What are the keys to building software development security into the early stages of product development? And what are the costs of ignoring security? In this article, xMatters Product Manager Kit Brown-Watts provides his insights on the matter. Every investment decision comes with trade-offs, usually in the form of cost, quality, or speed. The CQS Matrix, as I like to call it, captures the dilemma most product people face.

Every security operations center (SOC) team is different, and for smaller teams, even small challenges can seem big. I started my career in cybersecurity as part of a smaller team, and eventually grew into a SOC role. During that time, I gained a good deal of knowledge about the dos and don’ts of what a small SOC team needs to do in order to be successful.

The United States is the #1 target for cybersecurity attacks in the world. 38% of targeted cybersecurity attacks so far in 2022 were aimed at the United States data and systems. That’s alarming. And we see it in the news almost every day. Solarwinds, Colonial Pipeline, The Pulse Secure VPN zero-day… There’s an increasing number of threats and attacks, to the tune of 15.1% year over year.

Productive, scalable, and cost-effective, cloud infrastructure empowers innovation and faster deliverables. It’s a no-brainer why organizations are migrating to the cloud and containerizing their applications. As businesses scale their cloud infrastructure, they cannot be bottlenecked by security concerns. One way to release these bottlenecks and free up resources is by using automation.

When it comes to cloud adoption, the analogy I always use is that our networks used to be built like castles. We put all our servers and users inside, and we had big walls to protect everything. Today, we’ve shifted large parts of our businesses outside of these walls, and moved them to various cloud and SaaS providers. As a result, we no longer always have the knowledge or expertise to secure and protect them.

Okay, I’ll admit it – I probably get more excited for Cybersecurity Awareness Month than most people. It’s a professional hazard. It has been 18 years since the first Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but this one feelsparticularly important.