The Future of Cloud Security and How To Get Ahead ☁️🛡️
A recap of last week's Tech Thursday helps navigate the future of cloud security, and how to seamlessly integrate security into company values.
This past week’s Tech Thursday session, “The Future of Cloud Security,” co-hosted by Wiz, brought together security leaders from Clio, Neo Financial, and Wiz to unpack what’s really changing in cloud infrastructure, and how security teams can keep up.
The panel featured:
Gavin Miller (Director of Application Security at Clio)
Joseph Johansson (Sr. Solutions Engineer at Wiz)
Stefan Doan (Chief Information Officer at Neo Financial)
Moderated by: Kim Menier (Account Executive at Wiz)
Missed last week? Check out our recap video here and be sure to follow us on Instagram for updates on everything Tech Thursday.
TL;DR
Security must enable innovation, not slow it: Companies are at their best when security and growth work together, not as opposing forces.
Scaling requires security updates: The security that works initially will not continue to work as growth occurs.
AI is our greatest opportunity; and biggest threat: Security can be extremely powerful utilizing AI, but the threats are equally strong.
This recap is brought to you by Wiz: protect everything you build and run in the cloud.
3 Focuses For The Next Phase of Cloud Security:
1. Security Must Enable Innovation, Not Block It
A common theme of the panel was the balancing act between security and innovation, and security that limits development speed can be viewed as a liability, especially with companies that are scaling as rapidly as Clio and Neo.
Why this is important: If teams are forced to choose between speed and security, the vastly competitive nature of tech would likely see a lean towards speed, exposing companies to avoidable security threats. Meeting developers where they’re at and automating processes are key to this balance, and the standard moving forward.
Key Takeaway: Integrating security into the development and scaling process is the only way to ensure rapid growth as well as threat prevention.
2. Growth Requires Careful Re-Thinking Of Security
As companies scale, whether through growth, funding or acquisition, their cloud environments and attack surfaces grow rapidly, and can outpace the capacity of current security teams. This rate of rapid scaling requires a thought out adjustment to ensure security teams are able to handle the level of growth.
Why this is important: It is vital that security is considered, especially with the rate of rapid growth that’s often seen in tech. Being able to integrate security with growth ensures that the expanded attack surface is less of a weak point, and the company is able to scale with reduced fragility.
Key Takeaway: Your initial security will not be as secure once growth begins, requiring carefully executed security protocols that can scale with the business.
3. AI Is Extremely Powerful, Both For Security & Threats
The panel made it clear that AI is fundamentally changing the security landscape for security advancements and potential risks. The emergence of AI has rapidly grown the level of vulnerability companies face, though there is an equal opportunity to utilize AI as a defense mechanism.
Why this is important: AI has allowed for never before seen speed and scale from smaller teams, which, while extremely beneficial for growth, also increase the level of security threats. Being able to be aware of these potential threats, and utilize the vast power of AI for security purposes, in addition to growth, is a key to moving forward in the tech landscape.
Key Takeaway: AI dramatically increases the pace of both innovation and threat exposure, and will be one of the most important pieces to monitor in the future of cloud security.
Hot Take:
Taking Time to Carefully Think Out Security Strategy Increases Scale
As mentioned by our panel, the clash of innovation and security was a consistent friction point. That being said, by having a carefully thought out security strategy and avoiding threats, innovation improves in the long-term.
How does that make sense? By carefully thinking about security earlier on, companies can avoid the potential risks down the road; taking time initially will have less of an impact on innovation and speed as opposed to missing a key vulnerability and dealing with the repercussions later on.
Parting Thoughts:
“This is the worst [AI Optimization] will ever be. It is only going to get better.” - Gavin Miller
Don’t Miss the Last Tech Thursday until August!
June 26 (Tonight!): ‘Tips and Tricks for Successful SR&ED Claim Applications’, co-hosted by Boast and RBCx
Including:
Aly Khan Musani – CFO & COO at Symend
Dawson Drolet – Director of Business Development at Boast.AI
Rehan Ahmad – Director of Banking at RBCx
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