Automation Is the Essential Part of Cyber Risk Management: Know Why

Cybersecurity risk management, also defined as IT risk management, applies to any of the technology, people, regulations, and processes that a company may employ to assess, handle, and minimize cybersecurity threats to customer and company data, as well as business operations. IT risk, detection tools for example, would almost certainly provide cybersecurity risk management software as well as security controls to prevent and address cyber risk and security exposures proactively.

Cyber risks faced by organizations

Companies are exposed to cyber threats from a range of sources that aren’t limited to information systems.

• Internal risks — data theft, unauthorized device access, a lack of an information security culture, insufficient employee knowledge, ineffective IT governance, and weak application development criteria
• External risks — cybercrime, concerns such as worms and viruses, and new technology vulnerability (Cloud computing, SaaS)

Today, cyber warfare can be used to fight corporate wars, in which rivals steal confidential information by breaking into corporate networks or manipulating their flaws. Such unethical acts of manipulation and vandalism will result in significant sales, brand image, and market share losses for a company. Furthermore, any data fraud cases involving payment method or patient healthcare details are the responsibility of the company.

Automation of the Cyber risk management process

Threat and vulnerability detection, configuration and enforcement auditing, and identity effective governance are all examples of IT activities, fraud, and surveillance equipment that can be used to automate the IT Risk Management process. Incidents resulting from these systems can be mapped to IT Risk repositories, allowing incident management teams to assess the organization’s risk.

For companies that want to protect their IT assets from internal and external threats related to information security, infrastructure, project management, and business continuity processes, automation in the risk management process is important. Furthermore, without process automation for risk and enforcement management, a well-defined IT GRC program based on frameworks like ISO 27002 and COBIT will not obtain optimal maturity scores.

Information about a newly registered Internet Explorer vulnerability in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) can, be automatically installed to the Cyber Risk Management solution. The Cyber Risk Management software will initiate an incident investigation and associate the incident with a data security asset or group of assets depending on the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list. Based on the risk parameters (confidentiality, honesty, availability, effectiveness, performance, compliance, and reliability) of the resource, the solution will then identify the risk ratings and seriousness of the incident.

The automated system can then execute the appropriate action plan for the information investor’s shareholder(s). Does this limitation become such a threat, the asset owner may begin the risk assessment process and use the CVE number to initiate constructive patch management? If the event has little or no effect on the company, the asset owner can also discard it (false alarm). Risk management automation can help add more robustness and discipline to the process of resolving IT threats and incidents, lowering enforcement costs and economic losses.

Current cybersecurity challenges

Organizations today depend intensively on the internet to venture out to new markets and geographies, develop new business models, and improve productivity. However, with the rise in the number and complexity of cyber threats and attacks, it’s more important than ever for them to consider the risks and countermeasures needed to reap the benefits of cyberspace implementation. While there has been a significant increase in cybersecurity awareness, product innovation, consumer attention, and vendor depend, there are still some significant challenges.

• Changing risk and attacks — Cyberspace has grown into the foundation for the survival of entire organizations, if not nations, and is now the primary conduit for clandestine warfare and targeted attacks.
• Rising complexity and a changing technical environment — New threat vectors are increasingly emerging because of the emergence of mobility, de-parameterization, and cloud integration.
• Competitive market climate — IT protection is still seen as a cost center, and it will take more time and energy for it to be an enterprise need and cooperate with the business.
• Point solution approach — While numerous security solutions provide adequate protection towards specialized security problems, interoperability between them remains a problem.
• Huge effort and expertise — Implementation, management, and fine-tuning of security measures necessitate considerable effort and skills.

Automate secure account management

Credentials are some of a company’s most valuable properties, making them a frequent priority for cyber attackers. Prioritizing authentication security by safe account provisioning may help IT risk management approaches (and deprovisioning). The dilemma is finding out how to scale account operations safely. ARM aids companies in maintaining strict security policies and stable account management by automating account procurement and deprovisioning. Our role-specific models enforce the concept of least privilege to ensure stable account formation (and deletion).

Cyberattacks in the modern age have mostly been automated. If companies attempt to protect against these attacks manually, the battle becomes one of man versus machine, with the odds stacked against the company. To adequately protect against malicious software, it is critical to fight fire with fire, or as in this case, machine with machine, by incorporating automation into cybersecurity efforts. Automation changes things by reducing the number of threats and allowing for quicker identification and avoidance of previously unknown threats.

Many security vendors are considering automation to improve efficiency and reduce manpower or headcount. Although this is valid, automation should also be regarded as a method that can be used to better predict actions and enforce protections more quickly. Automation, when applied correctly and with the right resources, will help to deter effective cyberattacks. The following are the four examples of how automation can be used.

1. Correlating Data

Many security vendors amass large quantities of threat intelligence. Data, on the other hand, is worthless unless it is structured into actionable measures. To do so effectively, companies must first obtain threat data from all attack vectors and data security within their own systems, as well as security risk information from outside sources.

Inside the vast quantities of data, they must find groups of threats that behave similarly and use that information to predict the attacker’s next move. The more data collected, the more reliable the findings, and the less likely the groups would identify an anomaly. As a result, the study must be able to scale the existing threat volume, which is difficult to do manually. Data sequencing becomes quicker, more efficient, and more accurate thanks to machine learning and automation. Finally, the only way to effectively identify advanced and unfamiliar threats is to combine this strategy with complex threat analysis.

2. Generating Protections Faster Than Attacks Can Spread

When a threat has been detected, defenses must be implemented and deployed as soon as possible before an attack spreads through the organization’s networks, endpoints, or cloud. Since analysis adds a time penalty, the best way to avoid a recently found attack is at the attack’s expected next stage, not where it was detected.

Manually developing a complete collection of protections for the various security technologies and compliance points capable of countering potential practices is a time-consuming process that is not only sluggish but also challenging when correlating multiple security vendors in your environment and not choosing the right control and resources. While simultaneously maintaining with the attack, automation will help speed up the development of defenses without putting a strain on resources.

3. Implementing Protections Faster Than Attacks Can Progress

Once defenses have been established, they must be placed into place to avoid the attack from advancing further in its lifecycle. To provide effective security against the attack’s current and potential activities, protections should be implemented not only in the area where the threat was discovered, but also across all technology within the company.

The only way to outrun and combat an automated and counterattack is to automate the delivery of defenses. You can more accurately predict the next phase of an unexpected attack and move quickly enough to avoid it with advanced big data attack profiling and automated generation and distribution of defenses.

4. Detecting Infections Already in Your Network

A timer begins counting down from the moment a threat reaches the network until it’s a breach. You must move much faster than the attacker to avoid an attack before data escapes the network. You must be able to interpret data from your network forward and backwards in time, searching for a set of behaviors that indicates a host in your network has been affected, in order to detect an infected host or inappropriate behaviors. Manually correlating and analyzing data around the network, endpoints, and clouds can be difficult to scale, much like analyzing unknown threats struggling to reach the platform.

Conclusion

Automation leads to quicker examination and identification and intervention if a host on your network is breached. Intruders use automation to move rapidly and quickly deploy security threats. Automation is the only way to keep up with and protect against these threats effectively. A next-generation threat protection analyzes data quickly, converting security malware into known threats, generating an attack DNA, and automatically generating and implementing a full range of defenses across the enterprise to avoid the attack timeline.