Over the past six months, the business environment has changed dramatically. Digital transformation has intensified rapidly, remote work has become the new normal, and businesses are migrating to cloud computing services faster than expected. All of these changes are designed to ensure minimal disruption to business continuity during this unprecedented period of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to these seemingly positive technological changes, the attack surface has increased and today's cyber landscape has become more volatile and more open to intrusion from determined external adversaries or the innocent behaviors of challenged internal employees. ways of doing business. To counter growing threats, organizations need to ensure internal security staff stay abreast of the latest trends and threats... but how do you do this effectively without significantly impacting a static security budget?
Ask the right questions
Security must be a business imperative and must be embedded into the fabric of all business decisions, whether it is digital risk, business continuity, or business adaptability. For starters, companies should review their current cybersecurity state to understand where there may be red flags or glaring gaps. Be honest and ask the hard questions. Is there positive cybersecurity hygiene in your organization? Is the company doing enough to raise awareness about security? Are there adequate protections in place to allow employees to work remotely? Are cloud infrastructures continuously monitored and highly secure? Is there security on all endpoints, including dedicated IoT devices? Do we have defenses in place to help mitigate potential DDoS and other network attacks? Can we make sure we understand the enterprise attack surface? And, more importantly, is security deeply embedded and entrenched in the company culture? It is important for organizations to embed operational efficiency into security practices, but it can be difficult, depending on business objectives. For example, it takes preparation, collaboration, and vision to rapidly scale initiatives like the cloud, digital transformation, or mobility. Cooperation between security, IT staff and industry is necessary. This is especially necessary for large companies where there are more processes and factors to consider. If done efficiently with little or no complexity, the total cost of protecting systems will be minimized.
Provide help if needed
Having an external perspective can be beneficial in addressing security essentials and breaches in the broader environment. Through queries, security personnel can better understand security information, threats, and the overall state of security. The same can be said for security training and hiring an external third party to provide it can be a positive. Often the service will provide a unique perspective and have a duty to raise concerns. This collective knowledge and resulting best practices allow a third party to help guide a company on how to train, when to train, how to reward behaviors, how to discourage behaviors, and how to embed safety into the culture rather than tick a box for governance. . But, should this training be face-to-face, face-to-face or online? Given the current pandemic, where people are rightfully cautious and adhering to social distancing measures, there may be a call for online training. Let's not forget that everyone learns differently, so all companies need to understand their workforce and judge what will work best. In all cases, the training should be engaging, interactive, and enjoyable while reinforcing the safety message. However, security training is only one piece of the larger security puzzle and should be an integral part of any organization's security culture and not simply provided to meet a requirement. Having this perception will only lead to failure. A security mindset should be expected of all employees, starting in the boardroom. Leading by example, RSSIs set the tone from the top. Linking security to business objectives and results and creating a shared responsibility model that allows employees to take security more seriously will be beneficial. By making the person aware of the importance of being aware of cyberspace and the positive impact it will have, you can help protect the business.
Get involved locally
As the cybersecurity community fosters collaboration, encourage your security staff to attend cybersecurity events, conferences, and forums to broaden their training and security reach. Additionally, networking with peers and other security administrators will provide valuable information. But don't limit the members of your organization who attend such events, as security has gone beyond a technical issue handled by a specific team; now it is the responsibility of the entire company. Just as employees care about protecting their physical assets, such as company-supplied offices, equipment, and buildings; they should transfer that mindset to defend their digital assets. There is also a high demand for people with an inquisitive mind, so it is important to have professionals within your organization who want to be more attentive, aware and up to date with the latest trends. Cybersecurity is part of our zeitgeist. In general, people are curious about how cyber attacks work, what kind of information is targeted, and how to stay on top of it. Therefore, promoting self-paced training can play an important role in keeping a security team up to date. While the human factor is vital in a security program, there is no denying the importance that technology can play. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and threat simulators are commonly used to keep teams on their toes and help spot attack patterns that provide valuable insights to modern threat hunters. Having an unprepared workforce can be just as dangerous as having inadequate security technology; And if the arrival of Covid-19 has taught companies anything, it is that cybersecurity must be proactive, whether it is for the company, the cloud or the network. While it may seem obvious, following good cybersecurity practices will go a long way toward protecting your digital organization. To maximize this, equip security, IT, and network teams with the tools to track across the organization. Ultimately, a security program can never be as good as its people and overall cybersecurity culture. Remember, humans are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain.