Having lived and worked in Dubai early in my career, I have a great affinity with the Middle East. So when the opportunity to present at Gitex, the region’s premier technology event, and support our local Lookout team, I jumped at it. You might not think of the Middle East as being at the forefront of technological innovation, but if you stroll around Gitex, you’ll find everything from flying cars, robotics, and environment controls to IT and security.

Love them or hate them, passwords are often the only thing standing between attackers and your sensitive personal and financial information. Despite their importance, less than 50% of people feel very confident that their passwords are secure from compromise, according to a 2021 Security.org survey of password habits. There’s probably a good reason many are worried about their passwords.

In what seems to be a constant drip of headlines about large enterprises experiencing security incidents, the world most recently learned of a successful data infiltration of rideshare and delivery company Uber. In a blog update, Uber attributed the attack to the infamous Lapsus$ group that has made a name for itself over the past year with successful breaches of household names including Microsoft, Rockstar Games, Samsung, Nvidia, Ubisoft, and Okta.

The tectonic plates of network security are in motion. A wrenching transference from on-premises to cloud-centric data security systems is gaining steam. Security teams are engaged in pushing cybersecurity out to the far edges of a highly interconnected, widely dispersed digital environment; and at the same time, they must find smarter ways to dramatically improve cyber hygiene.

Technology has advanced our world in countless ways. Every day we bank, shop, conduct business, and exchange photos and messages with family and friends online. While digital devices and services offer great convenience, they also pose risks to our data and privacy as our offline and online lives converge. In 2021, data breaches reached an all-time high of 1,862, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a 68% increase over 2020.

Cloud applications have opened up limitless opportunities for most organizations. They make it easier for people to collaborate and stay productive, and require a lot less maintenance to deploy, which means they’re much more affordable and easy to scale to your needs. But for all of their benefits, cloud apps also open up your organization to a host of new risks. By enabling users anywhere access to corporate resources you lose the visibility and control that perimeter-based tools provide.

Moving to a new home is listed as one of the main stressors in life. When organizations switch offices to accommodate business needs, moving can also be a major stressor for IT teams — but it doesn’t need to be. Not too long ago we moved our Boston office to a new location, one of our major engineering hubs, where many of our engineers and IT members work.

‍The NSO Group, the vendor behind Pegasus, is struggling financially, and to solve their money problems, the company is now considering selling their surveillanceware to governments with poor human rights records.

With nearly every organization going through rapid digital transformations, it has become critical that security teams are equipped to provide seamless access for their remote users while keeping sensitive data secure. This is why I’m thrilled that Verizon has launched the Lookout suite of cloud security solutions to deliver security service edge (SSE) and ensure that customers can seamlessly secure their data and apps in the cloud, on premises and on the internet.

Don't bring your personal life into the office; don't bring your work stuff home — these were already difficult tasks prior to the 2020 pandemic. Now, with hybrid work settling in, they have become nearly impossible to achieve. Where we work is no longer tethered to a static location. From the Wi-Fi we connect to, to the devices we use for work, our personal and professional lives are now closely intertwined.