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Jan 13

Gartner’s 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

Gartner's 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

Fifteen cybersecurity categories are growing up to three times faster than the overall market, capturing $48.7 billion in new spending by 2029.

That’s nearly half of the $98.4 billion the entire security market will add over the next four years. Cloud Security Posture Management leads the pack at 29.36% CAGR. Cloud Access Security Brokers follow at 24.81%.

Enterprises are fundamentally restructuring their security budgets, and the driver is brutal in its simplicity. Organizations now manage an average of 112 SaaS applications across multiple cloud providers. 82% of misconfigurations are caused by human error, according to Exabeam’s analysis. And Gartner estimates 99% of cloud security failures through 2025 will be the customer’s fault, primarily from these misconfigurations. Manual oversight breaks under this kind of scale. Enterprises are responding by investing in automation that manages what people can’t across hundreds of cloud accounts, thousands of APIs, and millions of attack vectors.

Gartner’s 4Q25 update delivers the clearest signal yet about where enterprise security budgets are heading. The overall information security market grows from $213.5 billion in 2025 to $311.9 billion by 2029 at 10.03% CAGR. These fifteen high-growth categories are expanding at 10.30% to 29.36% CAGR, capturing investment dollars at rates that dwarf legacy security spending patterns.

What makes these categories different

Every high-growth category eliminates manual bottlenecks that break under cloud-native workloads. CSPM scans configurations continuously. CASB provides visibility into unauthorized SaaS usage. ZTNA verifies every connection rather than trusting the network location. With 79% of organizations using multiple cloud providers, according to Spacelift’s research, manual processes create mathematical impossibilities.

These technologies prevent problems rather than clean up after them. CSPM catches misconfigurations before breaches. ZTNA eliminates the attack surface that VPNs create. Tokenization protects data even when systems get compromised. Security teams are finally getting ahead of threats instead of constantly playing catch-up.

And the ROI is quantifiable. IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report shows organizations using AI and automation extensively save $1.9 million per breach and reduce breach lifecycles by 80 days. U.S. breach costs average $10.22 million. These investments pay for themselves with a single prevented incident—a calculation CFOs understand.

Gartner's 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

The 15 categories reshaping enterprise security

1. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) — 29.36% CAGR — $4.68B → $12.76B

CSPM platforms scan infrastructure continuously across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, automatically remediating misconfigurations before they become breaches. The 82% human error rate isn’t going to improve through training. Organizations managing 100+ cloud accounts need automation. CSPM adds $8.09 billion in new spending by 2029, the single largest dollar contribution among high-growth segments.

2. Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) — 24.81% CAGR — $2.30B → $5.58B

Here’s the brutal reality. Enterprises average 112 SaaS applications, but shadow IT accounts for 42% of all applications per JumpCloud’s data. IT stays blind to roughly 78 apps out of an average 187-app environment. The damage? 65% of shadow IT deployments result in data loss, and 52% lead to breaches, according to Mimecast research. CASBs restore visibility and control, growing to $5.58 billion by 2029.

3. Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) — 21.95% CAGR — $2.48B → $5.43B

ZTNA replaces the VPN model with application-specific access controls. Instead of network-level access, it provides application-specific connections verified for every request. Gartner predicts 70% of new remote access deployments will use ZTNA by 2025, up from less than 10% at the end of 2021. And 65% of companies plan to retire VPNs within one year per Cybersecurity Insiders data. This represents a wholesale rethinking of secure access. The perimeter-based model is dying. Good riddance.

4. Threat Intelligence — 21.73% CAGR — $2.58B → $5.69B

Modern threat intelligence platforms fuse telemetry from open-source intelligence, dark-web monitoring, vendor feeds, and internal logs. Machine learning prioritizes indicators based on organizational relevance. IBM data shows organizations integrating threat intelligence reduce detection and escalation costs while cutting incidents by 30%. The market reaches $5.69 billion by 2029 as enterprises shift from passive threat feeds to automated response integration.

5. Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) — 21.53% CAGR — $5.98B → $13.11B

Traditional endpoint security can’t protect containers that spin up and vanish in seconds. Serverless functions executing for milliseconds? Legacy tools weren’t designed for that. CWPP solutions instrument workloads directly at the kernel or hypervisor level, monitoring system calls, file access, and network connections in real-time. The 21.53% CAGR reflects the rapid shift toward microservices and Kubernetes. As workloads migrate into container clusters, protecting them becomes a survival-level priority.

6. Consent and Preference Management — 20.22% CAGR — $0.81B → $1.64B

GDPR fines surpassed €5.88 billion by January 2025, according to DLA Piper’s annual survey. California’s CCPA penalties keep climbing. The California Privacy Protection Agency recently fined Todd Snyder $345,178 for inadequate opt-out and privacy request processes. Manual consent workflows can’t meet regulatory deadlines across jurisdictions. Automated platforms centralize preferences across web, mobile, and API endpoints while providing auditable logs for regulators.

7. Subject Rights Request (SRR) Automation — 14.26% CAGR — $1.24B → $2.01B

When users demand “delete my data,” these platforms automate orchestration across internal systems and third-party vendors. Privacy laws grant individuals rights to access, correct, and delete personal data with strict compliance timelines. SRR automation prevents the penalties that result from manual processing failures at scale, especially as more jurisdictions implement data privacy regulations.

8. Network Detection and Response (NDR) — 13.44% CAGR — $2.15B → $3.37B

NDR platforms establish behavioral baselines using statistical analysis and machine learning. When anomalies appear (unusual lateral movement, data exfiltration attempts, command-and-control traffic), they raise alerts or automatically isolate systems. The mindset shift matters here. Rather than hoping to prevent all attacks, sophisticated organizations invest in rapid detection that minimizes damage when attackers inevitably breach perimeters. Prevention alone isn’t sufficient anymore.

9. Vulnerability Assessment — 13.02% CAGR — $3.48B → $5.60B

Quarterly vulnerability scans are obsolete in CI/CD pipelines deploying multiple times daily. Modern assessment platforms provide continuous scanning integrated with exploit intelligence to prioritize patches based on real-world risk. DevOps teams need vulnerability detection that keeps pace with their deployment cadence. Anything less creates unacceptable exposure windows.

10. Tokenization — 12.68% CAGR — $1.34B → $2.11B

Tokenization replaces sensitive data with non-reversible tokens that can’t be mathematically decoded. The urgency comes from quantum computing advances. NIST finalized post-quantum encryption standards in August 2024, including ML-KEM (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber) and ML-DSA (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium). Attackers already practice “harvest now, decrypt later”—collecting encrypted data today for quantum decryption within five to ten years. Organizations must begin quantum-safe transitions now.

11. Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) — 12.51% CAGR — $17.68B → $28.36B

The largest single category adds $10.68 billion in new spending as ransomware attacks surge. U.S. ransomware attacks increased 149% year-over-year—from 152 incidents in early 2024 to 378 in the same period of 2025, according to Cyble analysis. Next-generation EPP platforms use behavioral analytics and signatureless detection to stop ransomware before encryption begins, catching what traditional antivirus misses.

12. Secure Web Gateway (SWG) — 11.63% CAGR — $4.44B → $6.74B

Malicious sites appear and disappear in hours. Cloud-delivered SWGs update threat intelligence in real-time, protecting remote and hybrid workforces wherever they connect. Integration with ZTNA creates comprehensive security that follows users across devices and locations without relying on network perimeters that no longer exist.

