Developing a strong security program is like tending a garden. It takes a lot of work, and you don’t always see immediate results. Every day you water the soil, pull the weeds, spray the bugs, and after a while, you begin to see the cumulative results of all of those individual efforts – a vibrant and healthy ecosystem. But, as seen in our 2024 Incident Response Report, vulnerabilities go unpatched, and critical resources sit exposed. Like a garden overrun by weeds, these obscured areas provide cover and opportunity for attackers.
And, attackers at all levels are becoming more sophisticated, so any untended area of your environment presents too much risk. Organized cybercriminals build teams that specialize in different phases of attack, from intelligence gathering to exfiltration. They incorporate emerging technologies like AI into their arsenal. Some even provide customer service agents who can process ransomware payments.
Meanwhile, the same old problems hold defenders back – alert fatigue, improper permissions and inadequate authentication, among others. These shortcomings get in the way of prioritizing the most important work, and they keep SOC teams underwater.
The greatest misconception about cybersecurity is that programs can catch up overnight with silver-bullet solutions. There’s no substitute for a strong foundation and daily maintenance.
Security teams are notoriously snowed under by alerts and false positives. Telemetry from network devices, endpoints and cloud ecosystems can leave teams with billions of daily events to sort through. Critical indicators of attack and compromise often slip through the cracks because there’s too much complexity and little visibility.
A few dynamics make these challenges even more difficult to solve:
You can begin solving many of your security problems by gaining greater visibility of your information assets. If you lead a more sophisticated organization, this information can help your security team automate a large portion of alerts and shift their focus to threat hunting.
Gain full visibility with proactive discovery and analysis of your network, cloud and endpoints.
As your security program matures, you’ll begin to funnel much of this data into different program areas and solutions. Smaller organizations should begin with vulnerability and patch management, but most enterprises already perform sophisticated patch testing and implementation.
Instead, larger organizations suffer a different challenge – too much complexity. They receive actionable information from vulnerability scans, intrusion detection systems, SIEM solutions, etc. The tools that consolidate your data need to be consolidated. Tools like XSIAM can leverage AI and machine learning to automate alerts.
Routine discovery and analysis of your information ecosystem support all other cybersecurity efforts. Once you’ve built a strong foundation, you can develop more granular access controls.
You may be tired of hearing that identity is the new network perimeter, but it’s true.
Employees and contractors may access the network from the coffee shop down the street, the airport lounge or an Airbnb in the Bahamas. They may login with their work device, their personal laptop or their mobile device. As a defender, you have to verify the individual, the device and the connection.
Validating identity and authorization – who’s doing what and whether they’re supposed to be doing it – is a foundational concern of any security strategy. However, securing identities and permissions can be a moving target for several reasons:
Organizations of any size can mitigate these challenges by adopting the Zero Trust philosophy – never trust, always verify.
Leverage and build upon your visibility by continuously verifying every person, device or entity requesting resources in your organization.
It’s important to understand that Zero Trust isn’t a specific tool. It’s a design philosophy that incorporates a full ecosystem of controls and best practices. If you want to know more about designing and implementing Zero Trust in your organization, check out our best practices guide.
Cybersecurity is often portrayed as a battle. In reality, it’s more like tending a garden. You have to work hard every day, progress is slow and incremental, and sometimes rodents get into your vegetables.
Defending your organization requires proactive maintenance and daily routines. Advanced tools can help you match the speed, scale and sophistication of modern attackers, but only if you support them with a strong security foundation.
Whether you’re figuring out where to start or where to go next, organizations of any size can benefit from a trusted partner. Let our Unit 42 experts help you cultivate a thriving security program.
If you are experiencing an active breach or think you may have been impacted by a cybersecurity incident, contact Unit 42 to connect with a team member. The Unit 42 Incident Response team is available 24/7/365. If you have cyber insurance or legal counsel, you can request Unit 42 by name. You can also take preventative steps by requesting a Proactive Assessment and putting our team on speed dial with a Unit 42 Retainer.
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