Achieve Continuous Monitoring and Adaptability for Comprehensive Cyber-risk Management

Traditional approaches to cybersecurity, which rely heavily on compliance regulations and point-in-time security measures, are proving to be insufficient in the face of evolving threats.

In a recent Kitecast episode, we were joined by Albert E. Whale, a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in cybersecurity and risk management. He is the Founder and CEO of IT Security Solutions that helps businesses secure their environments using ITS Safe™, an appliance that delivers real-time continuous protection of networks, printers, servers, clouds, modems and routers, and other equipment.

Whale argues that while compliance regulations serve as a foundation for establishing security practices, they are not a panacea for cybersecurity. Overreliance on compliance can leave organizations exposed to emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

To address the limitations of compliance regulations, organizations must embrace a proactive and adaptable approach, incorporating continuous monitoring, tailored risk management frameworks, and effective communication. By going beyond compliance, organizations can strengthen their resilience against evolving cyber threats and safeguard their digital assets.

In this blog post, we delve into the importance of continuous monitoring and scanning, highlight the relevance of DevSecOps and SIEM (security information and event management)/SOAR (security orchestration, automation, and response) solutions, and emphasize the significance of effectively managing third-party risk.

The Limitations of Overrelying on Compliance Regulations in Cybersecurity

In the realm of cybersecurity, compliance regulations serve as crucial guidelines to establish a baseline of security practices. However, overreliance on compliance regulations can create limitations and hinder organizations’ ability to effectively address the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats. But there is no doubt that compliance regulations are at the core of a comprehensive approach to risk management.

Compliance Regulations as a Minimum Standard

Compliance regulations, such as industry standards and legal requirements, are designed to set a minimum standard of security practices for organizations. They provide a necessary framework for addressing cybersecurity risks. However, it is essential to recognize that compliance alone does not guarantee comprehensive protection against cyber threats. Adhering to compliance regulations may provide a false sense of security, as they often focus on specific requirements at a particular point in time, rather than addressing emerging threats.

Inadequacy of Regulations Addressing Evolving Cyber Threats

Cyber threats are constantly evolving, with new attack vectors, vulnerabilities, and techniques emerging regularly. Whale argues that compliance regulations typically lag these developments and may not encompass the latest security measures. Relying solely on compliance regulations without considering emerging threats leaves organizations vulnerable to attacks that exploit new vulnerabilities or attack vectors not covered by existing regulations.

The Limitations of a One-Size-Fits-All Approach With Compliance Regulations

Compliance regulations are often designed to cater to a wide range of industries and organizations. While they provide a general framework, they may not sufficiently address the specific risks and vulnerabilities unique to individual organizations. Organizations may have distinct business processes, technologies, and threat landscapes that require tailored security measures beyond compliance requirements. A one-size-fits-all approach can lead to security gaps and may not effectively address the organization’s specific cybersecurity needs.

False Sense of Security Created by Compliance Regulations

Compliance regulations can create a false sense of security, leading organizations to believe that by adhering to these requirements, they have adequately mitigated all cybersecurity risks. However, compliance does not equate to comprehensive security. Cybercriminals often exploit vulnerabilities that fall outside the scope of compliance regulations. Organizations that solely focus on compliance may overlook critical security aspects, leaving them exposed to sophisticated cyberattacks.

Manage Cyber Risks Through Continuous Monitoring

Compliance regulations provide a foundation for security, but they are inherently static. To effectively address the limitations of these regulations, organizations must embrace a proactive and adaptable approach to cybersecurity. Continuous monitoring and scanning play a pivotal role in a comprehensive risk management strategy, allowing organizations to stay ahead of evolving threats.

The Importance of Continuous Monitoring in Cybersecurity

Continuous monitoring is a critical component of a comprehensive risk management strategy. Rather than relying solely on periodic assessments, continuous monitoring provides real-time visibility into an organization’s cybersecurity posture. By implementing robust monitoring systems, organizations can detect anomalies, identify emerging threats, and respond promptly to potential attacks.

Continuous monitoring involves the regular assessment of network traffic, system logs, and user activities, allowing security teams to proactively identify vulnerabilities and remediate them before they can be exploited. It serves as an early warning system, enabling organizations to minimize the impact of security incidents and protect sensitive data.

Detecting Anomalies and Emerging Cyber Threats

One of the key advantages of continuous monitoring is its ability to identify anomalies and emerging threats. By continuously analyzing network traffic, system logs, and user behaviors, organizations can establish baseline patterns of normal activity. Any deviation from these patterns can be quickly identified and investigated. This proactive approach enables the early detection of potentially malicious activities, such as unauthorized access attempts, unusual data transfers, or abnormal system behavior. With timely detection, organizations can swiftly respond to threats, minimizing potential damage and preventing data breaches or service disruptions.