13. Web Application Firewalls (WAF) — 10.92% CAGR — $2.48B → $3.74B

Organizations expose hundreds of APIs and microservices—each a potential attack vector. Traditional network firewalls can’t inspect application-layer attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or API abuse. Modern WAFs use machine learning to differentiate legitimate user behavior from attack traffic without blocking customers. Getting that balance right is harder than it sounds.

14. Encryption — 10.64% CAGR — $1.35B → $1.98B

NIST’s standardization of quantum-resistant algorithms signals the urgency that organizations can no longer ignore. With quantum computing advances accelerating, encrypted data collected today faces decryption within a decade. Enterprises must transition to post-quantum cryptography now because full integration across complex environments takes years. This isn’t theoretical risk anymore.

15. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) — 10.30% CAGR — $7.60B → $11.15B

AI transforms SIEM from reactive log collection to proactive threat hunting. The latest platforms embed unsupervised machine learning to detect zero-day attacks and automatically enrich alerts with context. Organizations using AI-powered automation save $1.9 million per breach and cut incident lifecycles by 80 days—turning security operations into a competitive advantage rather than a cost center.

Why this matters

Cloud complexity has proven exponential. With 79% of organizations using multiple cloud providers and managing hundreds of accounts, manual security processes break under the load. The 29.36% CAGR for CSPM isn’t market optimism. It’s organizational survival.

Shadow AI joins shadow IT as a core threatscape element. Shadow AI breaches cost $4.63 million—$670,000 more than standard incidents, according to IBM data. But AI also powers the best defenses, with automated security tools reducing breach lifecycles by 80 days. The same technology that creates vulnerabilities offers the most effective countermeasures.

Compliance costs keep accelerating. Between GDPR, CCPA, and emerging global regulations, manual compliance processes create escalating liability. Automated platforms turn regulatory requirements into competitive advantages by reducing fine exposure and accelerating data subject request responses.

Bottom Line

The organizations winning this transformation aren’t those with the largest security budgets. They’re the ones investing in the right categories at the right time. These fifteen segments define what modern security architecture looks like and capture nearly half of all new security spending through 2029.

Gartner’s 4Q25 data delivers a clear message. Security spending is shifting to automation-driven, zero-trust, cloud-native architectures. Organizations still relying on legacy approaches aren’t just falling behind. They’re accepting risks the market has already priced as unacceptable.

Source: Gartner Forecast: Information Security, Worldwide, 2023-2029, 4Q25 Update (Document G00843183, published December 18, 2025), showing overall market growth from $213.5B (2025) to $311.9B (2029) at 10.03% CAGR in constant currency.

 

 

Jan 2

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Top 10 fastest-growing segments from Gartner’s latest information security forecast Q4 2024

Top 10 fastest-growing segments from Gartner’s latest information security forecast Q4 2024

Gartner’s latest information security forecast reflects the optimism of most CISOs about their budgets increasing in 2025. Ninety percent of security and risk management leaders, including CISOs, told Forrester they expect a budget increase this year.

According to Gartner’s latest Q4 2024 forecast, end-user spending will surge from $183.7 billion in 2024 to $293.9 billion in 2028, reaching a 12.47% compound annual growth rate.

Information security spending will grow rapidly, driven by increasing investments in areas such as cloud security (25.9% CAGR) and managed security services (15.0% CAGR) as more enterprises face the many challenges of securing hybrid cloud environments.

Key segments, including infrastructure protection and professional services, underscore the urgency nearly all organizations have in securing their critical systems against increasingly lethal AI and generative AI (gen AI) attacks.

Below is a visual representation of the top 10 fastest-growing segments shaping the cybersecurity landscape.

Please click on the graphic below to expand it for easier reading.

Gartner forecast based on latest information security forecast for 4Q, 2024

The 10 fastest-growing information security market segments going into 2025

Infrastructure Protection

With spending projected to grow from $31.3 billion in 2024 to $51.2 billion in 2028 (CAGR: 13.1%), infrastructure protection leads the information security market. Securing infrastructure that will increasingly be used to manage model data, LLMs, and AI apps is one of the core drivers in this segment going into 2025. The latest Gartner forecast reflects the growing demand for infrastructure true protection as more organizations go all in on AI.

Security Professional Services

Spending on professional security services is expected to grow from $27.3 billion in 2024 to $42.3 billion in 2028, attaining a CAGR of 11.6%. These services are critical for implementing zero-trust policies and conducting proactive security assessments.

Managed Security Services

Managed security services spending will rise from $24.1 billion in 2024 to $42.1 billion in 2028, reflecting a CAGR of 15.0%. Outsourcing security to external providers has become essential as companies face a more lethal, AI-dominated threatscape while grappling with talent shortages.

Network Security Equipment

Spending on network security equipment will increase from $21.7 billion in 2024 to $32.8 billion in 2028, attaining a CAGR of 10.9%. This reflects the growing need to secure hybrid and multi-cloud networks as organizations expand their digital perimeters.

Security Consulting Services

Spending on security consulting services will grow from $23.0 billion in 2024 to $32.6 billion in 2028, delivering a CAGR of 9.1%. More organizations are looking outside for in-depth expert advice as they attempt to implement advanced security frameworks. Getting compliance right and ensuring consistency when reporting material events to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) are also drivers of this segment’s forecast.

Identity Access Management (IAM)

IAM spending will rise from $17.7 billion in 2024 to $25.4 billion in 2028, achieving a CAGR of 9.4% according to Gartner forecast. A key subsegment, Privileged Access Management (PAM), is projected to reach $2.9 billion by 2025 as growing regulatory compliance requirements on a global scale are expected to drive adoption.

Cloud Security

Cloud security spending will grow from $9.0 billion in 2024 to $22.6 billion in 2028, achieving a CAGR of 25.9%. As cloud environments become more complex, investments in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) will continue to accelerate growth.

Other Security Software

Spending on niche and innovative security software solutions will grow from $9.0 billion in 2024 to $14.7 billion in 2028, attaining a CAGR of 13.0%. This category includes specialized tools and apps used for combating advanced social engineering and adversarial AI-based attacks.

Data Security and Privacy

Spending on data security and privacy will increase from $6.1 billion in 2024 to $10.3 billion in 2028, reflecting a CAGR of 14.0%. Stringent data protection regulations and growing cyber threats are driving investments in this segment.

Application Security

Application security spending is forecasted to rise from $6.3 billion in 2024 to $10.1 billion in 2028, driving a CAGR of 12.7%. This segment addresses vulnerabilities in software applications, which remain a primary target for attackers.

Conclusion

Organizations are prioritizing agility and the ability to anticipate new threats while doubling down on cloud security. Predicted to grow at a 25.9% CAGR, cloud security is the fastest-growing segment in the forecast.

Spending on new tools to detect emerging threats is projected to jump from $9 billion in 2024 to $14.7 billion in 2028, further indicating that organizations are willing to invest in new technologies to stop emerging threats.

Ultimately, cybersecurity has become a more crucial business decision than ever before. While other organization budgets are being slashed going into 2025, cybersecurity continues to see gains and is increasingly seen as an investment in business resiliency.

