As organizations expand and evolve, so do the challenges they face in maintaining their security. In an era where cyber threats are ever-present and constantly evolving, ensuring the security and resilience of your business can be a matter of sustainability, especially in the early stages.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023, it took organizations an average of 277 days or about nine months to identify and contain a breach. We know that longer data breach lifecycles cost significantly more than shorter ones. The faster you detect, respond to, and eliminate a security threat, the better it is for your organization- not only from an operational perspective but also from a financial point of view.
This blog aims to provide a step-by-step guide on how to strengthen your security posture. The goal is not only to empower you to proactively protect your organization from security threats but also to respond promptly and efficiently to security incidents when they arise.
Before we begin, let’s first understand what is meant by security posture and what its components are.
What Is Meant By Security Posture?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines Security Posture as
“The security status of an enterprise’s networks, information, and systems based on information security resources (e.g., people, hardware, software, policies) and capabilities in place to manage the defense of the enterprise and to react as the situation changes.”
In simple terms, security posture can be understood as an organization’s preparedness to defend against and respond to security threats. It gives a comprehensive view of the organization’s security strengths and resilience, considering the entirety of its security systems, policies, and procedures.
An organization’s security posture can be better understood by taking a closer look at its components, which include
1. Risk Management
Risk management is the process of managing the risks associated with the operation or ownership of IT within the organization. It involves identifying threats, vulnerabilities, and their potential impact on the organization's assets.
2. Incident Response
Incident response is the process of responding to security incidents to minimize damage, reduce recovery time and costs, and protect sensitive data. It involves processes for detecting, reporting, and mitigating security breaches.
3. Legal And Compliance Considerations
Many businesses operate in sectors that are governed by relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards, and adhering to them is a key component of security posture. This typically involves data protection, industry-specific compliance requirements, and contractual obligations.
4. Security Governance
Security governance primarily deals with ensuring that security is integrated into the organization's overall governance structure. It involves leadership commitment, risk oversight, and the alignment of security initiatives with business objectives.
5. Security Architecture
The security architecture is the most well-known and visible component of an organization’s security posture. It involves the design and implementation of security controls and measures to protect data, resources, and systems throughout the corporate networks. Some of the important elements of security architecture include Physical Security, endpoint security, network security, access control, etc.
6. Security Awareness and Training
Educating employees about security risks and best practices is a vital component of security posture. Regular security training programs help create a security-conscious culture, which plays an important role in reducing security incidents.
Now that we have a basic understanding of security posture, let’s see how you can improve your organization’s security posture.
How To Strengthen Your Security Posture
Strengthening your security posture is a continuous process requiring the support of all stakeholders from business leaders and management to engineers and end-users. The following are the key steps involved in improving the security posture of an organization:
1. Capture A Complete Picture Of Your Current Network
The first step necessary for improving your security posture is to get an accurate picture of its current state, i.e. knowing where your organization stands when it comes to managing security risks and handling security incidents.
Protecting your assets is easier when you are aware of what you are protecting and the threats you are protecting against. So, you need to assess the threats your organization is facing and the security controls you currently have in place. This is typically done by conducting a cybersecurity risk assessment.
The risk assessment will help you identify the vulnerabilities across your network and determine the security controls necessary to enhance security. Risk assessments can also be extended to evaluate and address any vulnerabilities posed by third-party vendors. This helps your organization minimize risks across the supply chain.
Overall, a security risk assessment covers the following key areas:
Identify critical business functions, data, IT assets, and compliance requirements
Determine the organization’s exposure to threats, vulnerabilities, and attack vectors.
Evaluate the maturity of the security controls, i.e. the efficiency and risk of their security controls.
If you’d like to learn more about cybersecurity risk assessments and how to conduct one, we’ve covered it in detail in an earlier blog post that you can access here: How To Perform A Cybersecurity Risk Assessment
2. Prioritize Risk By Business Impact
With all the information about assets, vulnerabilities, and the business risks they pose to your organization, you can now prioritize the risks based on your security goals. The first risk assessment is performed very diligently because it informs the risk benchmark for future evaluations.
