source: selecthub.com

Enterprises crave the innovation new technologies bring because they know that when technology evolves, they evolve with it. This especially holds true for enterprise software, which is used by all for varying reasons — maintaining customer databases, managing assets, taking care of orders, dealing with finances, and much much more. And as every new year that has come our way, new software is appearing and, along with it, software trends enterprises everywhere are quick to adopt.

For example, the frequent data breaches we’re seeing in the news as of late are pushing enterprises to increase their cybersecurity with new software updates. Similarly, the big leaps we’re making in the realm of artificial intelligence are paving the road for AI derivatives like machine learning and automation, which function to make the enterprise smarter as a whole.

This is all to say that emerging challenges and advancing software are prompting enterprises to exchange the old with the new and follow the new enterprise software trends 2018 will bring. Let’s take a look at some such trends.

Enterprise Software Trends 2018 Will Bring

Personalization is becoming more and more important in enterprises because of all the advantages it offers. For example, employees can receive more relevant and tailored information, saving them time as they avoid parsing through irrelevant data they don’t need. Consider a news feed, for instance. Without personalization, there’s no filter separating what’s important to an employee versus what’s not. With personalization, though, they only get what’s relevant; they see exactly what they want to see.

AI is one of the most popular topics today, and not just for enterprises. In terms of enterprises, though, AI software offers many benefits that come in the form of machine learning and automation. Machine learning, for example, helps in the analyzation of big data, making sense of patterns that can help enterprises make smarter decisions to spur revenue.
In fact, 89% of CIOs are either planning to use or using machine learning in their organizations today, and 90% of those who champion machine learning in their organizations today expect improved decision support that drives greater topline revenue growth. Automation, which is made possible with machine learning, is quickly being adopted by enterprises because it saves them time and money. For instance, when repetitive tasks are automated, employees can devote more time to other pursuits, increasing their productivity.

source: hubspot.com

It’s predicted that the global cost of cybercrime will climb to $2 trillion by 2019, almost 4 times the cost in 2015. In 2018, enterprises will use AI to improve cybersecurity. Why? Because machine learning can ‘learn’ from past events. As such, it can help enterprises identify cybersecurity threats. Exemplifying this, 95% of IT security professionals say machine learning is a crucial component of a cybersecurity strategy.

Final Thoughts and TL;DR

Another new year means new and updated enterprise software trends. Here’s the Tl;dr version of what we covered today:
● Enterprises are always quick to adopt new technologies because they provide the means to grow, keep up with competition and surpass them
● This holds true for enterprise software, which is always evolving to handle new challenges and prepare enterprises for the future
● Personalization helps employees see only what they want and need to see, saving valuable time that could be spent performing higher-level tasks than sifting through data
● Artificial intelligence is extremely important for enterprise because it offers many advantages, such as machine learning and automation
● Machine learning aids in the analyzation of big data, and further helps enterprises make sense of patterns that can help them make smarter decisions to spur revenue growth
● Automation is made possible with machine learning and helps increase productivity
● AI, especially machine learning, can be used to improve cybersecurity by ‘learning’ from past events, which then works to identify future threats
Best of luck in 2018!

source: http://northrupcorporation.com

It’s forecasted that the global cost of cybercrime will reach $2 trillion by 2019, almost 4 times the estimated cost in 2015, and further, a survey of 540 organizations throughout North America, the UK and Germany found that nearly half had been attacked with ransomware within the past year. Pair this information with the biggest cybersecurity disasters of 2017, such as the 8,761 documents that were allegedly stolen from the CIA, called CIA Vault 7 and which revealed ‘the majority of [the CIA] hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans,’ etc., and we have a perfect storm in the form of a cyber threat.
Even worse, everyone’s a target — from the smallest SMB to the biggest enterprise — and we’re seeing more and more brazen attacks (see the leaks and hacks we’ve seen in the news, such as the HBO extortion attempt). Worse still, you can have a whole nation-state, a criminal organization, or a lone hacker targeting you.
The problem we’re facing with enterprise cybersecurity is that the problem can’t be attached to one specific case; it’s a multi-faceted issue that includes complex IT environments with older legacy systems paired with modern applications, cloud computing that reduces infrastructure costs while throwing its own complexities into the mix, human error and a lot more.
And now we reach the crux of the matter: improving your enterprise’s cybersecurity.

Improve Enterprise Cybersecurity

Being part of an enterprise that’s comprised of many individuals, one of the first and most important things you should do is educate your employees on proper ‘cyber hygiene,’ which includes adapting secure email habits, keeping an eye out for insiders and human error, and using all the tools/information at your disposal that aim to reduce the odds of a cyber threat.

As anyone with a corporate account that receives dozens or hundreds of emails every day can attest, spam and phishing attempts run rampant. Even though spam filters catch the majority potentially harmful emails, it’s still important to uphold alternate safeguards that act as a secondary line of defense. For example, viewing emails in plain text removes malicious links and embedded viruses that may be hidden ‘between the lines.’ Additionally, a good idea is to use multiple email accounts for differing purposes — you can use a primary email for internal communication within the organization and a secondary one for subscriptions and similar things that are wont to attract fishy emails.

source: http://www.securelaptop.org

There are many guides you can use to reduce the possibility of a cyber threat. One such guide, the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, was actually developed in response to President Barack Obama’s Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. Primarily developed by NIST with private sector input, the framework outlines an action plan for organizations to better manage and reduce cybersecurity risks, and also seeks to foster risk and cybersecurity management communication. More specifically:

“The Framework will help an organization to better understand, manage, and reduce its cybersecurity risks. It will assist in determining which activities are most important to assure critical operations and service delivery. In turn, that will help to prioritize investments and maximize the impact of each dollar spent on cybersecurity. By providing a common language to address cybersecurity risk management, it is especially helpful in communicating inside and outside the organization. That includes improving communications, awareness, and understanding between and among IT, planning, and operating units, as well as senior executives of organizations. Organizations also can readily use the Framework to communicate current or desired cybersecurity posture between a buyer or supplier.”
Keep in mind that the framework is a guide, so you should customize it for your specific industry and organization.

One final point we’ll touch on today involves people — whether those with malicious intent or those prone to mistakes. On the former, insiders can be employees seeking financial gain through data manipulation or disgruntled employees with an axe to grind. On the latter, accidents happen. An employee may accidentally open the wrong email, divulge the wrong information, and may perform many similar actions in which the cyber threat was completely unintended.

source: https://securityintelligence.com

To counter this, make sure to increase cybersecurity awareness, develop strategies for specific instances, test said strategies, and educate all employees on enterprise cybersecurity, including password management and what they share on social media.

Final Thoughts

With cloud computing, the rapid rise of the smartphone, and other technological advents, guarding company data has never been harder or more important. As such, make sure to keep backups of critical data — just make sure that the backup itself doesn’t have any malware — keep an eye on privileged accounts that are frequently targeted, set-up multi-factor authentication processes, and keep in mind everything we covered today.