Apr 6

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2022 Dominated Again By Tech

LinkedIn

Amazon’s Sunnyvale, CA Campus (source: Istockphoto)

  • Tech leaders are six of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2022.
  • Amazon is the again highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), AT&T (7th), Apple (9th), and Comcast (10th).
  • 19 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Dell, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce, Cisco, and others.
  • LinkedIn identified four key trends in their analysis, with flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees.

These and many other insights are from LinkedIn Top Companies 2022: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S., published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 530,000 jobs open across the U.S, with over 70,000 being remote positions. The LinkedIn analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 35 global markets, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, India, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.

LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2022 spotlights the organizations investing in employee success and career development. LinkedIn’s methodology and internal analysis ranked companies based on seven pillars that display career progression: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background.

The 19 Best Tech Companies To Grow Your Career In 2022

The following are profiles of the top 19 tech companies hiring in the U.S. today with links to available positions accessible via LinkedIn:

Amazon

Amazon is the parent company of Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Twitch, PillPack, and others.

Global headcount: 1,600,000 (with 1,100,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City | Most notable skills: Warehouse Operations, Data Entry, AWS Lambda | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Fulfillment Associate, Warehouse Associate | Largest job functions: Operations, Engineering, Program and Project Management | What you should know: Even as the country’s second-largest private employer, Amazon continues to compete in recruiting and retaining top talent amid a competitive labor market. The company recently announced that it’s doubling its maximum base salary for corporate and tech workers, and it raised average wages for warehouse workers late last year, increasing pay for more than half a million of its employees. But the e-commerce giant is going beyond compensation, too: investing $1.2 billion over the next three years to expand its education and skills training initiatives. Amazon now pays 100% of college tuition for frontline employees as part of its Career Choice program and covers high school diploma programs, GEDs, and English proficiency certifications.

See jobs at Amazon

Alphabet

Alphabet is the parent company of Google, YouTube, Fitbit, Waymo, Verily, and others.

Global headcount: 156,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle | Most notable skills: Video Editing and Production, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), C++ | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, Product Manager | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management | What you should know: It’s been a big year for Alphabet: The company onboarded nearly 6,500 employees last quarter and saw significant growth across Google’s Cloud service and YouTube (whose revenues are now growing at a faster rate than Netflix). For those interested in flexibility, the tech giant has a robust offering. In addition to adopting a hybrid work model, the company told LinkedIn that Alphabet offers four ‘work from anywhere’ weeks per year, sabbaticals for long-term employees, and ‘no meeting’ days. But Alphabet has also worked to maintain a collaborative culture and support career growth while working remotely. Employees can take advantage of resource groups like Women@Google and its Googler-to-Googler training, which lets its workers get first-hand knowledge across different fields from other employees.

See jobs at Alphabet

IBM

IBM is the parent company of Red Hat, SoftLayer Technologies, Truven Health Analytics, and others.

Global headcount: 250,000 | Top U.S. locations: New York City; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Francisco Bay Area | Most special skills: Kubernetes, Openshift, Hybrid Cloud | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Project Manager, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: The perennial IT giant has re-upped its benefits offerings amid the Great Reshuffle, IBM told LinkedIn. The new initiatives are increased paid time off, more promotion and pay reviews, backup dependent care, virtual tutoring, and ‘compassionate leave’ for parents who experience stillbirth or miscarriage. In addition, as the company moves forward with a hybrid working model that allows employees to decide how often they want to be onsite, IBM has also transformed its onboarding process with “a focus on empathy and engagement” to help remote new hires feel more connected.

See jobs at IBM

AT&T

AT&T is the parent company of DIRECTV, WarnerMedia, Cricket Wireless, and others.

Global full-time headcount: 202,600 | Top U.S. locations: Atlanta, Dallas, New York City | Most notable skills: Design Thinking, Customer Experience, Futurism | Most common job titles: Retail Sales Consultant, Client Solutions Executive, Customer Service Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering | What you should know: Just three years after the acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T is changing course. The company agreed to a deal last year that will combine WarnerMedia’s assets with Discovery’s to create a new, separate global entertainment giant. Once the spinoff is completed (likely mid-2022), the telecom company will be focused on its core business — expanding access to broadband internet. For its employees, AT&T offers several advancement opportunities. For example, it invests $2 million annually in ‘AT&T University,’ an internal training program to help its workers upskill, and has partnered with groups like Udacity and Coursera to offer advanced online courses.

See jobs at AT&T

Apple

Apple is the parent company of AuthenTec, NeXT Software, Shazam, and others.

Global headcount: 154,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Austin, Texas; New York City | Most notable skills: Apple Software and Hardware, Technical Learning, iOS | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Specialist, Mac Genius | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: Apple is increasing benefits and pay for retail workers to attract and retain employees at its 270 retail stores across the U.S. — including doubling sick days for both full-time and part-time employees and granting more vacation days. Its retail employees are also eligible for paid parental leave and can access discounted emergency childcare. In addition, after being one of the first companies to tell its corporate employees to work remotely in March 2020, Apple is now asking that they return to the office three days a week.

See jobs at Apple

Comcast

Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, Sky, DreamWorks Animation, and others.

Global headcount: 189,000 (with 130,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: Media Production, Cable Modems, Broadcast Television | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Communications Technician, Salesperson | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology | What you should know: Comcast prioritizes career growth and development among its employees through various benefits — including mentorship programs, department rotations and tuition assistance for continuing education and skills development. As a part of its commitment to wellbeing, it also pays for 78% of its employees’ health care costs. Want an in? Comcast says the #1 skill it looks for in new hires is authenticity. “We believe that by being yourself, you are empowered to do your best work,” the company told LinkedIn.

See jobs at Comcast

Meta

Meta is the parent company of Onavo, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others.

Global headcount: 71,900 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: PHP, Program Management, Social Media Marketing | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Recruiter, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Human Resources

See jobs at Meta

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies is the parent company of Dell EMC, SecureWorks, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 | Top U.S. locations: Austin, Texas; Boston; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Salesforce | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Inside Sales Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering

See jobs at Dell Technologies

 Accenture

Accenture is the parent company of Karmarama, The Monkeys, Fjord, and others.

Global headcount: 674,000 | Top U.S. locations: Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Management Consulting, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) | Most common job titles: Managing Director, Management Consultant, Business Integration Manager | Largest job functions: Information Technology, Business Development, Engineering

See jobs at Accenture

 Verizon

Verizon is the parent company of GTE Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation, and others.

Global headcount: 119,400 (with 105,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Quotas, Wireless Technologies, Solution Selling | Most common job titles: Solutions Specialist, Customer Service Representative, Business Account Manager | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Verizon

 Intel

Intel is the parent company of Mobileye, Data Center Group, and others.

Global headcount: 121,000 (with 55,700 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: JMP, System on a Chip (SoC), Statistical Process Control (SPC) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Process Engineer, System-on-Chip Design Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Operations, Information Technology

See jobs at Intel

Oracle

Oracle is the parent company of MICROS Systems, NetSuite, Peoplesoft, BEA Systems, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 (46,600 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Denver | Most notable skills: Oracle Cloud, NetSuite, OCI | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Business Development Consultant, Application Sales Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Oracle

 Salesforce

Salesforce is the parent company of Slack, Mulesoft, Buddy Media, Tableau, and others.

Global headcount: 74,300 (41,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: Salesforce.com Administration, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Slack | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Solutions Engineer | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Salesforce

Cisco

Cisco is the parent company of Duo Security and others.

