IT Directors and CISO’s: This is Your First Priority for Cybersecurity

IT Directors and CISO’s: This is Your First Priority for Cybersecurity

Have you just been appointed Chief Cybersecurity Officer (CISO) in a new organization, or are you an IT Director responsible for cybersecurity?

Getting started with your cybersecurity strategy can be a headache or a big challenge, or sometimes both. You need to make sure you have all your ducks in a row to define your strategy because any misstep can be costly (network intrusion, ransomware, fraud, etc.).

Getting started on the right foot

You need to consider these essential elements before you start defining your strategy:

• You need to know your key security risks
• You need to know your real cybersecurity weaknesses and strengths
• Your awareness campaigns will never be enough to eliminate the risk of an employee clicking on a phishing email. Having a click rate of 1% of employees is a miracle. But the hacker is only looking for one click!
• You will never be able to protect against what you can't see. If you don't have visibility into the security of your network, you will end up getting hacked

So your first priority should be to get an in-depth snapshot of your current cybersecurity posture. To do this, you need to perform a cybersecurity diagnostic.

What is a cybersecurity diagnostic?

The cybersecurity diagnostic allows you to get a clear picture of your cybersecurity posture.

In its most basic form, it is called a security audit. The audit verifies if you follow recognized cybersecurity best practices (ISO 27001, NIST, etc.). For example:

• Do you use best practices for access and password management?
• Do you educate your users on cyber risks regularly?
• Do you have an incident response plan?
• Do you have tools to detect cyber attacks?
• Do you manage security vulnerabilities in your network?
• And the list goes on

Generally, the security audit is performed via a form that you must fill out and return to an external consultant who will analyze it and provide you with a report. You can also do it internally if you have the required expertise.

Security audits have been the norm for many years, but with the explosion of cyber attacks over the last few years, the audit is no longer considered effective enough. It is too theoretical and does not take into account the real operational capacity of the organization.

If you neglect this operational aspect, you'll get caught by hackers.

Operational security diagnosis to bridge the gap

Based on our industry experience, we strongly recommend that you do not stop at an audit based on best practices and form filling. You should also verify operationally that you are properly protected. To do this, plug an intrusion detection technology (IDS/IPS/NDR) into your network for a few days and observe what, if any, attacks are actually targeting your network. This exercise allows you to identify the main security vulnerabilities in your network, the systems in your network that are most attractive to hackers, etc. This will allow you to uncover and question certain network configurations (e.g., servers that are accessible at large on the Internet and that have no reason to be there, etc.).

This exercise also allows you to verify that practices you think are already in place are functioning properly. For example, if you have a security vulnerability management process in place and during the operational diagnosis you find critical vulnerabilities dating back to 2017 or 2018, it means that you have issues in your vulnerability management process.

How can Streamscan help you?

We are an operational cybersecurity company with years of field experience in cyberattack response, cyber defense technology development, and remote security monitoring. So we see attacks coming, mutating, and evolving daily, whether hackers or bots launch them. We also see which vulnerabilities hackers try to target first.

This experience has taught us that no cybersecurity strategy based on a paper audit (or best practices) that doesn’t include an operational diagnostic will provide an organization with solid protection. StreamScan’s audit and operational diagnosis answer these questions:

• What are the main security vulnerabilities currently in your network?
• How secure is your O365 email solution?
• How good is your antivirus software?
• Do you have the right measures in place to detect ransomware?
• Are the other vulnerabilities commonly exploited by hackers secured?

At the end of the diagnostic, we provide you with a clear plan that identifies and prioritizes the actions you need to take immediate and short, and medium-term actions to enhance your security. This report will become your cybersecurity roadmap.

As an added bonus, we provide you with an estimated budget to achieve this plan. Impressed?

To learn more about our security diagnostic, contact us.

Need Help with Cybersecurity? StreamScan is Here.

Whether you need help conducting a security diagnostic, developing a security plan, or want to implement an MDR (Managed Detection and Response solution, StreamScan has experts with years of experience in cybersecurity who can help. Get in touch with us at smbsecurity@streamscan.ai or call us at 1 877-208-9040.