The Security Maturity Improvement Imperative – Source: securityboulevard.com

To enhance corporate protection against the aggressive stream of cyberattacks impacting organizations today, it is imperative to actively manage, monitor and cover systems, software and data with well-tuned security toolsets.

According to Ponemon, 83% of organizations studied have experienced more than one data breach, and just 17% said this was their first data breach. Also, around 70% of successful cyberattacks exploited known vulnerabilities with available patches or known remediation steps. Identifying and resolving vulnerabilities is critical since a successful exploit can lead to a full-scale system breach.

Vulnerability management ensures that organizations have visibility around the latest known threats, preventing such attacks before they occur. However, managing scanning or patching can be challenging for smaller teams due to the ongoing cyclical management required. Setting up and coordinating manual ongoing patching across an organization can be extremely cumbersome, taking days to organize, schedule and execute across an entire company.

McKinsey cites good patch management as a top proactive maintenance measure that can help organizations prevent cyberattacks. Knowing the priority level for addressing risks or deploying patches can be confusing and lead to poor risk management as a result. Enlisting the help of a partner to ensure vulnerability management best practices can add true value to many organizations. 

When coupled with existing security defenses, the following regimen can significantly strengthen an organization’s security posture:

• Vulnerability Management – Vulnerability management is a life cycle requiring continuous attention for assessing and remediating threats. A preferred vulnerability management approach would be one that is overseen by security professionals, discovers devices on the network, regularly scans for vulnerabilities and facilitates remediation of those findings. Remediation could be in the form of patching software or operating systems or even configuration changes to resolve a known threat.
• Security Awareness Training –This type of training is necessary to educate employees about the digital dangers in their environment and how to properly recognize or handle them. Leveraging a well-established security training platform is key for the best information, strategies and toolsets employees need to equip themselves and better protect their organization before data loss or other harm can occur.
• Security Maturity Journey – If your business security approach is not keeping up with the rapidly changing threat landscape, it will become obsolete and more vulnerable to bad actors. Security maturity means adapting and improving security as the environment changes and grows. It means taking strategic actions like improving visibility with the approach of expanding security telemetry from your company systems. Businesses can evolve from a legacy security state to security maturity with the help of a trusted partner supported by a team of cybersecurity experts.

The growing threat of cybercrime is a risk to literally all organizations. Attacks can arrive in a number of forms, including phishing, spear phishing, ransomware attacks, zero-day attacks, known vulnerability exploits, brute-force attacks and other tactics. Incorporating a comprehensive mix of security-aware education, proactive visibility and continuous security posture improvements can offer peace of mind as well as significantly reduce business risks.

Better security means achieving full accountability of business assets from a visibility perspective. We can’t protect what we don’t actively manage, monitor and cover with security toolsets. It also means educating employees so they are security aware and can play a role in reducing the likelihood of a successful attack from email, internet browsing, social media or other modern tactics. These measures can significantly reduce risks of exposure or compromise while continuously improving security posture as threats evolve.