3 Ways To Make Cybersecurity An Ongoing Process
Cyber-attacks are becoming more common, with a serious IT breach making headlines almost daily. Attackers are constantly trying to exploit any gap in IT systems, applications, and hardware. Because the threat is ongoing, so should the efforts to defend your organization. This post presents three activities to ensure you are doing on an ongoing basis.
1. Monitor Activity With a SIEM
What is a SIEM?
Security Information and Event Management refers to software that helps detect cyber security threats, malware, unusual behavior, and suspicious network traffic. The software provides users with insight into their own security systems, and a track record of activities across their infrastructure. SIEM analyzes log and event data in real-time to provide monitoring and incident response. It then collects, analyzes, and reports on the log data.
Benefits of SIEM
As with any cybersecurity measure, SIEM can only be successful if used by knowledgeable individuals. After all, a tool is only as useful as the expert that wields it! Due to the nature of technology, SIEM systems generate countless alarms, alerts, and false positives. As a result, all warnings need to be critically assessed by genuine expert analysts. Responding to genuine alerts requires significant expertise. An effective response must be strategized and implemented as quickly as possible in order to enjoy the benefits of the SIEM reporting. The identification of a threat is only useful if the individual notified of that threat knows how to resolve the issue that has been identified.
2. Patch Your Software
Patching Explained
A patch is a software update comprised of code inserted (or patched) into the code of a program. Typically, a patch is installed into an existing software program. Patches are often temporary fixes between full releases of a software package. Patches can fix software bugs, install new drives, address new security vulnerabilities, software stability issues, and upgrade your software.
Importance of Patch Management
The lack of patch management is a problem that many organizations face, leading to vast numbers of security breaches daily. Patch management fixes vulnerabilities on your software and applications that are susceptible to cyber-attacks, helping your organization reduce its security risk. This ensures your software and applications are kept up to date and running smoothly. Patch management can go beyond software bug fixes to also include feature and functionality updates.
When you’re regularly patching vulnerabilities, you’re helping to manage and reduce the risk that exists in your environment, helping protect potential security breaches. If your organization sells a product or service that requires customers to use your technology, you know how important it is that the technology actually works. The process of fixing software bugs helps keep your systems up and running.
3. Stay Updated on Threat Intelligence
What is threat intelligence?
Threat intelligence is data that is collected, processed, and analyzed to understand a cyber criminal’s motives, targets, and attack behaviors. Threat intelligence enables us to make faster, more informed data backed security decisions, and fight against cyber criminals. The purpose of cyber threat intelligence is to give companies an in-depth understanding of the threats that pose the greatest risk to their infrastructure and devise a plan to protect their business.
Importance of Threat Intelligence
Cyber threat intelligence is the end result of cyber threat analysis. It is a collection of findings that can be used to take action and defend against threats. Rather than manually grant or deny access, track malicious threats, and record previously identified threats, threat intelligence allows for universal actions. For instance, if a file has been identified as malicious, it can be immediately be blocked across all networks globally.
The main objective of threat intelligence is to provide organizations a deeper understanding of what is happening outside their network. Thus, giving them better visibility of the cyber threats that bring the most risk to their infrastructure. By investing in cyber threat intelligence, businesses can access massive threat databases that can improve the efficacy of their solutions. At the end of the day, security solutions are only as strong as the threat intelligence that powers them.
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