What does comprehensive security posture look like?

As technology continues to become an enabler for business innovation and value creation, you and your organisation need confidence that your security is enough to keep your business secure in a cybersecurity landscape that is constantly evolving. Modern security solutions are the key to providing the confidence needed to innovate and execute with velocity but with countless technology and services in the market, it can be difficult to visualise how they come together to provide true end-to-end protection. This article is designed to explore the ingredients that go into blending a comprehensive security solution that provides enterprise-grade security and advice to as many businesses as possible. Read on to find out more.

What makes a modern comprehensive security solution?

There isn’t a silver bullet to keep your business secure but comprehensive security can be achieved through a blend of three key ingredients: strong security controls and processes, security intelligence that monitors your end-to-end infrastructure for potential breaches, and people who have been empowered to identify and report security incidents. These three ingredients form a solution that will enable you to understand, detect and respond to security threats as well as provide clarity on where your focus should be when improving your security posture in response to the constantly evolving threat landscape.

What does a foundational example of modern security look like?

To be transparent, the following examples will be based on our Security Intelligence services to shed light on what the foundation of modern security looks like within the context of your business. 

Security strategy that shines a light on the current state of your business

First, comprehensive security begins by shining a light on the current state of your business’s information security and distilling the insights gained into actionable recommendations written in plain English. Our security experts will then work with you to map out your organisation’s infrastructure, attack vectors, and full risk profile so we can start the process of handcrafting a solution that will protect it today and tomorrow. In addition to providing a solution of security services, our experts will also use the insights gained to craft governance and risk-based advice for your decision-makers to help them improve security policies and processes, and the level of security education across your business.

Real-time management & prioritisation of vulnerabilities

It is likely that the above security consultation will uncover vulnerabilities across your business and its infrastructure. These vulnerabilities, such as the Log4j exploit discovered in late 2021, could be used to launch attacks and so the simple control of actively patching them to prevent this is crucial. However, larger businesses can often have thousands of vulnerabilities dating back years from failed and missed software updates. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, will often lack an individual who will champion keeping all devices and software updated. To provide businesses with the toolset to manage this, our Vulnerability Management service provides real-time reporting of which devices and systems are vulnerable to being exploited and should be prioritised, as well as tracking when patches and updates have been missed or failed to install properly. When the results of vulnerability management tools are combined with the security alert intelligence and analysis coming from your Security Operations Centre and SIEM technology (more on this below), your business will be better equipped to reduce its attack surface, or the volume of opportunities attackers have to launch attacks, whilst simultaneously strengthening your ability to quickly contain breaches and repel attacks.

End-to-end threat detection

Detection-based services, such as our Network Intrusion Detection and Secure Endpoint Service, enable businesses to leverage intelligence analysis and machine learning to detect potential threats across their entire infrastructure. By monitoring for anomalies across network traffic and device activity, these services can detect both known and unknown threats at the earliest opportunity and before they can do significant damage. For example, our Secure Endpoint Service leverages Endpoint Detection and Response technology, CrowdStrike, which combines next-generation antivirus and threat intelligence analysis to detect new and modified versions of malware before they have been uploaded to the legacy antivirus databases.

Around-the-clock security response

Security threats against your infrastructure can happen at any time and so ensuring your business can respond to threats around the clock is key to gaining comprehensive modern security. The pressure on your security response team can also mount as your organisation grows in size or complexity. Our Security Operations Centre (SOC) is designed to extend enterprise-grade security response and scale to as many New Zealand businesses as possible. It does this by combining the expertise of security specialists from a wide array of technology backgrounds, who are available 24x7, with cutting-edge SIEM technology and automation to guarantee a security response that can scale to match any velocity.

Extending security controls to remote users

As Cloud applications and services continue to enable remote workforces, IT and Security Managers have been wrestling with how they provide secure remote access to applications, data and services without introducing gaps in their business’s security or dramatically impacting user experience. Cloud Web Security services resolve this issue by extending security coverage of the controls and measures that your corporate network provides to include your remote users - regardless of where they are working. With one of the world’s most advanced Cloud security platforms, you’d be able to place a security perimeter around your remote users just as if they were connected to your office’s WiFi.

As the internet becomes increasingly integral to modern corporate networking, forward-thinking businesses are beginning to realise that how they authenticate and provide access to both Cloud and on-premise applications needs to evolve. Zero-trust network access enables your organisation to authenticate and connect users directly to applications and resources, rather than your entire network, resulting in both an exceptional user experience and a highly secure environment.

Proving your business is prepared to repel cyberattacks

It’s one thing to think your business is protected, it’s another to know it. Threat Emulation is a service designed to assess your security posture by executing an emulated cyberattack that will attempt to outmanoeuvre your people and bypass your security controls with a range of various attack scenarios. For example, our Threat Emulation team will use advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures that are actively deployed by cyber attackers to attempt to install malware or gain unauthorised access. This emulated attack is designed to uncover as many vulnerabilities as possible including those that originate from your people. In fact, a breach will often result from someone making a mistake such as clicking a phishing link. These emulated attacks will attempt to find weaknesses in your staff’s security education as well as your technology, processes and controls. The results of these emulated attack scenarios combined with intelligence from your Security Operations Centre and security consultations will provide detailed indications of where you need to invest to make improvements. Threat Emulation services are also fantastic tools to use after your business has undergone a transformation project or introduced a new IT component to ensure it hasn’t degraded your security posture.

Guiding you through the cybersecurity landscape

Your security experts, whether internal or external, should become your trusted advisors who will guide you and your business through a constantly evolving cybersecurity landscape. Threats will continue to evolve and staying ahead of them will often feel like an uphill battle but the intelligence coming from your technology and people will give you the edge you need to stay ahead of the curve. To achieve that advantage for our clients, our security experts distill the information and data coming from security software and convert it into actionable suggestions to help IT Managers prioritise. Our experts will also engage businesses at a governance level to assist boards and executives in making more informed decisions about managing security and privacy risks.

Conclusion

Cyber threats facing businesses of all shapes and sizes are rapidly becoming more sophisticated and persistent. When boiled down, comprehensive and modern security solutions encompass strong security controls, end-to-end intelligence monitoring, and a high degree of security education and sensitivity across your business. Ultimately, any security solution you decide to implement should be handcrafted to provide the precise degree of protection your organisation needs. If your business has a security solution that is failing to protect critical elements of your infrastructure or you feel that you and your organisation are not being guided through the security landscape, then please reach out to us.