When prioritizing risks, it is important to not rely solely on financial metrics because often risks to intangibles such as reputation or trust can cause far greater harm to the organization than monetary loss. Nevertheless, you can attach some monetary value to the intangibles so that you can prioritize all risks objectively, at least to some extent.
3. Track Security Metrics
Tracking security metrics is a critical step in maintaining and improving security posture because not only do the metrics measure the effectiveness of your security practices but also help identify ways to mitigate risks and guide future risk prioritization.
The metrics you decide to track will be used to identify, track, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, it is critical to track metrics that are relevant to your organization from an operational and strategic perspective as well as ensure the efficacy of your metrics program.
Since these metrics inform key security decisions, it is important to ensure that the KPIs aren’t overly complex and that the data they analyze is reliable and easy to understand. Here are some examples of important security metrics:
Intrusion attempts
Security incidents
Mean time to detect
Mean time to resolve
Mean time to contain
Mean age of open vulnerabilities
4. Create An Incident Response Plan
An incident response plan is a document that describes the organization’s approach to addressing and managing security incidents when they occur. The goal of the plan is to minimize the damage caused, reduce recovery time and costs, and protect sensitive data.
Typically, an incident response plan consists of the following four phases:
Preparation
The preparation phase involves creating a plan to respond to security incidents as quickly and efficiently as possible. The plan must identify the incident response team, define their role, and outline steps to be taken in the event of a security incident. The ultimate goal here is to eliminate doubt and hesitation and empower the security team to act swiftly and decisively.
Detections and Analysis
The detection and analysis phase is set in motion when a security incident occurs. It focuses on determining how to document, prioritize, and respond to an incident. It also outlines the communication plan for notifying relevant stakeholders, including customers and regulators, of the incident if necessary.
Containment, Elimination, and Recovery
This phase includes everything that an organization does in response to a security incident to contain the damage and recover from the incident. Although the actions taken differ based on the type of incident, they essentially aim to stop the threat, eradicate it from the network, and get the business operations back to normal functioning levels.
This phase also involves addressing the vulnerabilities that allowed the incident to occur to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
Post-Incident Activity
Once the threat has been eliminated and business operations are back on track, the organization needs to reflect on what transpired, assess the severity and damage, and reevaluate the effectiveness of security controls. All of these are included in the post-incident activity phase.
5. Create A Security-Conscious Culture
A security-conscious culture encourages employees to be aware of security threats and promotes behaviors that mitigate potential security risks. It ensures safe cybersecurity practices through the collective participation of all stakeholders. This can be achieved through basic lessons in psychological and human behavior.
Creating a security-conscious culture involves imparting basic training including how phishing attacks work, what is social engineering, what is good password hygiene, and the organization’s security policies and procedures. This makes the employees knowledgeable about security policies, procedures, and best practices, empowering them to act autonomously when facing security threats. Such a culture goes a long way in improving the overall security of the organization.
6. Regularly Reassess Your Security Posture
Security posture is not static. It constantly evolves in response to changes in business processes, developments in technology, and changes in the threat landscape. Outdated security systems and practices give you a false sense of security, lulling you into inaction. This hurts your security posture by creating vulnerabilities that allow cybercriminals to infiltrate your systems.
Therefore, it is critical to regularly reassess your security posture and make necessary changes to address advancements in security technologies and the emergence of new threats.
Conclusion
In summary, a security posture gauges your organization's readiness for security incidents and evaluates your response mechanisms in the event of a breach. A robust security posture translates to secure and uninterrupted business operations, higher productivity, and improved overall business outcomes.
However, strengthening and sustaining a robust security posture is no small feat. The integration of new technologies, shifts in business practices, and the ever-evolving threat landscape present challenges in accurately assessing, let alone enhancing, the strength of your security posture.
A good way to go about creating and maintaining a strong security posture is by aligning your security program to a best-in-class cybersecurity framework like ISO 27001. Additionally, you can also get help from security experts like Jones IT.
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About The Author
Hari SubediMarketing Manager at Jones IT
Hari is an online marketing professional with a focus on content marketing. He writes on topics related to IT, Security, and Small Business. He is also the founder and managing director of Girivar Kft., a business services company located in Budapest, Hungary.