3 Ways to Master Organizational Security Playbook Without Breaking A Sweat

In these modern times, being digitally secure is of paramount importance. But first, let us try to understand what we mean by being digitally safeguarded. Cyber security, or in this case, information security, is the protection of vital information from various security threats to maintain confidentiality, integrity, accuracy, and availability of information and its associated assets. The CIA (confidentiality, integrity & availability) triad is a prominent security model that is the foundation for organisations to identify system weaknesses. Let us understand each model here

Confidentiality: An organisation's efforts to keep data private or hidden are referred to as confidentiality. To achieve this, access to information must be restricted to specific users to prevent the intentional or accidental sharing of data with unauthorized persons. A major factor in maintaining confidentiality is ensuring that people without proper permission are precluded from accessing systems critical to your business. On the other hand, an effective system also ensures that those who want to access any documents have the necessary privileges.

Integrity: Maintaining integrity mandates making sure your data is trustworthy and free from tampering. The integrity of the data is maintained only if the data is genuine, accurate, and reliable. It ensures that the information being made available can be trusted and that any unauthorized changes to the data or information are prevented.

Availability: Availability ensures that the required data or information is always accessible. Even if data is kept private and its integrity is protected, it is worthless unless it is accessible to those within the business and the clients they serve. The procedure demands that all systems, networks, and applications operate effectively and be available as and when needed.

The CIA triad provides a simple, thorough, high-level checklist for evaluating your security protocols and equipment. A practical approach can achieve all three requirements—confidentiality, integrity, and availability. A system of information security that falls short in one of the three CIA triad factors is considered weak. Let us deep-dive to understand how an organization can protect the CIA triad and be secured from other threats.

The first step in protecting an organization is identifying the risks, threats & attack surfaces. A risk can be termed as a conceptual threat that may cause danger to your organization. A risk involves uncertainty about the effects and implications of an activity. Security flaws, accidental deletion, cyberattacks, system failures, and environmental disasters are all possible dangers/risks within the IT Security domain. An attack surface is a method or pathway of achieving unauthorized network access, manipulating the network, extracting sensitive data or launching a cyber-attack. Attack surfaces can be bifurcated in 2 ways - physical or digital. Physical surface vector refers to hardware or physical devices such as computers, tablets, routers, and servers, whereas digital assets include software, web, desktop applications, networks, and ports. Attack vectors are potential pathways into sensitive resources, & Attack surface is the sum of all attack vectors on a physical or digital surface. An attack vector is a method of gaining unauthorized access to a system or network & an attack surface is the total number of attack vectors an attacker can use to manipulate a network or computer system or extract data. Some of the common attack vectors are :

1. Compromised or Weak Credentials
2. Insider threats
3. Missing or Poor Encryption methods
4. Trojans
5. Man-in-the-middle attacks
6. Misconfiguration of systems
7. Ransomware attacks
8. Phishing attacks
9. Exploits or Vulnerabilities
10. Brute Force attacks
11. Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS)
12. Malware
13. Risks from Third-Party Vendors
14. Social Engineering attacks

Today's businesses are connected more than ever before. All your systems and associated data assets live and operate in different environments. The complexity of installing security controls inside each environment makes perimeter-based protection inadequate. A solid cybersecurity plan must include Many layers of defence to combat cybercrime. Cybercrimes are not limited to but also include attempts to access, modify, or delete data, demand money from users or the organisation via ransomware attacks, and attempt to obstruct any regular business activities. Without compromising user or customer experience, the best practices, technologies & security appliances that will aid your company in implementing robust cybersecurity, which minimizes your vulnerability to cyberattacks and safeguards your vital information systems, are as follows –

1. Performing risk assessment: Knowing the value of your critical assets will help justify security expenditures.
2. Creating a good security policy: Creating a policy that clearly outlines company rules, job duties, and expectations.
3. Physical security measures: Access to networking equipment and server locations is restricted, as is fire suppression.
4. Human Resource security measures: Employees should be properly thoroughly vetted with background checks.
5. Testing business continuity processes and data recovery procedures: Perform regular backups and test data recovery from backups.
6. Maintaining security patches and updates: Regularly update server, client, and network device operating systems and programs.
7. Implementing proper access controls: Configure user roles and privilege levels with solid authentication methods. Implementing a PAM ( Privileged Access Management ) solution would also be worth considering.
8. Regularly test incident response: Employ an incident response team and test emergency response scenarios.
9. Conducting vulnerability assessments and penetration tests: Along with conducting an organization-wide risk assessment, conducting a VAPT annually will help keep you safe from a hacking attack.
10. Implement a network monitoring, analytics, and management Tool: An SIEM (Security Information & Event Management) solution is frequently used to protect enterprises of all sizes and IT systems. It is a beneficial tool for identifying and advising users of potential threats. To maximize benefits, you should pick a technology-integrated security monitoring solution.
11. Educate users: Educate users and employees to build and deploy virtual training and domain-specific courses for your employees, partners, clients, or whoever else needs to get up to speed on complex subjects. This helps minimize the risks of accidental data leakages.
12. Encrypt data: Encrypt all company data assets, including regular emails, to avoid compromise or leakage of sensitive information.
13. Implement network security devices: Using following generation routers, firewalls, and other security appliances.
14. Implement a Comprehensive Endpoint Security Solution: Use enterprise-level antimalware and antivirus software to prevent being affected by trojans, malware, and viruses.

Some of the most helpful guidelines can be found in organizational repositories, such as

• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA)
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Security Division
• Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)

 

Although cybersecurity experts put a lot of effort into closing security gaps, attackers constantly look for innovative ways to avoid IT surveillance, get around defences, and exploit developing weaknesses. The most recent cybersecurity risks are reinventing "existing" risks by utilizing work-from-home settings, remote access technologies, and new cloud services. Businesses with a thorough cybersecurity plan driven by best practices and automated utilizing advanced analytics can better combat cyber threats and minimize the impact of breaches when they occur. All in all, even with the best protection, there is no guarantee that any of these things won't happen to you, but there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood. Following regulatory compliances or employing guidelines shall help an organization safeguard its critical systems and assets in case of any cybercrime and minimize its impact.