Information security is not for amateurs.
In 2018, 16,500* new vulnerabilities were reported, a 13% growth over the previous year.
Do you think 2019 will be less risk than the year before?
Among the first news of the new year, there have already been the largest data leakage in the German history and even funding strategies to promote leak of information about how companies acted after September 11th.
In fact, cybercrime is working with various strategies. Their focus is always the strategic information of the companies. Doesn’t matter the size of the company, cyber threats can drive financial impacts for large corporations as well as for small and medium companies.
That’s why it’s so important to have your security strategies and defenses always up-to-date. While investment in cybersecurity controls is growing, threats are increasingly diverse.
The solution is to identify which gaps exist in your environment and to address the different types of risks with appropriate technologies.
We gathered 5 key controls to start the year with an comprehensive security plan.
Check out:
Inventory discovery and control
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Why?
Do you know all of your network devices? Do you know if all of them comply with the security rules established by IT department?
Visibility is still one of the big challenges to raise security in companies. Attackers are constantly working to find vulnerabilities which can be exploited.
So how can you ensure security when there are so many remote devices connecting to your network or cloud applications being used by your corporate users?
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Which tool to adopt?
You need tools that can scan your environment and detect network assets, identifying whether new assets have been added.
This type of action allows IT staff to have a more comprehensive view of their infrastructure. This is fundamental to define which tools are needed to protect the environment.
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Vulnerability management
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Why?
16,500 vulnerabilities were reported in 2018. Consider that half of them can be exploited by malicious applications. Still, you will have quite a problem.
Scanning with a focus on vulnerability management in all of your devices and applications is crucial to alert staff to urgent fixes and mitigation of serious risks.
The recurrent monitoring indicates which settings are unsecure or unsuitable for the security policy defined by your company, or according with market segment regulations.
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Which tool to adopt?
Scanning tools are designed to evaluate if the company’s security rules or market rules are being met.
Information from these scans make life of network managers much easier, because they will have consolidated information about which risks to prioritize.
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Activities and access control
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Why?
On the one hand, cyber threats, on the other hand, industry regulations. For example, right now, the European General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR requires that all companies adopt active protection features for their environments and report any security incidents.
The first challenge, to protect the environment with proper technology, many companies have already understand. But how do you control and provide information about activities on your network, from all users and devices without a log management tool?
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Which tool to adopt?
In this case, we can mention two types of tools. One of the most important security features of your network is the firewall. When properly configured, this technology manages the security rules allowing or denying users access based on their privilege level.
Another firewall’s advantage is the application of double-factor authentication to prevent improper access.
To be able to respond adequately to regulatory requirements, log management capabilities are ideal because they keep register of all activities on the network.
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Defense against malware
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Why?
In terms of threats, malware are the bad guys. Once in the environment, these malicious applications infect network segments and devices, performing malicious actions of the most diverse types: stealing or destroying information, slowing down devices, spying on users etc.
Among the most serious cases, ransomware hijack the devices until a ransom is paid – currently the most common is extortion by demand of bitcoin.
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Which tool to adopt?
ATP applications are the most suited for active detection and protection against malware. Most malicious applications are known, so ATP tools are able to identify them with agility.
On the other hand, there are unknown threats. Yet, current tools use cybersecurity intelligence to cross-reference information and identify malware patterns even on Zero Day, for example.
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Phishing
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Why?
In most cases, the favorite vector of attackers to distribute malware is e-mail. Social engineering scams, such as Phishing, are more than frequent in security incidents.
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Which tool to adopt?
In this case, it is crucial to protect e-mail servers, especially with Anti-phishing and Anti-malware modules. They use cybersecurity intelligence to identify malicious patterns in messages, IPs or low-reputation users, and scan files to avoid receiving malware.
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* Source: CVE Details.