Global headcount: 81,800 (38,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Dallas | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Network Engineering | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Account Manager, Program Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at Cisco

Cognizant

Global headcount: 330,600 (34,680 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Agile & Waterfall Methodologies | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Technical Lead | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management

See jobs at Cognizant | See people you may know at Cognizant

Siemens

Siemens is the parent company of Mendix and others.

Global headcount: 303,000 (with 40,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta | Most notable skills: Building Automation, HVAC Controls, Electrical Troubleshooting | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Senior Sales Executive | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Operations

See jobs at Siemens

Juniper Networks

Global headcount: 10,400 (with 4,400 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Junos, Kubernetes, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, System Engineer, Technical Support Engineer  | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Juniper Networks

Viasat

Viasat is the parent company of RigNet and others.

Global headcount: 5,800 | Top U.S. locations: San Diego, Denver, Atlanta | Most notable skills: RF Test, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Satellite Communications (SATCOM) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, System Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Operations

See jobs at Viasat

MathWorks

Global headcount: 5,000 (with 3,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: MATLAB, Simulink, Deep Learning | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Application Support Engineer, Principal Software Engineer | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at MathWorks

 

LinkedIn’s Key Trends Of 2022

  • Flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees. With job seekers and employees in the driver’s seat and able to ask for the work-life balance they need, flexible work has become required to attract and retain top talent. Most companies on this year’s list offer some form of work-from-anywhere flexibility, with more than 70,000 remote jobs open now across the top 50 companies. Many companies also allow employees to set their schedules and work custom “on” hours through asynchronous work. Some, like Amazon (#1), Raytheon Technologies (#21), and General Motors (#44), are encouraging work-life balance with company-wide days off, while others offer unlimited paid vacation and sabbaticals. In addition, many companies are testing out new flexible offerings – employees at Cisco (#30) have adopted a four-day workweek through the company’s Interim Reduced Workweek program, IBM (#6) has set mandatory “off” hours, Cognizant (#33) offers the option to work a compressed week through its WorkFlex program, Realogy (#40) has a no meetings policy on “Focus Fridays,” Publicis Groupe (#41) allows employees the freedom to work from anywhere they like for up to six weeks per year and PwC (#32) allows employees to step away from work for up to six months while paid through its new Leave of Absence program.
  • Top companies offer stability in an unstable world. While many companies across the U.S. have faced challenges and disruptions over the last year, the Top Companies offer stability and upskilling opportunities that employees can count on – from tuition assistance and PTO for professional development to mentorship programs and job shadowing. Many organizations instituted new programs to retain employees. For example, Deloitte (#11) introduced a new Talent Experience Office focused on employee sentiments and preferences to help inform company choices, EY (#22) offers a Pathway to Purpose virtual program to help employees discover and live their personal purpose and vision, and Kimley-Horn (#31) offers job rotations, so employees learn from different roles and departments. Amazon (#1) is investing $1.2 billion to expand its education and skills training initiatives, Walmart (#5) gives field-based associates access to a no-cost college degree through its Live Better U program, and Verizon (#18) offers an apprenticeship program for those facing employment loss due to automation in technology to prepare them for the jobs of the future. PwC (#32) invested $3 billion in a “New World. New Skills” commitment to equip employees with digital training and awarded a “thank you” bonus of one-week extra pay. Bank of America (#8) provided an additional $1 billion in compensation stock awards to employees globally, and Northrop Grumman (#38) enhanced their annual bonus plan in addition to their ongoing stay interviews.
  • Mental health care is going mainstream across hiring and talent management. To keep employees healthy and happy at work, almost all of this year’s honorees now provide services that address mental health and well-being. Companies like Intel (#23), Salesforce (#28), and Juniper Networks (#46) provide dedicated mental health days, with many – including FedEx (#47) and Blackstone (#43) – offering company-paid mental health benefits. In addition, EY (#22) has expanded its no-cost counseling and mental health coaching sessions to 25 per year for employees and family. Deloitte (#11) provides a $1,000 well-being subsidy in addition to individualized psychological health resources. Unitedhealth Group (#13) provides complimentary access to wellness apps offering coaching, talk therapy, and more.
  • Authenticity, compassion, and curiosity are must-have skills. Most of the Top Companies do not require college degrees and instead look for soft skills that can translate across departments and roles. For example, the #1 skill Comcast (#10) seeks in new hires is authenticity, HCA Healthcare (#37) wants new hires to possess compassion, and Dell Technologies (#14) looks for people who thrive in an environment with a diversity of people and ideas. Accenture (#17), Oracle (#27), and Lockheed Martin (#29) value candidates with curiosity and eagerness to learn and grow. Alphabet (#2) looks for problem-solving skills and a growth mindset.

LinkedIn’s Top 50 Companies In The U.S., 2022

  1. Amazon
  2. Alphabet
  3. Wells Fargo
  4. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
  5. Walmart
  6. IBM
  7. AT&T
  8. Bank of America
  9. Apple
  10. Comcast
  11. Deloitte
  12. Meta
  13. UnitedHealth Group
  14. Dell Technologies
  15. CVS Health
  16. The Walt Disney Company
  17. Accenture
  18. Verizon
  19. GE
  20. Boeing
  21. Raytheon Technologies
  22. EY
  23. Intel
  24. Keller Williams
  25. Kaiser Permanente
  26. Target
  27. Oracle
  28. Salesforce
  29. Lockheed Martin
  30. Cisco
  31. Kimley-Horn
  32. PwC
  33. Cognizant
  34. Citi
  35. Citadel
  36. Johnson & Johnson
  37. HCA Healthcare
  38. Northrop Grumman
  39. Siemens
  40. Realogy
  41. Publicis Groupe
  42. Whiting-Turner
  43. Blackstone
  44. General Motors
  45. Capital One
  46. Juniper Networks
  47. FedEx
  48. Ford Motor Company
  49. Viasat
  50. MathWorks

 

Apr 28

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2021 Dominated By Tech

  • Four of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2021 are tech leaders.
  • Amazon is the highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), and Apple (8th).
  • 15 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP.

These and many other insights are from the LinkedIn Top Companies 2021: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S. published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 300,000 jobs available right now. LinkedIn’s analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 20 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Qatar, the UAE, and the U.K. 

LinkedIn is relying on a new methodology for the 2021 Top Companies Report. They’re basing the methodology has seven key pillars, each revealing an important element of career progression: the ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background. LinkedIn provides an in-depth description of how they built their methodology here.

