[BreachExchange] Fighting the cybersecurity knowns: 4 core components

[Inga Goddijn]

http://www.csoonline.com/article/3144548/techology-business/fighting-the-cybersecurity-knowns-4-core-components.html

Earlier this year, SevOne fell victim to a phishing scam that resulted in
the release of W-2 wage and tax data belonging to current and former
employees of the network infrastructure monitoring company.

After learning about the breach, management apologized and urged employees
to follow “good data security” practices in order to lower their chance of
becoming victims. That was sensible advice since an unauthorized outsider
now possessed stolen sensitive personal information that could be exploited
to file false tax returns or commit other forms of identity theft.

But the after-the-fact reaction also underscored a couple of frustrating
paradoxes about contemporary cybersecurity.

   - More than 90 percent of cyberattacks are either known threats or
   variants of known threats, not zero-day attacks related to a previously
   unknown software vulnerabilities, according to AT&T threat intelligence
   data
   <https://www.business.att.com/cybersecurity/docs/cyberbreachresponse.pdf>.
   In theory, organizations should be able to detect and prevent attacks by
   employing proper defensive measures. Unfortunately, the battle is far from
   finished with cybercrime expected to cost the global economy a record $445
   billion this year.
   - While the sensational nature of headline-grabbing breaches may conjure
   up lurid scenarios of unstoppable and mysterious cyberpredators, the more
   mundane reality is that most organizations deserve some of the blame for
   their inadequate cybersecurity. And the urgency to bolster cybersecurity is
   only going to increase as enterprises digitize more of their internal and
   customer-facing operations with the adoption of the Internet of Things,
   cloud technology and mobile devices.

To be sure, adversaries are always looking for the next way into your
organization and they will probe for network weaknesses. But you can handle
the vast majority of known threats by implementing an approach to
cybersecurity that balances prevention, threat detection and response. A
newly published AT&T Cybersecurity Insights report
<https://www.business.att.com/cybersecurity/> for navigating the threat
landscape offers the following recommendations:

   1. *Invest in a multilayered approach: *Organizations should integrate
   all aspects of their digital infrastructure. That includes networks,
   systems, cloud-based services and endpoint devices, ranging from desktops
   to smartphones to smart devices connected via the IoT.
   2. *Keep patches and software apps current:* Stay current on software
   patches and updates to avoid the dangers of software vulnerabilities. Even
   though most threats are known, their variants still pose dangers.
   3. *Reduce impacts from any weak links:* Not everyone necessarily has
   the same idea about what constitutes good cybersecurity practices - and
   that includes both employees and third-party vendors. Awareness and
   education programs can help increase employee vigilance. At the same time,
   any contractors or business partners should be required to abide by clearly
   articulated policies and controls around cybersecurity as a precondition
   for working with your organization.
   4. *Make cybersecurity foundational: *This is an era of IT
   transformation in which many organizations are migrating to more flexible
   infrastructures that use cloud services and software-defined systems and
   networks. All the more reason to ensure that security is a foundational
   component of these initiatives. If they are present right from the start,
   the result will be a more agile and more secure organization.
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