DevSecOps: A Paradigm Shift in Cybersecurity

DevSecOps, a term derived from the combination of “development,” “security,” and “operations,” represents a significant paradigm shift in the field of security. As an evolution of the DevOps philosophy, DevSecOps aims to integrate security practices throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). This approach emphasizes collaboration between development, security, and operations teams, enabling organizations to build security into their applications from the ground up.

Integration of Security Throughout the SDLC

Traditionally, security has been viewed as an afterthought, with security measures and controls added at the end of the development process. However, this reactive approach often leads to vulnerabilities being discovered late in the development cycle or even after the application has been deployed. DevSecOps seeks to change this mindset by promoting a proactive and continuous approach to security.

Minimizing Vulnerabilities and Reducing Attack Surface

By integrating security into the development process, DevSecOps helps minimize vulnerabilities and reduce the overall attack surface of an application. It emphasizes the use of security controls and testing early in the SDLC, enabling teams to identify and address security issues as they arise. This early detection and remediation of vulnerabilities significantly enhances the resilience of applications, making them more resistant to cyberattacks.

Automating Security Testing and Compliance

Automation is another crucial aspect of DevSecOps. By automating security testing and compliance checks, organizations can streamline the integration of security practices into the development pipeline. Automated tools can scan code for known vulnerabilities, conduct static and dynamic application security testing, and enforce security policies and standards. These automated processes help identify security issues early on, enabling developers to address them promptly and reduce the time and effort required for manual security assessments.

In addition to incorporating security practices into the development process, DevSecOps encourages a culture of continuous learning, monitoring, and improvement. This proactive approach to security helps minimize vulnerabilities, reduce the attack surface, and enhance overall resilience, ultimately ensuring the delivery of safer software in an increasingly threat-filled digital landscape.

Empowering Proactive Cybersecurity Operations With SIEM and SOAR

SIEM and SOAR have emerged as crucial components in modern cybersecurity strategies. Together, they enable organizations to proactively detect and respond to security incidents, enhancing overall threat management capabilities.

SIEM Provides Proactive Cybersecurity Monitoring

SIEM platforms play a vital role in centralizing and analyzing security events from diverse sources within an organization’s IT infrastructure. These sources can include network devices, servers, databases, applications, and security systems. By aggregating and correlating these events, SIEM systems provide a holistic view of the organization’s security posture, facilitating the identification of potential threats and anomalies.

Real-time Threat Detection With SIEM

SIEM solutions leverage advanced analytics and machine-learning algorithms to detect patterns and identify suspicious activities in real time. By analyzing events and log data, SIEM platforms can identify indicators of compromise (IOCs) and behavioral anomalies that may indicate a security incident. This proactive approach helps organizations stay ahead of emerging threats and take timely actions to mitigate risks

Strengthening Threat Detection With AI-enabled Anomaly Detection

To enhance the capabilities of SIEM systems, organizations can integrate AI-enabled anomaly detection techniques. These techniques leverage machine-learning algorithms to establish baselines of normal behavior and identify deviations from these patterns. By automatically detecting anomalies, SIEM solutions can identify potential insider threats, advanced persistent threats, and other sophisticated attack techniques that may go unnoticed by traditional security measures. The integration of AI-enabled anomaly detection strengthens an organization’s ability to detect and respond to cyber threats promptly.

SOAR Orchestrates and Automates Incident Response

SOAR solutions are instrumental in orchestrating and automating security responses across various elements of an organization’s IT landscape. These elements can encompass network devices, servers, applications, databases, and security systems, much like SIEM. Through integrating these different data sources and automating the response to security events, SOAR platforms offer an enhanced overview of the organization’s security status, allowing for a more effective and efficient threat detection and remediation process.

Streamlining Incident Response With SOAR

Once a potential security incident is detected, SOAR solutions come into play to facilitate an efficient and automated incident response process. SOAR platforms streamline and orchestrate incident response activities, integrating with various security tools and systems to automate workflows and response actions. This automation helps organizations respond to incidents swiftly, reducing response times and minimizing the impact of security breaches.

Incident Management and Playbooks and SOAR

SOAR solutions provide a centralized platform for incident management, allowing security teams to track, prioritize, and assign incidents to the appropriate stakeholders. They enable security teams to define playbooks, which are predefined and automated response workflows that guide the steps to be taken for specific types of incidents. Playbooks can include actions such as isolating affected systems, blocking malicious IP addresses, gathering forensic evidence, and notifying stakeholders. By automating these response actions, SOAR solutions free up security personnel to focus on more complex and strategic tasks, accelerating incident response and reducing the risk of human error.

Collaboration and Communication in Incident Response

Furthermore, SOAR platforms facilitate collaboration and communication among different teams involved in incident response, including security operations, IT operations, and incident response teams. By providing a centralized and shared view of incidents, SOAR solutions enable effective coordination and knowledge sharing, ensuring a unified and cohesive response to security threats.