The 10 Best Companies To Grow Your Career In 2021

  1. Amazon – According to LinkedIn, Amazon has built an innovative remote-onboarding system, and it has more than 30,000 openings now. The fastest-growing skills in demand at Amazon include User Experience Design (UED), Digital Illustration, and Interaction Design. LinkedIn’s analysis shows the most in-demand jobs are Health And Safety Specialist, Station Operations Manager, Learning Manager.
  1. Alphabet, Inc – Planning to add at least 10,000 jobs in the U.S. alone and investing $7B in data centers and offices across 19 states, Alphabet grew revenue 47% last year, reaching $13B.  According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand jobs are Digital Specialist, Field Sales Specialist, and Business Systems Analyst.
  1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. – JPMorgan now offers 300 accredited skills and education programs to its workers, and the bank has been boosting wages for thousands of customer-facing roles to $16-$20 an hour. The most in-demand jobs include Market Specialist, Software Engineering Specialist, and Mortgage Underwriter.
  1. AT&T – 2020 was a tough year for AT&T, increasing the urgency the company has to grow its wireless and WarnerMedia businesses. Due to the pandemic, the company had to close hundreds of stores. Fortunately, AT&T was able to help the employees affected by the closures to find new jobs. The most in-demand jobs are Service Analyst, Trading Analyst, and Investment Specialist.
  1. Bank of America – Bank of America rose to the challenges of 2020, quickly redeploying almost 30,000 employees to assist in its role facilitating the government-backed Paycheck Protection Program. The most in-demand jobs are Trading Analyst, Investment Specialist, and Financial Management Analyst.
  1. IBM – More than one-third of IBM’s revenue now comes from work related to cloud computing. The company’s Red Hat unit is a leading contributor to that growth, prizing skills such as Linux, Java, Python, and agile methodologies. IBM also is a leader in hiring autistic people through its Neurodiversity program. Most in-demand jobs include Back End Developer, Enterprise Account Executive, and Technical Writer.
  1. Deloitte –  Deloitte’s key activities span audit, assurance, tax, risk, and financial advisory work, as well as management consulting. It’s aiming to hire 19,000 people in the year ending May 29. Top recruiting priorities currently include cybersecurity, cloud computing, and analytics specialists.
  1. Apple – LinkedIn finds that Apple is committed to building an inclusive culture. Over half of its new hires in the U.S. represent historically underrepresented groups in tech — and the company claims to have achieved pay equity in every country where it operates—looking for an in? Apple has nearly 3,000 open jobs in the U.S. right now, ranging from its “genius” role at its retail stores to executive assistants and software engineers. 
  1. Walmart –  In February, the retail giant promised further raises to over 400,000 of its people and months later announced it would increase the share of its hourly store employees who work full-time to over 66% (up from 53% five years ago). Meanwhile, Walmart continues to think beyond the store as it ventures deeper into the e-commerce realm. Most in-demand jobs include Operational Specialist, Fulfillment Associate, and Replenishment Manager.
  1. EY – The accounting firm spent $450 million on employee training in 2020. And it is planning to hire over 15,000 people in the next year. With that much talent coming in, EY is focused on bringing in workers with diverse backgrounds, focusing on gender identity, race, and ethnicity, disability, LGBT+, and veterans. The most in-demand jobs include Strategy Director, Business Transformation Consultant, and Information Technology Consulting Manager.

Aug 31

1 Comment

Where AIOps Is Delivering Results Today

Where AIOps Is Delivering Results Today

Bottom Line: Capitalizing on AI and machine learning’s inherent strengths to create contextual intelligence in real-time, LogicMonitor’s early warning and failure prevention systems reflect where AIOps is delivering results today.

LogicMonitor’s track record of making solid contributions to their customers’ ability to bring greater accuracy, insight, and precision into monitoring all IT assets is emerging as a de facto industry standard. Recently I was speaking with a startup offering Hosted Managed Services of a variety of manufacturing applications, and the must-have in their services strategy is LogicMonitor LM Intelligence. LogicMonitor’s AIOps platform is powered by LM Intelligence, enabling customers’ businesses to gain early warning into potential trouble spots in IT operations stability and reliability. LogicMonitor does the hard work for you with automated alert thresholds, AI-powered early warning capabilities, customizable escalation chains, workflows, and more.

Engineers who are working at the Hosted Managed Services provider I recently spoke with say LM Intelligence is the best use case of AI and machine learning to provide real-time alerts, contextual insights, discover new patterns in data, and make automation achievable. The following is an example of the LM Intelligence dashboard:

Where AIOps Is Delivering Results Today

How LogicMonitor’s Architecture Supports AIOps

One of the core strengths LogicMonitor continues to build on is integration, which they see as essential to their ability to excel at providing AIOps support for their customers. Their architecture is shown below. By providing real-time integration to public cloud platforms, combined with control over the entire IT infrastructure structure along with over 2,000 integrations from network to cloud, LogicMonitor excels at unifying diverse IT environments into a single, cohesive AIOps-based intelligence system.  The LogicMonitor platform collects cloud data through our cloud collectors. These collectors retrieve metrics such as the cloud provider health and billing information by making API calls to the cloud services. The collector is a Windows Service or background process that is installed in a virtual machine. This collector then pulls metrics from the different devices using a variety of different methods, including SNMP, WMI, perf Mon JMX, APIs, and scripts.

Where AIOps Is Delivering Results Today

Using AIOps To Monitor, Analyze, Automate

LogicMonitor has created an architecture that’s well-suited to support the three dominant dimensions of AIOps, including Monitoring, Analytics (AIOps), and Automating. Their product and services strategies in the past have reflected a strong focus on Monitoring. The logic of prioritizing Monitoring as a product strategy area was to provide the AI and machine learning models with enough data to train on so they could identify anomalies in data patterns faster. Their 2018/2019 major releases in the Monitor area reflect how the unique strength they have of capturing and making use of any IT asset that can deliver a signal is paying off. Key Monitor developers recently include the following:

  • Kubernetes Monitoring
  • Service Insight
  • Topology
  • Remote Sessions
  • Netflow
  • Configuration Monitoring
  • Public Cloud Monitoring
  • Applications Monitoring

LogicMonitor’s core strengths in AIOps are in the Anomaly Detection and Early Warning System areas of their product strategy. Their rapid advances in the Early Warning System development show where AIOps is delivering solid results today. Supporting the Early Warning System, there are Dynamic Thresholds and Root Cause Analysis based on Dependencies as well.

The Automate area of their product strategy shows strong potential for future growth, with the ServiceNow integration having upside potential. Today Alert Chaining and Workflow support integrations to Ansible, Terraform, Slack, Microsoft, Teama, Putter, Terraform, OpsGenie, and others.

Conclusion

LogicMonitor’s platform handles 300B metrics on any given day and up to 10B a month, with over 28K collectors deployed integrated with approximately 1.4M devices being monitored. Putting AI and machine learning to work, interpreting the massive amount of data the platform captures every day to fine-tune their Early Warning and Failure Prevention Systems, is one of the most innovative approaches to AIOps today. Their AIOps Early Warning System is using machine learning Algorithms to fine-tune Root Cause Analysis and Dynamic Thresholds continually. AIOps Log Intelligence is also accessing the data to complete Automatic Log Anomaly Detection, Infrastructure change detection, and Log Volume Reduction to Signal analysis.

 

 

 

Nov 30

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

  • 60% of security and IT professionals state that security is the leading challenge with cloud migrations, despite not being clear about who is responsible for securing cloud environments.
  • 71% understand that controlling privileged access to cloud service administrative accounts is a critical concern, yet only 53% cite secure access to cloud workloads as a key objective of their cloud Privileged Access Management (PAM) strategies.

These and many other fascinating insights are from the recent Centrify survey, Reducing Risk in Cloud Migrations: Controlling Privileged Access to Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments, downloadable here. The survey is based on a survey of over 700 respondents from the United States, Canada, and the UK from over 50 vertical markets, with technology (21%), finance (14%), education (10%), government (10%) and healthcare (9%) being the top five. For additional details on the methodology, please see page 14 of the study.

What makes this study noteworthy is how it provides a candid, honest assessment of how enterprises can make cloud migrations more secure by a better understanding of who is responsible for securing privileged access to cloud administrative accounts and workloads.

