As enterprises prepare to increase their security in 2021, it is vital that they continuously assess their cyber resilience.
Even after months of the havoc brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is still having an impact on IT infrastructure due to a changing landscape of cyber threats. As enterprises prepare to secure their defenses in 2021, it is crucial for them to understand and prepare for potential threats.
The threat landscape will continue to evolve at a speed that outpaces the cybersecurity industry, according to Becky Pinkard, CISO of Aldemore Bank. “I’d like to see companies buckle down on the ‘foundations of security’, moving into an era of never-before-seen strength on the frontline fight against cyber threats,” she says.
Enterprises need to continuously assess their cyber defenses and ensure they are prepared for the path ahead of them. Hence, they must adopt a mindset of cyber resiliency that will enable them to detect a breach once it has penetrated the network; that provides them everything they need to ensure business continuity.
Heidi Shey, Principal Analyst, Security and Risk Professional, Forrester Research, believes that customer and employee privacy will become a strategic business imperative in the next 12 months, as a key part of cyber resilience.
With cyber resiliency frameworks in place, enterprises will be able to develop end-to-end security approaches that are comprehensive, flexible, cost-effective and performance-based.
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Thus, to successfully incorporate cyber resilience practices, enterprise leaders must discuss the below five steps to achieve cyber resilience with their team.
Identifying the risks
Enterprise leaders must gain an understanding of cybersecurity risks and the various ways a cyber-attack could breach their defenses via systems, devices, assets, data, and their workforce. Gaining knowledge of the business operations of enterprises and related potential risks, specifically in the current changing landscape, enables enterprise leaders to deliver their business needs.
Developing safeguards
After understanding the potential vulnerabilities that may emerge in a business, enterprise leaders must develop and implement suitable safeguards to ensure the sharing and storage of information is achieved. This should include functional areas such as tools to limit and control access to the system and digital assets to prevent any breaches.
It is also critical to consider the security of devices being used in remote areas, potentially on unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
Keeping an eye on suspicious activity
Enterprises must strive to identify suspicious activity that potentially could evade defenses and compromise systems as well as endpoints, to assess the scope and its potential impact.
In this step, enterprises must have a system and process in place to monitor potential malicious processes, files, DLLs, and other relevant information.
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Enterprises must also empower their security teams with threat intelligence sources for adding information that prioritizes response and an understanding of a particular threat from a holistic view.
Providing Response
After having the cyber resiliency tools in place, enterprises must focus on the below key areas to respond effectively: communications, response planning, mitigation, analysis, and improvements.
In advanced cyber resilience solutions, AI-assisted analytics can capture breach information and help improve more quickly and effectively in the future. By establishing cyber resilience metrics, enterprises can better understand how their defenses are working.
