Top 13 Things That Go Bump in the Night - An Engineer's Perspective

It's Halloween, and while goblins and ghouls may haunt the shadows, the digital realm has its own share of spooky challenges. Our seasoned engineers at Rearc are here to share their insights for navigating your next digital transformation project. With experience working alongside the top Fortune 100 FinServ companies and clients in highly regulated industries, we've gathered a wealth of knowledge to help you avoid the nightmares that can arise.

What's on the table? We're diving into how to transform your cloud, data, or GenAI project from a concept to a thriving reality. We'll explore common pitfalls to dodge, best practices to embrace, and critical considerations to keep in mind before embarking on your next endeavor. After all, what keeps our customers up at night is often the unseen horrors lurking in the depths of technology!

1. Advanced AI-driven attacks and eerie, cunning social engineering tactics lurk in the shadows, slipping through standard defenses like phantoms—threats so sophisticated, they're almost invisible until it's too late. Combat these stealthy threats with AI-driven detections, proactive monitoring, and regular staff training to spot even the most elusive intrusions.
2. Emerging threats and evolving attack techniques are the shapeshifting monsters of cybersecurity. Whether it's new ransomware, zero-day vulnerabilities, or advanced persistent threats (APTs), attackers are constantly adapting to slip past defenses, leaving businesses scrambling to combat an ever-growing web of invisible dangers. 
3. Did you know that hackers are far more likely to get access to your secure data by going through your trash than by going through your code? Many breaches happen as a result of simple goofs like security credentials being written down, losing track of critical documents, and not having proper phishing filters. Always make sure to keep close track of your credentials, even when you are away from your devices!
4. Insider threats – more and more often, “the call is coming from inside the house” and security breaches are occurring from trusted insiders. Building robust automation generally means you don't have to give cloud credentials to individual contributors, and can significantly reduce your risk of malicious insider attacks.
5. Secure software supply chains - Without a secured build and delivery pipeline for your software, you expose yourself to unmitigated vulnerabilities in your dependencies, open yourself up to supply chain attacks, and don't have a clear audit trail in the event of a security incident. Pursue implementing SBOM (Software Bill Of Materials), code signing, and other supply chain security tools to help mitigate against these risks.
6. Leaked cloud credentials – they are the number one reason for account compromise. Don't use them when you don't need to…and when you do need to, make sure that you're practicing least privilege and only giving them the permissions that are required.
7. Ransomware is the lurking digital phantom that slips past defenses, locking up systems and holding data hostage with a double-edged curse: pay the ransom, or watch sensitive information spill into the public eye—a nightmare that haunts businesses long after it strikes. Make sure you are on top of security best practices and have plenty of backups to prevent a nightmare!
8. Much of the time our security focus is trained on the perimeter, and for good reason, most of the monsters lurk outside our walls, however without additional focus internally threats that do breach those walls and make it through the moat can linger indefinitely, making a haunted house of a perceived happy home. Implementing internal threat detection and mitigation systems, east/west as well as north/south, will add an additional and increasingly necessary level of security to your environment.
9. How are you conjuring a way to track the spooky costs lurking behind the infrastructure? Start tagging your resources to attribute costs to groups, or risk awakening the financial nightmare that lies in the shadows.
10. Frightened by the thought of being locked out of your data platform due to a misconfigured or broken SSO? Don't let this nightmare become your reality! Safeguard your access by creating emergency break-glass accounts—your lifeline when the shadows of misconfiguration loom.
11. Privileged Access Management (PAM) has been out of the shadows for years now, however it's no more visible than an apparition in many organizations. Whether you leverage embedded tools, such as those available within Microsoft Active Directory, or alternate 3rd party installations - CyberArk, Okta, etc.- bringing PAM into the light as a mainstream practice can shore up security holes which might otherwise require multiple additional security frameworks to address.
12. Are we compliant with all the data privacy laws? New ones seem to pop up in many new jurisdictions and we are a global company that operates around the world in 30 countries.
13. If any of the frights above are keeping you up at night, the door at Rearc is a safe place to knock. The porch light is always on and no tricks here. Share your thoughts and let us know what you've experienced.

Happy Halloween! Wishing you all treats and no tricks!

And, if you or your colleagues are heading to AWS re:Invent 2024 from December 2-6, be sure to check out the Rearc team onsite! Join us for our pre-conference VIP customer and partner happy hour to kick off your week in Vegas.

Photo by Neven Krčmarek on Unsplash