Overcoming threats in the current threat landscape

Errit Muller

Errit Müller

VP

February 17, 2021 at 08:55

The year of 2020 was anything but predictable and the current threat landscape is keeping organizations on their toes. Constantly evolving threats, ransomware attacks and phishing attempts require organizations to stay alert – but what if the attacks are too sophisticated to even notice? Luckily, following few guidelines will get you far when it comes to keeping your organization safe.

For many organisations the focus should primarily be on increasing the visibility and capabilities to detect and respond swiftly to threats. Having those capabilities is a necessity in every good security program.

It’s all about visibility

Visibility is one of the crown jewels of organization’s cybersecurity posture. Thus, the role of endpoint security can’t be stressed enough. If your organization doesn’t have coverage of its endpoints, operations and surroundings, it’s near to impossible to detect threats. The increasing need for visibility may require some carefully designed steps to get it right.

Typical misconception in cybersecurity is that investing in the best software will guarantee the best protection. To reach the right level of protection for your organization, you must have access to skilled people, with the right solutions and the right processes in place. Roughly speaking, there are three main things to focus on, when pursuing top-tier security:

  1. Gather skilled people

With skilled people in charge, the systems are implemented correct, monitored, the analytics can be interpreted correctly, and follow-ups can be done to ensure high level of security. When the landscape is shifting and new threats emerge, wouldn’t it be soothing to know professionals are taking care of the situation, while your personnel can focus on what they do best?

  1. Choose the right solutions for your organization’s needs

There are several solutions for securing organizations, but they are not one-size-fits-all. As organizations demand highest value for the money spent, it is extremely important to choose the right technology and systems. Just a reminder, that these decisions should never be based on comfort – they should always stem from actual needs.

While threats’ level of sophistication is increasing, organizations must adapt alongside. Thus, I would advise organizations to focus on couple sources for threat detection and response, depending on the maturity of the organization. Gartner’s SOC visibility triad offers a great example of exploiting diversity by combining EDR, NDR and SIEM system, to increase the ability to mitigate an attack. With multiple sources of data for threat detection and response, the capabilities of each solution can make up the weaknesses of another.

  1. Keep your security solutions up to date

As with most things in life, it is important to keep the ecosystem for your security updated and well taken care of. No system or process is better than its weakest link. Vulnerabilities exist also in security tools. These can be either technical or misconfiguration, or just lack of keeping the configuration updated, for it to match today’s attack vectors.

Efficient endpoint detection and response in 2021

The battle is on the Internet now, and thus the role of managed endpoint detection and response is emphasized. Inspired by the Gartner Report, we would highlight few things to increase the level of security in the current threat landscape.

Note the advanced landscape and stay ahead. Not only are the attackers getting smarter, but the threats are also evolving. While many attacks used to be more straightforward, today there are several types of attacks, which focus on pinpointing government actors and leveraging the human factor. The actors’ motives can be far beyond attacking a specific organization and lateral movement may result in loosing data you didn’t even think the attackers would be interested in. Thus, the capability of understanding attackers’ behaviour and interpreting the results is essential. Even if you are not the target, you might end up as collateral damage.

Increase the security when remote working. Now that remote working is considered the new normal, the control over company platforms is essential. There are many distractions while working from home, which is why employees’ awareness might be decreased. By ensuring the safety measures are tight enough and the security policies are familiar to all, organizations can spare themselves from harmful situations. As said before, the key is to invest in the right solutions and ensure you have skills to manage them.

Organizations should start emphasizing visibility and their capabilities to respond. After all, you can’t respond to something you don’t see.

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