Key insights from the study include the following:

  • Improved speed of IT services delivery (65%) and lowered total cost of ownership (54%) are the two top factors driving cloud migrations today. Additional factors include greater flexibility in responding to market changes (40%), outsourcing IT functions that don’t create competitive differentiation (22%), and increased competitiveness (17%). Reducing time-to-market for new systems and applications is one of the primary catalysts driving cloud migrations today, making it imperative for every organization to build security policies and systems into their cloud initiatives.

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

 

  • Security is the greatest challenge to cloud migration by a wide margin. 60% of organizations define security as the most significant challenge they face with cloud migrations today. One in three sees the cost of migration (35%) and lack of expertise (30%) being the second and third greatest impediments to cloud migration project succeeding. Organizations are facing constant financial and time constraints to achieve cloud migrations on schedule to support time-to-market initiatives. No organization can afford the lost time and expense of an attempted or successful breach impeding cloud migration progress.

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

  • 71% of organizations are implementing privileged access controls to manage their cloud services. However, as the privilege becomes more task-, role-, or access-specific, there is a diminishing interest of securing these levels of privileged access as a goal, evidenced by only 53% of organizations securing access to the workloads and containers they have moved to the cloud. The following graphic reflects the results.

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

 

  • An alarmingly high 60% of organizations incorrectly view the cloud provider as being responsible for securing privileged access to cloud workloads. It’s shocking how many customers of AWS and other public cloud providers are falling for the myth that cloud service providers can completely protect their customized, highly individualized cloud instances. The native Identity and Access Management (IAM) capabilities offered by AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and others provide enough functionality to help an organization get up and running to control access in their respective homogeneous cloud environments. Often they lack the scale to adequately address the more challenging, complex areas of IAM and Privileged Access Management (PAM) in hybrid or multi-cloud environments, however. For an expanded discussion of the Shared Responsibility Model, please see The Truth About Privileged Access Security On AWS and Other Public Clouds. The following is a graphic from the survey and Amazon Web Services’ interpretation of the Shared Responsibility Model.

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

 

  • Implementing a common security model in the cloud, on-premises, and in hybrid environments is the most proven approach to making cloud migrations more secure. Migrating cloud instances securely needs to start with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), deploying a common privileged access security model equivalent to on-premises and cloud systems, and utilizing enterprise directory accounts for privileged access. These three initial steps set the foundation for implementing least privilege access. It’s been a major challenge for organizations to do this, particularly in cloud environments, as 68% are not eliminating local privilege accounts in favor of federated access controls and are still using root accounts outside of “break glass” scenarios. Even more concerning, 57% are not implementing least privilege access to limit lateral movement and enforce just-enough, just-in-time-access.

How To Excel At Secured Cloud Migrations With A Shared Responsibility Model

  • When it comes to securing access to cloud environments, organizations don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Best practices from securing on-premises data centers and workloads can often be successful in securing privileged access in cloud and hybrid environments as well.

Conclusion

The study provides four key takeaways for anyone working to make cloud migrations more secure. First, all organizations need to understand that privileged access to cloud environments is your responsibility, not your cloud providers’. Second, adopt a modern approach to Privileged Access Management that enforces least privilege, prioritizing “just enough, just-in-time” access. Third, employ a common security model across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Fourth and most important, modernize your security approach by considering how cloud-based PAM systems can help to make cloud migrations more secure.

Aug 25

The Truth About Privileged Access Security On AWS And Other Public Clouds

 

Bottom Line: Amazon’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) centralizes identity roles, policies and Config Rules yet doesn’t go far enough to provide a Zero Trust-based approach to Privileged Access Management (PAM) that enterprises need today.

AWS provides a baseline level of support for Identity and Access Management at no charge as part of their AWS instances, as do other public cloud providers. Designed to provide customers with the essentials to support IAM, the free version often doesn’t go far enough to support PAM at the enterprise level. To AWS’s credit, they continue to invest in IAM features while fine-tuning how Config Rules in their IAM can create alerts using AWS Lambda. AWS’s native IAM can also integrate at the API level to HR systems and corporate directories, and suspend users who violate access privileges.

In short, native IAM capabilities offered by AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more provides enough functionality to help an organization get up and running to control access in their respective homogeneous cloud environments. Often they lack the scale to fully address the more challenging, complex areas of IAM and PAM in hybrid or multi-cloud environments.

The Truth about Privileged Access Security on Cloud Providers Like AWS

The essence of the Shared Responsibility Model is assigning responsibility for the security of the cloud itself including the infrastructure, hardware, software, and facilities to AWS and assign the securing of operating systems, platforms, and data to customers. The AWS version of the Shared Responsibility Model, shown below, illustrates how Amazon has defined securing the data itself, management of the platform, applications and how they’re accessed, and various configurations as the customers’ responsibility:

AWS provides basic IAM support that protects its customers against privileged credential abuse in a homogenous AWS-only environment. Forrester estimates that 80% of data breaches involve compromised privileged credentials, and a recent survey by Centrify found that 74% of all breaches involved privileged access abuse.

The following are the four truths about privileged access security on AWS (and, generally, other public cloud providers):

  1. Customers of AWS and other public cloud providers should not fall for the myth that cloud service providers can completely protect their customized and highly individualized cloud instances. As the Shared Responsibility Model above illustrates, AWS secures the core areas of their cloud platform, including infrastructure and hosting services. AWS customers are responsible for securing operating systems, platforms, and data and most importantly, privileged access credentials. Organizations need to consider the Shared Responsibility Model the starting point on creating an enterprise-wide security strategy with a Zero Trust Security framework being the long-term goal. AWS’s IAM is an interim solution to the long-term challenge of achieving Zero Trust Privilege across an enterprise ecosystem that is going to become more hybrid or multi-cloud as time goes on.
  2. Despite what many AWS integrators say, adopting a new cloud platform doesn’t require a new Privileged Access Security model. Many organizations who have adopted AWS and other cloud platforms are using the same Privileged Access Security Model they have in place for their existing on-premises systems. The truth is the same Privileged Access Security Model can be used for on-premises and IaaS implementations. Even AWS itself has stated that conventional security and compliance concepts still apply in the cloud. For an overview of the most valuable best practices for securing AWS instances, please see my previous post, 6 Best Practices For Increasing Security In AWS In A Zero Trust World.
  3. Hybrid cloud architectures that include AWS instances don’t need an entirely new identity infrastructure and can rely on advanced technologies, including Multi-Directory Brokering. Creating duplicate identities increases cost, risk, and overhead and the burden of requiring additional licenses. Existing directories (such as Active Directory) can be extended through various deployment options, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Centrify, for example, offers Multi-Directory Brokering to use whatever preferred directory already exists in an organization to authenticate users in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. And while AWS provides key pairs for access to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, their security best practices recommend a holistic approach should be used across on-premises and multi-cloud environments, including Active Directory or LDAP in the security architecture.
  4. It’s possible to scale existing Privileged Access Management systems in use for on-premises systems today to hybrid cloud platforms that include AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and other platforms. There’s a tendency on the part of system integrators specializing in cloud security to oversell cloud service providers’ native IAM and PAM capabilities, saying that a hybrid cloud strategy requires separate systems. Look for system integrators and experienced security solutions providers who can use a common security model already in place to move workloads to new AWS instances.

