It’s already established that enterprises will spend on cybersecurity in the digital age. Moreover, it is less expensive to prevent cyberattacks than fix the damage after an attack. Aside from the risk of data loss, consumers will also lose trust, and there are financial repercussions from fines, customer compensation, and potential litigation.
As almost everything is digital today, enterprises are spending on security measures and cybersecurity staff. In a Cybercrime Magazine article, the projection is that enterprises worldwide will be spending about $1.75 trillion from 2021 to 2025 on cybersecurity services and products, reflecting the changes that the pandemic created. The growth in spending depends on the type of cyber security applications, as seen in the May 2021 Gartner forecast, with the highest spending going to security services ($72.4M) followed by infrastructure protection ($23.9M) and network security equipment ($17.0M).
Enterprises have tons of assets, and each one is susceptible to a range of attack vectors. In addition, hackers today use an almost unlimited number of combinations and permutations of attack methods. As a result, today’s attack surface is more extensive, and security teams have to deal with the complexity of cybersecurity, from security controls, vulnerability management, compliance, attack detection, incidence response, reporting, recovery, and more. Looking at the myriad of challenges that an enterprise’s security team has to handle, protecting the organization means ensuring extended security posture management.
Security posture and its importance to your enterprise
A good security posture is your first line of defense against cyber foes. But how do you know if you have a robust security posture?
It’s vital to have a standard protocol in case there is a security breach. Moreover, your staff should know what to do when a threat is detected. Security posture is not only about deploying security applications. Security posture pertains to the overall cybersecurity readiness of an organization. It is the gauge on how you practice cybersecurity and how prepared your company is for a cyberattack.
When your organization has the required processes to protect your business and applications from threats and vulnerabilities, your security posture is strong. The need is heightened today as a hybrid work system, where workers alternate between working from home and in the office, becomes the new normal.
Cybersecurity teams were already scrambling to monitor their organizations’ networks and ensure that the work from home staff has the necessary protection as they are using their own devices while assessing corporate data. For them, that kind of situation is their new normal.
But with the shift to the hybrid working system, security officers will be facing a more significant challenge. Without adopting a solid security posture management system, it would stretch the capability of an organization’s security team.
Preparing for the transition
Everyone struggled due to the pandemic, and things will have a semblance of normalcy when people and enterprises accept that things will be different. Unfortunately, cyberattacks increased during the pandemic, and while Covid-19 is decreasing, organizations should not waste time and apply the lessons the pandemic taught to improve security posture.
Critical industries, including healthcare and finance, became victims of the pandemic and cybercrime on the IT front. Some countries are already bracing for the transition into new work and life chapters. Therefore, it is time to shift practices and policies, develop new cyber habits, improve defenses, create a more robust cyber resilience by implementing a better selection of security solutions, and find an expert IT security audit firm.
At the onset of the pandemic, organizations were not prepared to implement the remote working arrangement. The system created a range of endpoints, as work devices intermingled with personal IoTs, making network security a complicated task. The situation opened a broader security parameter, which became a new attack surface for cybercriminals.
As companies slowly start to operate again and move to blended work models, the perimeter widens, so it is time to elevate security measures, including conducting a remote work risk assessment.
At this stage, you should also learn from SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline, JBS, and other supply chains that were victimized by cyberattacks. Ensure that your supply chain has adequate cyber defense and request proof of their liability projections, annual audits, and security compliance because their problems can also affect you.
Strengthening your security posture
Your security posture’s strength is proportional to the amount of risk you face, which will significantly reduce when you improve your security posture. You can strengthen it by determining what is wrong and taking the correct actions to resolve the issues.
Perform risk assessments
Doing a cybersecurity assessment is necessary to identify your organization’s most vital IT assets, the likelihood of an attack, and the effect of a data breach, among others.
One of the most robust and effective assessment/evaluation applications is MITRE ATT&CK. It can describe and categorize the behaviors of cyber adversaries based on real-world occurrences. Using its framework, which contains a comprehensive list of techniques and tactics employed by known attackers, you will have an insight into how your security platforms will fare against an attack. Then, your security team or a third-party supplier can perform a MITRE ATT&CK emulation based on the list.
MITRE ATT&CK can help you understand your security defense’s strengths and weaknesses and validate detection and mitigation controls. It can discover operational issues and misconfigurations. You can use ATT&CK’s taxonomy to help plan, execute, and report red teams, purple teams, and penetration testing activities.
Implement a zero-trust model
A zero-trust model is an effective strategy to ensure hybrid work security because it requires the IT department to always verify users requesting access to networks. One strategy is multi-factor authentication. It makes the users aware that you are securing them and your network.
Employee security training is a must
It is critical to ensure that you provide employees with security training in the hybrid work environment, as renewed social engineering and phishing attacks are increasing. In addition, there are more phishing trends today, such as vaccine rollouts and changes in unemployment benefits becoming effective campaigns for phishing attacks.
Conclusion
Cyber threats will always be looming on an organization. The best defense is always to be prepared. There are so many things you can do to strengthen your enterprise security posture. Real-time risk assessment and evaluation are critical. With the adoption of the hybrid work model, IT officials must double their efforts to safeguard the organization’s network and the hybrid workers, many of which will be bringing their own devices to work.
A hybrid workplace will be the new normal. Thus, IT and security teams should adopt better practices to ensure attack prevention, from implementing zero-trust, automating threat detection and remediation, training employees on new security practices and new attack methods, and applying patches and updates.