The old proverb “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is probably always correct, but impossible to quantify. It’s difficult to estimate how much damage would have been done or whether national security would have been jeopardised.
IT administrators who do not practise good security hygiene are, plain and simple, guilty of malpractice. Even perfect security hygiene, on the other hand, will not be able to avoid all threats. Patching applications in a timely manner, for example, will not be able to fix zero-day vulnerabilities for which no patches have been released or vulnerabilities that have yet to be discovered. Despite strict password standards, insiders with authorised access can engage in nefarious behaviour.
To truly secure their enterprises, every cybersecurity stakeholder should accept the possibility of a breach and be prepared to reduce the harm.
For rapid detection, AI, ML, and BA are used
Organizations can now monitor network activity across the whole hybrid IT environment – on-premises, virtual private cloud, and multiple public clouds – and then use ML and BA-powered solutions to evaluate the collected data to offer a unified picture of the network security posture. By understanding what “typical behaviour” for the network is, the system can quickly discover anomalies, allowing the security team to determine whether the aberration is indeed a threat.
The prevention of the propagation of malware is aided by network segmentation.
Network segmentation can help mitigate the harm by making it more difficult for an attacker to move from one region to the next, giving security staff more time to react. Unfortunately, many firms are averse to segmentation because they are concerned about increased network administration complexity and fees. On the other hand, network methods like SD-WAN can make segmentation a viable security solution.
An expert incident response team
A major role is played by expert security practitioners. While machine learning and business intelligence (BI) technologies can detect anomalous behaviour, they can’t yet tell if there’s a valid reason for it.
As a result, certified security professionals are still considered half of the success equation. To shorten the time it takes to contain a threat, human resources are still required. Teams need threat intelligence and experience to understand the nature of an attack and determine the best course of action.