Software security vulnerabilities continue to increase year-on-year, and in 2023 over 26 000 vulnerabilities were disclosed. Yet, with digitalisation we tend to use more and more software products, in more and more areas of our lives. But when you have sensitive or even critical information to protect, you need to think about what security products you use to protect this information. To meet high standards for protection, you should use a hardware solution instead of software. This blog post tells you why!
Software vulnerabilities continue to increase
A security vulnerability is defined as an exploitable glitch, weakness, or flaw found in a product or service. The flaw opens the door to a potential attack that could compromise a product’s integrity or functionality and other impacts might include a breach of confidentiality.
A total of 26,447 security vulnerabilities were disclosed in 2023, surpassing the previous year by over 1500 CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures). So, what do you need to do? Well, sufficient information security can protect you from many of these vulnerabilities. There are plenty of examples just during the past years where companies have been struck by attacks that have caused large costs. An attack can become very expensive, for example you can lose money due to:
- Downtime affecting your operations
- Lost revenue
- Restoring and cleaning up systems
- Lost trust/goodwill
So, protecting yourself against this is more than important. It is vital.
Many might think “We have our firewall, what else can we do?”. But, if you have information or systems that are crucial to your organisation, perhaps your whole operation depends on it, you may find it appropriate to mitigate your risks and invest in a high security solution. Many networks require extra protection against manipulation and data leakage as they contain classified or sensitive information. If these networks/systems are exposed to an attack, a firewall will probably not protect you from having to spend a lot to recover.
We use more and more software products
As the world continues to change at an ever-increasing pace, software development has been and will be a critical driver of digital transformation. Software is used in more and more products and services to expand functionality and update existing infrastructures. Today, we have integrated software into many traditional hardware products, like thermostats, ovens, lights, garage doors, cars and so on. This means that we become more and more dependent on different software products. Without some of these software products, our modern society does not function in the way we have learned to think about as the “normal” way of working.
So even if we know that there are risks connected to using software, we keep on using more and more software products. This implies that we need to have a look at how we protect the information that is in the software systems. This is important since a lack of information security has consequences that are too high to be neglected.
Consequences can be that it is not possible to conduct the business in an appropriate and efficient manner, that there is a lack of protection of personal integrity or disruptions in socially important activities.
Deficiencies in information systems can also affect physical assets. Damage to critical infrastructure can have fatal consequences. Incidents that lead to the inability or destruction of such systems and assets can lead to serious crises affecting financial systems, public health, national security, or combinations thereof.
It can also lead to a deterioration in confidence in services and underlying actors. Serious and repeated disruptions can lead to crises of confidence, which can also spread to more actors and services as well as to other sectors.
High assurance security products needed when the information is critical
The defence industry, public authorities and many operations in critical infrastructure have critical information that needs to be protected from falling into the wrong hands and/or be manipulated. This information resides in secure and in some cases even secret networks – networks that all have strong security requirements.
To fulfil these strong security requirements, you need to focus on assurance rather than security. The reason is that it is difficult to measure security. High assurance ensures confidence in the security features and that is why products with high assurance are required when security requirements are high.
To be able to produce products with high assurance, you need to control every step from design to aftermarket. You need to consider the risks in the manufacturing of the security product, and you need to have reliable and security conscious personnel. In addition, the assurance needs to be maintained after a security product has been distributed. You need to continuously monitor the outside world and inform your customers if the security, or the assurance, is affected in the delivered solutions if weaknesses are found or when trust in some technology is changed. If you do all this, you can with high assurance vouch for and demonstrate that your solutions are secure.
Do you think that you need to improve your security? Download our guide that shows when you need our high assurance solutions!
Data diode – always secure
Data diodes are one-way information transfer devices that connect two networks of the same or different security levels. The data diodes have an optical hardware separation to guarantee a unidirectional separation between the two networks. This means that the core of the product is based on physical separation and is therefore always secure without updates.
Data diodes not only prevent intrusion and maintain network integrity, but just as effectively prevent leakage and maintain network confidentiality. This high assurance solution safeguards assets for operators within ICS/SCADA or the defence industry.
Read more about data diodes and what you can use data diodes for!
If you want some more help with how you can protect your sensitive information, you are welcome to contact us!
