TIL Emerging Technology Series: Perspectives From a TIL Intern

Hi. I am Anna Warnke, a rising sophomore at the University of Georgia, and I’m an intern at the TIL South offices in sunny Florida!. I’m studying Management Information Systems in the Terry College of Business. At TIL,, I am focused on Product Marketing and Business Operations. I’m excited to contribute to TIL’s Emerging Technology Series and I’m happy to share with you my thoughts on security in this post.

Broadly speaking, security, in information technology (IT), is the defense of digital information and IT assets against internal and external, malicious, and accidental threats. Defense can include detection, prevention, and response to threats using security policies, software tools and IT services.

Whether you realize it or not, security manifests itself in everyday life, and is continuously working behind the scenes to keep your information protected. Here’s a quick run-down of the different aspects of security and why they’re important!

Present Landscape of Security

Currently, the security landscape encompasses various technologies that have evolved as the market changes and the demand for increased security grows. Present software and programs exist in harmony with emerging technologies and serve as a basis for the expansion within this industry to best secure new forms of digital information. It is important to acknowledge the present state of the technologies that define the security landscape, as they shape the way we protect and gather personal information.

Virtualized Firewall

A prime example of the current landscape of security is presented in Virtualized Firewalls. A Virtualized Firewall, aka cloud firewall, is a network security solution designed specifically for environments in which deploying hardware firewalls is difficult or impossible. They grant or reject network access to traffic flows between untrusted zones and trusted zones. This form of security, as opposed to physical firewalls, has grown in popularity because it’s more cost-effective, and its efficiency in uniquely protecting digital information in a virtualized environment. These appliances can be centrally regulated, whereas physical firewalls often require IT and network staff to install, administer, and support on location. Something unique is its ability to secure the physical data center by extending it to the cloud and securing the connectivity between the cloud and an organization’s local infrastructure.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a form of security that protects digital financial information and maintains an architecture that allows diverse users to make transactions and then creates an unchangeable, secure record of those transactions. Think of it as a digital ledger where transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly. This concept is increasingly used to digitize varying assets, like cars, real estate, or even artwork! Blockchain is not limited to a particular industry. It is currently used in payments, remittances, record keeping, retail, and entertainment to name a few!

Biometrics Access

Another example of the current technology of security is biometric access. To put it plainly, it’s a pattern recognition that gathers a specific type of biometric data from a person, focuses on a relevant feature of the data, compares that feature to a present group of attributes in its database, and then performs an action based on the accuracy of the comparison. The iPhone is a great example of how this works. In the newer iPhone models, facial recognition is an example of biometric access, allowing a user to present their face to unlock their iPhone. Other ways biometric access is used includes home access control, mobile phone access, vehicle access authentication, and Single Sign On (SSO), which is used for business or organizational verification. There are a lot of uses for sure!

Near Future of Security

Ok, now let’s jump to the future, or rather, the near future. In the near future of security, or 2–5 years according to the 10-year roadmap, technology, and security work in unison to continue to protect the digital landscape from breaches as technology advances. This landscape is important to understand, as its technology is the next to hit the market and begin to become more prevalent in security measures.

Threat Intel Platforms (TIP)

Threat Intelligence Platform is an emerging technology discipline that helps organizations aggregate, correlate, and analyze threat data from multiple sources in real time to support defensive actions. This security practice has evolved to address growing amounts of data generated by a variety of internal and external resources. TIP is utilized both commercially and in government organizations to properly evaluate bits of data and protect from potential threats.

Firewall as a Services (FaaS)

Firewall as a Service refers to a cloud firewall that delivers advanced Layer 7/next-generation firewall (NGFW) capabilities, including but not limited to access controls, URL filtering, advanced threat prevention, Intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and DNS security. FaaS allows users to execute code in response to events without the complex infrastructure typically associated with building and launching microservice applications.

FaaS has grown in popularity through the COVID-19 pandemic as work-from-home practices and cloud adoption are increasing. According to 2021 Forbes article “Three Trends That Could Drive Firewall as a Service Adoption in 2021,” in 2021, “the most important FaaS capabilities for customers to implement will be software-defined perimeter architecture, user and device-central network policy rules, and a more secure internet (secure gateways and CASB)” (Bareket 2021). Not only this, but it is projected that the FaaS market worldwide is projected to grow by $2.3 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 23.8%, as its implementation expands and the need for secure cloud protection grows.

Future of Security

Why should we care about the future of security? With the near future of security in the rearview, we approach the much-anticipated future of these technologies as the industry matures and more cloud-based data is utilized. The future of security is important because the need for security continues to grow, and the landscape adapts along the way, as technology gets smarter, so do the programs that secure them.

Static Security Testing

An example of this evolution of security we foresee in the future, is Static Application Security Testing (SAST). This is a type of security that relies on inspecting the source code of an application. As a developer is writing code, SAST can analyze it in real-time to inform the user of any rule violations, so a developer can immediately deal with issues and deliver higher quality applications. Rather than a post-developed code analysis, SAST gets to work immediately to deal with flaws in code before anything is finalized.

SAST scans an organization’s in-house code and design to detect flaws that are indicative of weaknesses that could lead to security vulnerabilities. Rather than wait for the possibility of a security breach to occur, SAST works steps ahead to ensure that the code is perfected and no longer vulnerable to foreseeable vulnerabilities to occur. Because SAST tools scan static code, it can be applied in multiple types of software applications and coding languages.

Some of these coding languages include those like C as C++ for embedded systems, as well as languages like C#, VB.NET, Java and others used for back office, web applications, and more. The advantages of SAST are continually growing, as SAST shifts security left, thus helping integrate security into the early stages of the software development life cycle, while evaluating the client-side and server-side vulnerabilities.

To sum it all up

Overall, as technology advances, the systems that protect digital information continually adapt to best secure our data. Security is an integral part of the success of technology and is relied upon to allow data to be transferred and collected securely. As a young businesswoman, I understand the importance of security and its relevance in emerging technologies. Security is the very aspect of technology that ensures that mistakes are avoided and breaches to personal information do not occur. The internet is a vast space, and without proper security measures that can compete with the world malware and security breaches, technology would not be nearly as advanced as it is today. Though today’s security technology is top tier, there is endless room for improvements that make our digital information that much safer. Security is not as complex as it may seem, yet one of the most significant features of upcoming technologies.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to our YouTube channel and our blog for informative tech content from TIL!

-Anna

References:

“3 Static Application Security Testing Advantages (SAST) You Should Know.” Cypress Data Defense RSS, cypressdatadefense.com/blog/sast-advantage/.

Bareket, Amit. “Council Post: Three Trends That Could Drive Firewall As A Service Adoption In 2021.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 29 Apr. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/04/29/three-trends-that-could-drive-firewall-as-a-service-adoption-in-2021/?sh=288cb4ba2463.

read, 2min. “What Is a Virtual Firewall?” Palo Alto Networks, www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-a-virtual-firewall.

“What Is Virtual Firewall?: How Virtual Firewall Works?” Hacker Combat LLC, hackercombat.com/what-is-virtual-firewall-how-it-works/.

“Yuchen (Neo) Huang.” Neo Huang’s Website, neohuang.us/physcial firewall vs virtualized firewall