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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Additional Resources

• Blog PostThe Best Managed File Transfer Software – Shopping
• GlossaryRisk Security
• Blog PostMost Secure File Sharing
• Blog PostGuide to Information Security Governance – Security
• GlossaryCybersecurity Risk Management Matters Glossary