Conclusion

The truth is that Identity and Access Management solutions built into public cloud offerings such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are stop-gap solutions to a long-term security challenge many organizations are facing today. Instead of relying only on a public cloud provider’s IAM and security solutions, every organization’s cloud security goals need to include a holistic approach to identity and access management and not create silos for each cloud environment they are using. While AWS continues to invest in their IAM solution, organizations need to prioritize protecting their privileged access credentials – the “keys to the kingdom” – that if ever compromised would allow hackers to walk in the front door of the most valuable systems an organization has. The four truths defined in this article are essential for building a Zero Trust roadmap for any organization that will scale with them as they grow. By taking a “never trust, always verify, enforce least privilege” strategy when it comes to their hybrid- and multi-cloud strategies, organizations can alleviate costly breaches that harm the long-term operations of any business.

Aug 7

AWS Certifications Increase Tech Pay Up To $12K A Year

AWS Certifications Increase Tech Pay Up To $12K A Year

  • AWS and Google certifications are among the most lucrative in North America, paying average salaries of $129,868 and $147,357 respectively.
  • Cross-certifying on AWS is providing a $12K salary bump to IT professionals who already have Citrix and Red Hat/Linux certifications today
  • Globally, four of the five top-paying certifications are in cloud computing.

These and many other insights of which certifications provide the highest salaries by region of the world are from the recently published Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report. The report is downloadable here (27 pp., PDF, free, opt-in). The methodology is based on 12,271 interviews across non-management IT staffs (29% of interviews), mid-level professionals including managers and team leads (43%), and senior-level and executive roles (28%) across four global regions. For additional details regarding the study’s methodology, please see page 24 of the report.

Key insights from the report include the following:

  • Cross-certifying on AWS is providing a $12K salary bump to IT professionals who already have Citrix and Red Hat/Linux certifications. Citrix certifications pay an average salary of $109,546 and those earning an AWS certification see a $12,339 salary bump on average. Red Hat/Linux certification-based jobs pay an average of $113,165 and are seeing an average salary bump of $12,553.  Cisco-certified IT professionals who gain AWS certification increase their salaries on average from $101,533 to $111,869, gaining a 10.2% increase. The following chart compares the salary bump AWS certifications are providing to IT professionals with seven of the more popular certifications (please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading).

  • AWS and Google certifications are among the most lucrative in North America, paying average salaries of $129,868 and $147,357 while the most popular are cybersecurity, governance, compliance, and policy. 27% of all respondents to Global Knowledge’s survey have at least one certification in this category. Nearly 18% are ITIL certified. In North American, the most popular certification categories beyond cybersecurity are CompTIA, Microsoft, and Cisco. The following table from the report provides an overview of salary by certification category (please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading).

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate is the most popular AWS certification today, with 72% of respondents having achieved its requirements. Certified Solutions Architect – Associate leads the top five most commonly held AWS certifications today according to the survey. AWS Certified Developer – Associate (33%), AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (24%), AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (16%) and AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner round out the top five most common AWS certifications across the 12,271 global respondents to the Global Knowledge survey.

Aug 5

10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective Of Amazon’s Patent Growth

10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective Of Amazon's Patent Growth

  • Since 2010 Amazon has grown its patent portfolio from less than 1,000 active patents in 2010 to nearly 10,000 in 2019, a ten-fold increase in less than a decade.
  • Amazon heavily cites Microsoft, IBM, and Alphabet, with 39%, 32% and 28% of Amazon’s total Patent Asset Index
  • Amazon’s patent portfolio is dominated by Cloud Computing, with the majority of the patents contributing to AWS’ current and future services roadmap. AWS achieved 41% year-over-year revenue growth in the latest fiscal quarter, reaching $7.6B in revenue.

Patents are fascinating because they provide a glimpse into potential plans, and roadmaps tech companies are considering. Amazon has one of the most interesting patent portfolios today that encompass a wide spectrum of technologies, from aircraft technology, drones, cloud computing, to machine learning. Interested in learning more about Amazon’s unique patent portfolio, I contacted PatentSight, a LexisNexis company, one of the leading providers of patent analytics and provider of the PatentSight analytics platform used for creating the ten charts shown below.

  • Amazon patents grew at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of above 35% between 2010 and 2019. PatentSight’s analysis shows that Amazon’s patent portfolio has increased tenfold in the last decade, and is comprised entirely of organic patents with only a small percentage gained from acquisitions. PatentSight also finds that Amazon’s patents have a falling average quality as measured by their Competitive Impact score shown on the vertical axis of the chart below. As Amazon’s patent portfolio has grown, there has been a downward trend of quality. William Mansfield, Head of Consulting and Customer Success at LexisNexis PatentSight explains why. “To maintain a high quality when growing the portfolio is difficult, as each patent would need to be equally as good as or better than the previous,” he said. Mr. Mansfield’s analysis found that Amazon’s portfolio has an average Competitive Impact of 2 today, double the PatentSight database average of 1.

  • Amazon’s patent portfolio is unique in that 100% of it is protected in the U.S. “The protection strategy of Amazon is also uncommon. While it can be the case that US firms tend to be US-centric, Amazon is an extreme case,” said William Mansfield. It’s surprising how many Amazon patents are active only in the USA (86%) and invented in the USA and active only in the USA (81%). William explained that “one factor for this US-centricity could be the great acceptance of software patents in the USA, we do also see high US-only filing for other tech giants, but are a level of around 60% vs. Amazon’s 86%.”

  • PatentSight found that the majority of the Amazon portfolio falls in the 2nd decile of Competitive Impact (top 20% – 10%). Comparable technology-based organizations have a higher density of patents in the top 10% of Competitive Impact, which is another unusual aspect regarding Amazon’s patent growth. “This is unusual compared to other big tech companies which have more in the top 10%, it could be Amazon is holding onto more lower value assets than required,” William Mansfield remarked.

  • Amazon’s patent citations most often cite Microsoft, IBM, and Alphabet, with 39%, 32% and 28% of Amazon’s total Patent Asset Index. Interesting that PatentSight’s analysis finds the reciprocal is not the case. A much smaller percentage of companies cite Amazon in return. This can be attributed to a few other firms having the breadth and depth of patent development that Amazon does today.  PatentSight found that less than 10% of their respective portfolios even mention Amazon.  William Mansfield explains that “one factor here is the larger size of these companies, vs. Amazon. However, even in absolute terms, Microsoft and IBM cite Amazon much less than the other way round. However, citation value is close to equal in absolute terms between Amazon and Alphabet.”

  • Relying on patents to keep AWS’ rapid growth going appears to be Amazon’s high priority patent strategy today. As can be seen from the portfolio below, Cloud Computing patents dominate Amazon’s patent portfolio today. In the latest fiscal quarter ending March 31, 2019, AWS delivered $7.9B in revenue and$2.2B in operating income, growing 41% year-over-year. “Amazon’s ongoing developments in alternative delivery methods in Urban Logistics and Drones are noteworthy with Drones being one area of particular strength in the portfolio as seen from the high Competitive Impact, despite the smaller portfolio size,” notes William Mansfield.

  • Amazon’s prioritization of cloud computing, AI, and machine learning patents is evident when 18 years of patent history is compared. The proliferation of AI and machine learning-based services on the AWS platform is apparent in the trend line starting in 2014. The success of Amazon’s SageMaker machine learning platform is a case in point. Amazon SageMaker enables developers and data scientists to quickly and easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models at scale.

