World's 99% cybersecurity problems could be solved if every organisation follows these five steps: Brad Smith of Microsoft

World is evolving quickly, and so is the threat landscape, which is driven by four fundamental trends. Cyber criminals are getting more aggressive, nation states attacks are getting sophisticated, along with the world, even cyber threats are shifting to the cloud and lastly Artificial Intelligence has to entered into the picture. The scale is so high that Microsoft alone intercepts 4,000 identity attacks every second.  

At the B20 Summit in New Delhi, Brad Smith, President and Vice Chairman, Microsoft said 99% of the world's cybersecurity problems can be solved if every organisation would just do the five things. Smith said, “Organisations should start by implementing multi-factor authentication. Apply zero trust principles meaning secured network assets from an intruder, even if an intruder enters the network. Compartmentalised network resources using standard detection and response in anti-malware, especially device protection. Keep software up to date and protect the data itself.” But for the remaining 1%, everyone has to apply lessons that they are learning and put them to work as well.

Smith further added that there is a need to build the next generation of cybersecurity defence. He explained: “First, it will require new engineering advances. It will require that our entire industry adopt new methods for creating and coding software. This is a discussion that's starting to evolve across the industry. It will require work. But with new engineering advances and in some cases, the recoding of software that exists today, we can take a major leap in better securing the software on which the world relies on prem and perhaps even more so in the cloud.” The second thing he highlighted is to use the power of artificial intelligence.

“Think about what it means to get 65 trillion signals per day going into data centers. Even if we employed all 8 billion people on the planet in service of this effort, we couldn't keep pace with that amount of data. But think about what AI is so good at in part, it is so good at identifying patterns quickly in data.” He said the biggest shortage in the world today when it comes to cybersecurity is the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. And harnessing the power of AI can help make the world cybersecurity professionals more successful.