Audit Logging and Forensic Capabilities

Another important aspect of SIEM/SOAR systems is the integration of audit logging capabilities. Audit logging allows organizations to capture and retain a comprehensive record of security events and activities. These logs serve as valuable forensic evidence in the event of a security incident and support compliance requirements. By integrating audit logging into SIEM/SOAR solutions, organizations can ensure that critical security events are recorded and retained for future analysis and investigation.

Third-party Risk Management: Protecting Business Partnerships and Collaborations

Third-party risk management has become a critical aspect of cybersecurity for organizations that engage in business partnerships and collaborations. The involvement of third-party relationships introduces inherent risks, as it often entails sharing sensitive data and granting access to critical systems. To effectively manage these risks, organizations need to establish robust mechanisms for continuous monitoring and assessment of the security posture of their third-party partners.

Conducting Thorough Due Diligence on Third Parties’ Security Posture

The first step in third-party risk management is conducting thorough due diligence during the selection process. Organizations should assess the security capabilities and practices of potential partners before entering into any agreements. This includes evaluating their security policies, incident response procedures, data protection measures, and overall compliance with industry regulations and standards.

However, due diligence is not a one-time process; it should be an ongoing practice throughout the duration of the business relationship. Regular assessments and monitoring of third-party security practices are necessary to ensure that they meet the organization’s security requirements and continue to uphold their commitment to protecting sensitive information.

Continuous Monitoring and Assessment of Third Parties

Continuous monitoring involves implementing mechanisms to track and assess the security posture of third-party partners in real time or at regular intervals. This can be achieved through various methods, such as security questionnaires, audits, on-site inspections, and security assessments conducted by independent third-party assessors. The goal is to gather relevant information about the third party’s security controls, vulnerabilities, and incident response capabilities.

Additionally, organizations can leverage technology solutions to streamline the third-party risk management process. Vendor risk management platforms and tools provide automated workflows for conducting assessments, tracking security controls, and managing documentation related to third-party relationships. These solutions help organizations centralize and standardize the assessment process, ensuring consistency and efficiency in evaluating and monitoring third-party security.

Establish Incident Response and Communication Protocols

Another essential aspect of third-party risk management is establishing incident response protocols and communication channels. In the event of a security incident or data breach involving a third party, organizations must have clear procedures in place to mitigate the impact and coordinate the response effort. This includes establishing lines of communication, defining escalation paths, and outlining roles and responsibilities for incident response activities.

Furthermore, organizations should regularly review and update their third-party risk management programs to adapt to evolving threats and changes in the business landscape. As new vulnerabilities and risks emerge, it is crucial to reassess the security practices of existing third-party partners and implement necessary remediation measures. Additionally, organizations should stay informed about industry best practices and regulatory requirements related to third-party risk management to ensure compliance and maintain a proactive security stance.

How Kiteworks Helps Organizations With Comprehensive Cyber Risk Management

The Kiteworks Private Content Network empowers organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content. From one platform, organizations have consolidated sensitive content governance, compliance, and protection. Kiteworks unifies, tracks, controls, and secures sensitive content moving within, into, and out of an organization, significantly improving risk management and ensuring regulatory compliance on all sensitive content communications.

One of the ways Kiteworks enables organizations to address compliance requirements is through its robust logging and record-keeping capabilities. The platform maintains detailed logs and records of data access, file transfers, and user activities. This helps organizations comply with incident notification and record-keeping requirements of various regulations. The real-time monitoring capabilities of Kiteworks make it easier for organizations to identify and report data breaches or incidents. In the event of a security incident, Kiteworks’ records can be used to notify relevant authorities and affected individuals.

Kiteworks also provides secure web forms and data collection mechanisms that ensure personal information protection. This helps organizations comply with consent requirements of regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The platform can be configured to store data in specific geographic locations, allowing organizations to comply with cross-border data transfer and data residency requirements.

In terms of proactive protection against inadvertent data leaks such as misdelivery and publishing errors, Kiteworks offers several advanced features. Its secure file sharing, email security and encryption, managed file transfer (MFT), secure web forms, and access control features ensure that data remains protected during the portability process. Kiteworks’ advanced security technology features help minimize the risk of data breaches and incidents in the first place. This includes a hardened virtual appliance, AI-enabled detection, an embedded network and WAF, and integrated data loss prevention (DLP), advanced threat prevention (ATP), and content disarm and reconstruction (CDR).

Kiteworks’ advanced digital rights management capabilities provide a secure and controlled environment for data sharing and collaboration. It allows organizations to set up rules and permissions for data access and sharing, reducing the risk of misdelivery. It also offers features like watermarking and view-only access to prevent unauthorized copying or publishing of sensitive data.

To learn more about Kiteworks’ capabilities, schedule a custom demo today.

Additional Resources

• Blog Post It’s Time for a Digital Rights Management “Do-over”
• Article How Does Security Risk Management Work?
• Blog Post What Is an Audit Log for Compliance? [Includes Solutions]
• Blog Post What Is Information Security Governance?
• Article What Is the Cyber Risk Management Process?
• Blog Post Shine a Light on Third-party Threats With a CISO Dashboard