Fight Cybersecurity Threats With Actionable Data

BitSight is a Business Reporter client.

Cybersecurity programs haven’t caught up to the growing digital risks, but utilizing data can protect more than you might think.

The news has been flooded recently with big-name organizations hit hard by cyberattacks. The effects have been alarming enough to prompt an executive order from the U.S. government that requires government agencies to meet certain cybersecurity standards.

Yet, to remain competitive in most industries, there continues to be a push for third-party connections to company networks and the ongoing adoption of SaaS products. Cloud-based solutions have taken over the world of business, with organizations adopting an average of 3.7 public cloud services in 2021, according to research from Flexera. However, SaaS adoption can introduce risk to networks.

This has forced organizations to reevaluate the effectiveness of the cybersecurity controls they have in place. The same tools that have been used for years to manage security aren’t going to have the same effect in this age of digital transformation. With access to trusted and actionable data, security teams can take back control of network endpoints and help their company remain a trusted partner and provider and a better business investment.

Cybersecurity transformation

You’ve hired more security managers and IT support staff. You’ve added cybersecurity questions to your vendor onboarding assessment and held yearly breach prevention training for your employees. The problem is, because of the sophistication of cybercriminals in today’s digital world, proper cyber hygiene requires program-wide transformation and continuous management.

This sounds daunting, but you might be surprised how the proper use of data can help fend off cyber threats. With up-to-date metrics providing consistent insight into your network’s endpoints, security managers can offer visibility into your entire network (and the risks hiding within); quantify network risks in terms of financial loss; and communicate cybersecurity risk to the board of directors.

By consistently focusing attention on these three areas, you’ll begin to understand the impact of your cybersecurity decisions; communicate changes to key stakeholders; and have a comparative view of your program’s performance over time.

Identify network risks

This might seem obvious, but we’re talking about a bigger picture than the assessments done monthly or quarterly by many security teams. Threat actors can infiltrate networks through seemingly insignificant entry points, third-party networks or a piece of shadow IT connected through an unknown software or device. Gaining a complete view of all endpoints on your network and identifying if there’s any risk associated with them is critical.

Using automated data-scanning technology that monitors your entire network continuously, without manual effort or initiation from your security team, will facilitate quicker identification and remediation of risks. Data-backed scanning solutions such as BitSight’s Attack Surface Analytics provide a continuous view into your network and can alert your team to vulnerabilities that might not be discovered with manual scanning processes.

Identifying all the risks throughout your organization’s network will also help teams strategize and prioritize remediation efforts. Without a complete view of your network, it is impossible to allocate resources effectively to address the most critical risks. Deploying an automated risk monitoring tool is an important first step in transforming to better continuous risk management.

Quantify risk in financial terms

After you gain a complete view into your network’s risk landscape, the question turns toward prioritizing risk management to best benefit your business. The majority of, if not all, business decisions rely upon what will best benefit the fiscal performance of the organization. Why shouldn’t your cybersecurity choices do the same?

Instead of addressing risk on an ad-hoc basis, prioritize risk mitigation efforts based on the potential financial impact of the vulnerability. BitSight Financial Quantification for Enterprise Cyber Risk is the only solution to quantify the exposure of risks in an organization’s network to reflect the financial impact.

With financial data to inform decision-making, risk managers can better reduce both cyber and financial risks in their organization and promote business continuity.

Bring cybersecurity data to the board level

Company executives might also have a newfound interest in cybersecurity performance. Large and reputable companies continue to be hit hard, financially and reputationally, by cyberattacks. Security managers need to be prepared to demonstrate how an organization is defending against attacks like ransomware; where money allocated to cybersecurity programs is being spent; and how the organization ranks compared to competitors. Effective tools are needed to communicate the importance of cybersecurity risk management to business decision makers.

Providing cybersecurity data in understandable performance reports is critical to implementing a company-wide security transformation. Reports need to be tailored to meet the experience of board members who might not have had to think about cybersecurity in the past, but also provide enough actionable detail to help decisions get made.

BitSight Executive Reporting offers dozens of customizable reports to present cybersecurity data with the necessary context for organizations looking to better defend against cyber threats. With options to demonstrate historical performance, performance compared to industry standards and peers, overall security ratings, scores in specific risk vectors and more, depending on your organization’s needs, security managers no longer need to worry that their message will be lost when presenting to company decision makers.

BitSight data demonstrates a correlation between strong, consistent security performance and a reduced likelihood of experiencing a breach such as a ransomware attack. By consistently following best practices and making robust cybersecurity processes part of an organization’s daily routine, security managers are creating more robust and secure cybersecurity programs.

To get started implementing the strategies discussed in this article, read BitSight’s eBook, Ransomware: The Rapidly Evolving Trend. To learn more about BitSight, visit bitsight.com.

— Stephen Boyer, Co-Founder and CTO, BitSight

This article originally appeared on Business Reporter.

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