National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) is observed every October to raise cybersecurity awareness and provide resources to help individuals and enterprises be safer and more secure online. This year, ExtraHop®, the pioneer in cloud-native network detection and response, is joining NCSAM organisers and security professionals around the world in offering tips and strategies for enterprise organisations to improve their security posture across hybrid and cloud workloads.
Smarter enterprise security
Below are the company’s top five tips for building smarter enterprise security:
- Prevention is a pipe dream
With global data breaches on the rise, organisations are increasingly shifting their strategy from protection and prevention at the perimeter to detection and response in the east-west traffic corridor.
Cybersecurity leaders should recenter their operations – people, process, and technology
According to Gartner, 60% of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated to rapid detection and response approaches by 2020 — up from less than 10% in 2014. While prevention still has value as a first line of defence, cybersecurity leaders should recenter their operations – people, process, and technology – on reducing dwell time and mitigating damage.
- Get clarity on cloud security
If you're hosting anything in the cloud, it’s critical to understand where your cloud service provider’s security responsibility ends and yours begins. Some of the most common threats to cloud security are home grown and preventable, including misconfiguration, unauthorised access, and insecure APIs.
- Trust no one not even your vendors
Enterprises rely on vendors for everything from infrastructure and applications to security. But do you know how vendors use your data? Ask questions of your vendors to ensure you understand how your data is being handled, where it’s going, and what level of encryption the vendor uses.
- Put your defences to the test
To improve the security posture of your organisation and find potential gaps in your defences, run red vs. blue exercises. These keep your security team sharp and help proactively identify your security vulnerabilities.
- Assume the threats are already inside
According to M-Trends 2019, the average dwell time of a threat in a corporate environment is 78 days. Businesses need to invest in the ability to actively monitor and analyse traffic inside their networks. This is where threats dwell, and right now it's an open field for attackers.
