In our last post, we discussed the cybersecurity talent shortage and its impact on the IT industry. The enormous gap between the industry’s needs and the actual pool of qualified employees has left many IT departments and security teams with a shortage of qualified personnel, resulting in an overwhelming workload that only exacerbates security events and data breaches.

There have been a slew of major data breaches in recent years. The number of records exposed in data breaches last year alone reached 174.4 million—close to five times the 36.6 million records exposed in 2016, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.

At the end of 2017, the first deadline passed to comply with a new set of federal regulations that will force colleges and universities that enter into contracts with federal agencies to tighten their cybersecurity practices. The Department of Education has made it clear that it will compel universities and colleges to comply with NIST’s Special Publication 800-171, which is designed to protect the confidentiality of controlled unclassified information (CUI).

The IT industry is facing an enormous problem: there’s a skills shortage of cybersecurity talent. Forty-five percent of organizations report a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills—more than any other area of IT. The problem is so bad that the cybersecurity workforce gap is on pace to hit 1.8 million by 2022, a 20% increase from 2015.

Passwords are widely recognized as one of the weakest links in an organization’s security. In fact, 81 percent of hacking-related data breaches last year were the result of weak, default, or stolen passwords, according to Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations report.

It’s a new year and it’s time to figure out what purchases, projects, and services your organization will need in the near future. No doubt, your wish list will far exceed your budget.

To meet your security needs within a budget, make sure you are investing enough in IT security by shoring up your identity and access management (IAM) program. In order to truly enable your business, you must first embrace security, and that means putting IAM at the core of your security program.

Despite the risks associated with remote third-party access and the ongoing slew of data breaches resulting from third-party breaches, outsourcing isn’t going away anytime soon. On the contrary, IT outsourcing will be a $335 billion industry by 2019, according to Gartner. The benefits to business productivity, efficiency, and collaboration are simply too great, and modern enterprises can’t compete without opening up their infrastructures and data.

In a recent post, we covered a major problem facing K-12 schools today: cybersecurity. Hackers are targeting educational institutions with alarming regularity—and the consequences of these delays can be major: If a student’s identity is stolen, it might not be discovered for years, until the student tries to take out a loan or get a credit card. 

Breaches caused by outside hackers get the most press. For example, the recent Equifax breach that resulted in the release of confidential data on 143 million Americans was carried out by external hackers who may have been state sponsored. The breach resulted in Equifax’s chief executive officer, chief information officer, and chief security officer all losing their jobs. 

What do Home Depot, Target, Jimmy John’s, Wendy’s, Scottrade, Gmail, and the National Security Agency have in common? Each has suffered a high-profile data breach related to third-party access in the past five years. It’s clear: Many organizations, across industries, are failing to put the necessary security measures in place to prevent or minimize the identity and access risks associated with third-party access.