cascade across other critical sectors to cripple the country’s
digital backbone. Protecting data centers from threats to continued and uninterrupted operations must be
a top priority in any national or commercial cybersecurity strategy.

To that end, the main pillar of information security for data centers, and other industrial control systems
(ICS), is effective user access control. For many data center and ICS security plans, user access was
partly secured by requiring the user to be on site. This made sense up until 2020 BC (“Before COVID”),
when few CISOs thought about social distancing for ICS and data center operators. While keeping
unauthorized users out has, and always will be, essential, the pandemic has added a new reason to
focus on secure remote access. Beyond keeping unauthorized users out, effective remote access tools
can keep authorized users apart.

Cyber Defense eMagazine –June 2020 Edition 26
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