The U.K. government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2022 found that only 54% of businesses have acted in the past 12 months to identify cybersecurity risks within their organization, a drop of 10% compared to 2020. This should be cause for major concern, because without understanding where the weak points and vulnerabilities are, it is impossible for businesses to properly mitigate against them.
When it comes to cybersecurity, instead of relying on educated (or uneducated) guesses, businesses would be far better off adopting a proactive approach to ensure the best possible protection against cyber threats.
What Is a Proactive Cybersecurity Approach?
Proactive cybersecurity uses security testing techniques that mimic how attackers would target a business to help identify weaknesses before they can be exploited. The reality is that traditional, more passive approaches to cybersecurity, such as periodic patching and reactively removing malicious software, simply are no longer enough to deter determined modern threats like organized criminal gangs or state-sponsored attackers.
Proactive cybersecurity involves anticipating the attacks and the damage they can cause before they happen. The approach allows teams to prioritize tasks more efficiently, leading to much faster risk reduction than is possible using traditional techniques.
One Size Does Not Fit All
One size does not fit all when it comes to proactive cybersecurity. The maturity of an organization’s existing cybersecurity program will dictate which tools and tactics are most appropriate to use, and when.
For example, an organization with a relatively new security program should start by implementing initiatives like vulnerability scanning, security information and event management (SIEM) and security policy management. As the program matures, more advanced tools like penetration testing and web app scanning can be introduced. Then, once maturity is reached, advanced tools like adversary simulation and red teaming can be used to ensure the highest possible levels of protection.
The more businesses train and invest in their approach, the more efficient and prepared they will become. However, no business can ever be 100% secure from cyberattacks. The aim for most businesses should be to make themselves as unattractive a target as possible, leading would-be attackers to move on to an easier, less-prepared alternative.
Six Tips for a Successful Proactive Security Program
A successful proactive security program is a critical component of a robust information security strategy. The following are six tips to ensure successful implementation for any business:
- Understand what needs protecting: With a clear understanding of what they are trying to protect (based on solid inventories and auditing), security teams will not be making decisions based on assumptions, but on experience.
- Understand third-party ecosystems: Statistically, a large number of breaches are caused by security vulnerabilities within third party systems, so understanding what business partners, suppliers and contractors have access to is mandatory.
- Understand people and processes: An effective security team is foundational to properly assess weaknesses and remediate, as well as investigate, interpret and respond to security incidents. Success depends on the team’s alignment around key responsibilities, meaning that everyone already knows their roles and can immediately swing into action without hesitation. Alignment and communication can speed up time to remediation as well as time to resolution should a breach occur.
- Think like an attacker: Instead of thinking about how defenses are supposed to work, business leaders and their security teams need to base decisions on how they actually work right now. Knowing the true strengths and weaknesses means they can identify how attackers might gain access and work to proactively prevent successful attacks.
- Invest in vulnerability assessments, penetration testing and adversary simulation: Simply put, these tools will make security much more efficient. As mentioned above, the timing of such investments will depend on the maturity of the business’s overall security program. However, as a bare minimum, security teams should be performing regular vulnerability assessments to remove any low-hanging fruit. Performing these assessments is easy to automate and there are plenty of tools available to help do that. Then, as the program matures, penetration testing and adversary simulation can build on this. These require trained practitioners with specific frameworks and goals, and there are two ways this can be approached. The first is to recruit an internal penetration testing team, and the second is to use a third-party organization that specializes in providing these services. Depending on the business’s overall security maturity level, one option will likely be more suitable than the other.
- Test, test and test again: Unfortunately, there is no magic recipe for preventing security incidents. Security programs need to be continuous, iterative processes in order to systematically improve security controls over time. Testing will play a key role in this, and strategies should be based on three core pillars—prevention, detection and response. Penetration testing the prevention controls, unit testing the detection controls, and red teaming the response controls on a regular basis gives organizations the best chance of spotting new vulnerabilities quickly, before they can be exploited.
The Benefits of Adopting a Proactive Security Approach
When it comes to cybersecurity, ignorance can be dangerous and costly. Adopting a proactive approach to security offers some clear benefits:
- An intelligent approach to vulnerability management. Through initiatives like vulnerability scanning and penetration testing, businesses gain the critical insights they need to avert disaster. These two methods work together to empower security teams to proactively identify vulnerabilities before an attack occurs, giving them the chance they need to fix weaknesses and bolster security.
Intelligent vulnerability management programs continuously elevate the security of IT environments by creating robust processes for identifying, classifying, remediating and mitigating weaknesses in the environment, all of which reduce the chance of becoming a target.
- Adherence to regulatory requirements.Proactive security programs also help address regulatory requirements including PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX and GDPR. Reports from vulnerability management solutions and penetration testing allow businesses to demonstrate ongoing due diligence to assessors and avoid significant fines for non-compliance as a result. In fact, according to HelpSystems’ 2022 penetration testing survey, 75% of respondents said one of the primary reasons they conducted such tests was to help with compliance initiatives and obligations.
- Avoiding the pain and cost of a breach. Recovering from the cost of a cyber ecurity breach, regardless of the size, can be costly. Financially, organizations can end up paying millions of dollars just to return to equilibrium. Operationally, a breach can halt the flow of business for months or even years. Recovery also does not always repair a damaged reputation, making it difficult to retain existing customers or attract new ones.
When it comes to effective cybersecurity programs, the days of traditional, reactive approaches are long gone. Attackers are getting smarter, more creative and more determined, which means businesses need security to match. Proactive cybersecurity programs can better help protect companies from cyber incidents that can have a serious impact on finances, trustworthiness and reputations.