  • Amazon is already one of the top 10 patent holders in Drone technology, just behind Alphabet and Toyota Motors. PatentSight defines Drone technology as encompassing aviation, autonomous robots, and autonomous driving. Amazon’s rapid ascent in this area is attributable to the logistics and supply chain efficiencies possible when Drones and their related technologies are applied to their supply chain’s more complex challenges.

  • PatentSight finds that FinTech is an area of long-standing strength in the Amazon patent portfolio, attribute to their payment systems being the backbone of their e-commerce business. Reflecting how diverse their business model has become, Amazon is now one of the top 15 patent holders in this area due to cloud computing, AI, and machine learning taking precedence. “FinTech is a highly competitive field with many established players, and while Amazon is not in the top 10, but top 15 players, it’s still an impressive achievement,” said William Mansfield.

  • Amazon’s patent portfolio in speech recognition encompasses Alexa, its related patents, and Amazon Lex, an AWS service used for creating conversational interfaces for applications. Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung are patent leaders, according to PatentSight’s analysis. The fact that Amazon is in the top 10 speaks to the level of activity and patent production going on in the Alexa research and development and product teams.

  • Amazon’s patent strategy is eclectic yet always anchored to cloud computing to make AWS the platform of choice. The following selected patens reflect how broad the Amazon patent portfolio is. What each share in common is a reliance on AWS as the platform to ensure service consistency, reliability, and scale. An example of this is their patents Video Game Streaming.

Apr 21

CIO’s Guide To Stopping Privileged Access Abuse – Part I

CIOs face the paradox of having to protect their businesses while at the same time streamlining access to the information and systems their companies need to grow. The threatscape they’re facing requires an approach to security that is adaptive to the risk context of each access attempt across any threat surface, anytime. Using risk scores to differentiate between privileged users attempting to access secured systems in a riskier context than normal versus privileged credential abuse by attackers has proven to be an effective approach for thwarting credential-based breaches.

Privileged credential abuse is one of the most popular breach strategies organized crime and state-sponsored cybercrime organizations use. They’d rather walk in the front door of enterprise systems than hack in. 74% of IT decision makers surveyed whose organizations have been breached in the past say it involved privileged access credential abuse, yet just 48% have a password vault. Just 21% have multi-factor authentication (MFA) implemented for privileged administrative access. These and many other insights are from Centrify’s recent survey, Privileged Access Management in the Modern Threatscape.

How CIOs Are Solving the Paradox of Privileged Credential Abuse

The challenge to every CIO’s security strategy is to adapt to risk contexts in real-time, accurately assessing every access attempt across every threat surface, risk-scoring each in milliseconds. By taking a “never trust, always verify, enforce least privilege” approach to security, CIOs can provide an adaptive, contextually accurate Zero Trust-based approach to verifying privileged credentials. Zero Trust Privilege is emerging as a proven framework for thwarting privileged credential abuse by verifying who is requesting access, the context of the request, and the risk of the access environment.

By taking a least privilege access approach, organizations can minimize attack surfaces, improve audit and compliance visibility, and reduce risk, complexity, and the costs of operating a modern, hybrid enterprise. CIOs are solving the paradox of privileged credential abuse by knowing that even if a privileged user has entered the right credentials but the request comes in with risky context, then stronger verification is needed to permit access.

Strategies For Stopping Privileged Credential Abuse

The following are five strategies CIOs need to concentrate on to stop privileged credential abuse. Starting with an inventory of privileged accounts and progressing through finding the gaps in IT infrastructure that create opportunities for privileged credential abuse, CIOs and their teams need to take preemptive action now to avert potential breaches in the future.

In Part 1 of a CIO’s Guide to Stopping Privileged Access Abuse, below are the steps they can take to get started:

  1. Discover and inventory all privileged accounts and their credentials to define who is accountable for managing their security and use. According to a survey by Gartner, more than 65% of enterprises are allowing shared use of privileged accounts with no accountability for their use. CIOs realize that a lack of consistent governance policies creates many opportunities for privileged credential abuse. They’re also finding orphaned accounts, multiple owners for privileged credentials and the majority of system administrators having super user or root user access rights for the majority of enterprise systems.
  2. Vault your cloud platforms’ Root Accounts and federate access to AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and other public cloud consoles. Root passwords on each of the cloud platforms your business relies on are the “keys to the kingdom” and provide bad actors from inside and outside the company to exfiltrate data with ease. The recent news of how a fired employee deleted his former employer’s 23 AWS servers is a cautionary tale of what happens when a Zero Trust approach to privileged credentials isn’t adopted. Centrify’s survey found that 63% or organizations take more than a day to shut off privilege access for an employee after leaving the company. Given how AWS root user accounts have the privilege to delete all instances immediately, it’s imperative for organizations to have a password vault where AWS root account credentials are stored. Instead of local AWS IAM accounts and access keys, use centralized identities (e.g., Active Directory) and enable federated login. By doing so, you obviate the need for long-lived access keys.
  3. Audit privileged sessions and analyze patterns to find potentially privileged credential sharing or abuse not immediately obvious from audits. Audit and log authorized and unauthorized user sessions across all enterprise systems, especially focusing on root password use across all platforms. Taking this step is essential for assigning accountability for each privileged credential in use. It will also tell you if privileged credentials are being shared widely across the organization. Taking a Zero Trust approach to securing privileged credentials will quickly find areas where there could be potential lapses or gaps that invite breaches. For AWS accounts, be sure to use AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch to monitor all API activity across all AWS instances and your AWS account.
  4. Enforce least privilege access now within your existing infrastructure as much as possible, defining a security roadmap based on the foundations of Zero Trust as your future direction. Using the inventory of all privileged accounts as the baseline, update least privilege access on each credential now and implement a process for privilege elevation that will lower the overall risk and ability for attackers to move laterally and extract data. The days of “trust but verify” are over. CIOs from insurance and financial services companies recently spoken with point out that their new business models, all of them heavily reliant on secured Internet connectivity, are making Zero Trust the cornerstone of their future services strategies. They’re all moving beyond “trust but verify” to adopt a more adaptive approach to knowing the risk context by threat surface in real-time.
  5. Adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all threat surfaces that can adapt and flex to the risk context of every request for resources. The CIOs running a series of insurance and financial services firms, a few of them former MBA students of mine, say multi-factor authentication is a must-have today for preventing privileged credential abuse. Their take on it is that adding in an authentication layer that queries users with something they know (user name, password, PIN or security question) with something they have (smartphone, one-time password token or smart card), something they are (biometric identification like fingerprint) and something they’ve done (contextual pattern matching of what they normally do where) has helped thwart privileged credential abuse exponentially since they adopted it. This is low-hanging fruit: adaptive MFA has made the productivity impact of this additional validation practically moot.

Conclusion

Every CIO I know is now expected to be a business strategist first, and a technologist second. At the top of many of their list of priorities is securing the business so it can achieve uninterrupted growth. The CIOs I regularly speak with running insurance and financial services companies often speak of how security is as much a part of their new business strategies as the financial products their product design teams are developing. The bottom line is that the more adaptive and able to assess the context of risks for each privilege access attempt a company’s access management posture can become, the more responsive they can be to employees and customers alike, fueling future growth.

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