Frost & Sullivan: Big data is key to preventing cyber breaches

Frost - Sullivan is hailing big data as critical to the inner workings of functional cybersecurity solutions – particularly because of its ability to predict future breaches.

The analyst firm says that big data, machine learning and blockchain will become prominent in the years to come, while other developments such as the internet of things will open up many more vulnerabilities and entry points for cyber attacks.

"Deploying Big Data solutions is essential for companies to expand the scope of cybersecurity solutions beyond detection and mitigation of threats," comments TechVision research analyst Hiten Shah.

"This technology can proactively predict breaches before they happen, as well as uncover patterns from past incidents to support policy decisions."

That provides opportunities for both cybersecurity startups and established firms to take advantage of those trends to develop solutions that can protect businesses from emerging threats.

Frost - Sullivan also notes that there is a common trend of increased funding for cybersecurity, which has allowed more startups to emerge in the expanding markets. Those startups "have leveraged advanced technologies to develop products that have helped enterprises manage their security function better".

"Startups need to make their products integrable with existing products and solutions as well as bundle their solutions with market-leading solutions from well-established companies," Shah continues.

"Such collaborations will lead to mergers and acquisitions, ultimately enabling companies to provide more advanced solutions."

In Frost - Sullivan's Envisioning the Next-Generation Cybersecurity Practices report, it presents an overview of cybersecurity in enterprises and analyses the drivers and challenges to the adoption of best practices in cybersecurity. It also covers the technologies impacting the future of cybersecurity and the main purchase factors.

According to Frost - Sullivan, big data, machine learning, and blockchain provide the greatest opportunities for cybersecurity growth and application.

• Big Data: It enables automated risk management and predictive analytics. Its adoption will be mostly driven by the need to identify usage and behavioural patterns to help security operations spot anomalies.  
• Machine learning: It allows security teams to prioritise corrective actions and automate real-time analysis of multiple variables. Using the vast pools of data collected by companies, machine learning algorithms can zero in on the root cause of the attack and fix detected anomalies in the network.  
• Blockchain: The data stored on blockchain cannot be manipulated or erased by design. The tractability of activities performed on blockchain is integral to establishing a trustworthy network between endpoints. Furthermore, the decentralized nature of blockchain greatly increases the cost of breaching blockchain-based networks, which discourages hackers.