Build a Holistic, Proactive Defense Around Your Business Workflows
Complete protection against external workflow threats requires a holistic defense that spans the entire threat surface. Every external file transfer must be routed through a secure conduit that extends across the entire file transfer path from authorized employee to secure content repository to secure sharing application to authorized external party. By locking down the entire path, you gain the ability to send every external file transfer through a gauntlet of best-in-class security solutions, including SSO, LDAP, AV, ATP, DLP, and SIEM.
The modern enterprise spends millions of dollars on cyber security, yet the modern CISO can’t say in any specific detail what information is entering and leaving the firm. If you can’t see it, you can’t defend it. Everyday workflows where employees exchange sensitive information with external parties expose the firm to constant threats, including leaks, phishing, malicious files, and compliance violations. These external workflow threats have a common theme: a user is the actor, and a file is the agent. Complete protection requires a defense that spans the full breadth of the associated threat surface: the collective paths of all files entering and leaving your organization.
In my last blog post, I explored defending the threat surface against cyberattacks by inspecting and monitoring every file that comes into the organization. Today, I’ll discuss building a comprehensive defense around the entire path a file traverses in, through, and out of your organization.
When You Control Your Workflows, You Control Your Data
Total control of the threat surface allows you to move from reactive to proactive defense. Each file transfer trace contributes a thread to a larger tapestry that displays a detailed map of how your business interacts with the outside world—your CISO Dashboard of the external workflow threat surface. From this treasure trove of data, you can develop benchmarks of normal business activity and heuristics to detect anomalies. Why are files being downloaded from Nigeria when you don’t have an office there? Why is the new financial analyst sharing a quarterly statement prior to the press release? With this level of understanding, you can automatically respond to anomalous activity before it becomes a threat, providing the ultimate defense of your most sensitive content in a dangerously connected world.
This concludes my series on protecting sensitive content in a dangerously connected world. I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s a recap of the five strategies CISOs must employ to visualize, shrink, and defend the external workflow threat surface:
- Visualize the threat surface with a CISO Dashboard that monitors all sensitive content and IP that enters or leaves your organization, including the who, what, where, when and how of every file exchanged with an external party.
- Shrink the threat surface by constructing secure external and internal perimeters. Simplify external file sharing for users. Consolidate access to enterprise content. Eliminate shadow IT. Achieve cloud storage compliance.
- Harden the threat surface by encrypting data in-transit and at rest. Enforce secure file sharing with sanctioned channels. Enable enterprise content integration with content repositories like SharePoint and OpenText.
- Defend the threat surface against internal and external file threats. Employ tight governance over file transfers to prevent breaches. Inspect every file to block malicious incursions. Leverage external workflow metadata, such as origin, destination, time of transfer, and content sensitivity to increase compliance and control.
- Build a holistic proactive defense that spans the entire external workflow threat surface. Run every file through a gauntlet of best-in-class security solutions, including SSO, LDAP, AV, ATP, DLP, and SIEM. Develop benchmarks, heuristics and automation to move from reactive to proactive defense.
To learn more about building a comprehensive defense around the entire path a file traverses in, through, and out of your organization, schedule a custom demo of Kiteworks today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Third-party risk management is a strategy that organizations implement to identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with their interactions with third-party vendors, suppliers, or partners. These risks can range from data breaches and security threats to compliance issues and operational disruptions. The process typically involves conducting due diligence before engaging with a third party, continuously monitoring the third party’s activities and performance, and implementing controls to manage identified risks. The goal is to ensure that the third party’s actions or failures do not negatively impact the organization’s operations, reputation, or legal obligations.
Third-party risk management is crucial because it helps to identify, assess, and mitigate the risks associated with third-party relationships. This can include cybersecurity threats, compliance issues, operational risks, and reputational damage.
Policy controls are essential in third-party risk management as they establish clear expectations for third-party behavior, data handling, and security practices. They help mitigate the risk of security incidents by defining acceptable actions, and ensure third parties comply with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards. Further, policy controls provide a foundation for monitoring third-party activities and enforcing compliance, allowing the organization to take appropriate action in case of policy violations. Thus, policy controls serve as a critical framework for managing third-party risks effectively.
Audit logs are integral to third-party risk management as they offer a comprehensive record of all third-party activities within your systems. They aid in identifying potential risks by highlighting unusual or suspicious activities, serve as a crucial resource during incident response and forensic investigations, and help ensure regulatory compliance by providing proof of effective security measures and third-party monitoring. In addition, they foster a culture of accountability and transparency among third parties, deterring malicious activities and encouraging adherence to security policies.
Kiteworks helps with third-party risk management by providing a secure platform for sharing and managing sensitive content. The platform is designed to control, track, and secure sensitive content that moves within, into, and out of an organization, significantly improving risk management. Kiteworks also provides two levels of email encryption, Enterprise and Email Protection Gateway (EPG), to secure sensitive email communications. This helps to protect against third-party risks associated with email communication.
Additional Resources
- Blog Post The Best Managed File Transfer Software – Shopping
- Glossary Risk Security
- Blog Post Most Secure File Sharing
- Blog Post Guide to Information Security Governance – Security
- Glossary Cybersecurity Risk Management Matters Glossary