Security professionals often cite cybersecurity acronyms to convey messages. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from learning them!
Integrating vulnerability testing into your continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline is one of the key ways you can enhance application security, while building strong relationships between QA and security teams is equally essential.
Security Assessment
Security assessments (also referred to as vulnerability scans) are conducted in order to identify weaknesses in a business’s cybersecurity, which hackers could exploit and cause data breaches or other serious consequences for them. Vulnerabilities may exist at both physical and technical levels and can be identified using scanning software, penetration testing, vendor security advisories, etc. Ideally, assessments will produce a list of all identified vulnerabilities, their ratings of severity, as well as recommendations for remedy.
Impact assessment is an integral component of security assessments, which measures the potential harm that exploiting vulnerabilities will have on your organization in terms of data loss, financial costs, customer losses, service disruptions, regulatory fines and reputational damage. Measuring these impacts allows risk managers to make more informed risk decisions while prioritizing which vulnerabilities need mitigating measures first.
Conducting regular security assessments can help identify weaknesses in your cybersecurity strategy and potential areas for improvement, so that you can prioritize efforts and allocate resources where they’re most needed. In addition, doing this regularly can build trust with customers and stakeholders by showing that you care about protecting their privacy and the security of their data.
Healthcare organizations must conduct frequent security audits to ensure sensitive information is safe from hackers and other threats, and ensure their employees understand any associated risks and take necessary measures to mitigate them. Regular security assessments can identify vulnerabilities while also providing education on recognizing malware attacks, providing phishing prevention training courses for employees, and offering training courses specifically addressing security vulnerabilities.
Many healthcare organizations must adhere to stringent regulatory standards and industry regulations when it comes to security and data protection. A security assessment can assist your organization in meeting these standards by making sure all software patches and versions have been implemented as well as all security controls necessary. In addition, creating a standard approach across your organization to security can increase effectiveness and efficiency of IT departments.
Security Incident Response
Security Incident Response (SIR) is an integral component of running a secure organization. Data breaches, ransomware attacks and other security incidents can have devastating repercussions for business continuity, brand reputation and customer loyalty – issues made worse by many organizations lacking an in-house team of cybersecurity specialists to assist them with this situation.
As with any strategic initiative, SIR begins with planning and preparation. This requires reviewing current security measures to evaluate their effectiveness, then prioritizing responses for different threats while identifying key assets in need of protection. It can also serve to create backup plans as well as develop security policies and procedures.
Once plans are in place, it’s essential that employees are educated on what to do during a security incident. Training ensures employees can quickly communicate during an incident and can reduce disruptions quickly. An in-house team of security experts would be ideal; otherwise organizations can turn to external services that specialize in preparation and training services to provide necessary help.
An SIR team should consist of multiple individuals from different departments who regularly deal with security matters and should be designated as the cybersecurity incident response team (CSIRT). A formal SIR plan should outline roles and responsibilities, along with contact information for those responsible for fulfilling them.
Once an incident is identified, its next steps should include containment, eradication and recovery. Once all affected systems have been cleaned up, recovery should begin; this involves testing, monitoring and validating systems to make sure they do not become reinfected with malware or compromised in any way.
Security professionals should stay abreast of the latest threat intelligence to identify new vulnerabilities and any changes in how attackers operate, for instance noticing an exploit is becoming more popular or that an attacker has created new tools targeting specific applications.
Security Operations
Security operations are at the core of an organization’s security posture. SOCs serve as a centralized hub where teams manage, analyze and monitor cybersecurity threats while optimizing existing systems. A SOC includes people, processes and technology – including monitoring tools, software, hardware etc – acting as central command posts by collecting telemetry from an organization’s entire IT infrastructure such as networks, apps, data centers or corporate devices.
Security operations serve to safeguard sensitive information and assets against cybercriminals and other adversaries who seek to steal or corrupt it, typically through the implementation, testing, and refinement of security processes; often implemented via SOC-defined policies and procedures. Additionally, the SOC is responsible for configuring security solutions like firewalls, anti-malware/antivirus software, endpoint security solutions as well as any necessary technologies to secure endpoint devices.
SOCs also serve an invaluable function: threat response. Once a threat has been detected, they’re responsible for immediately notifying professionals and taking immediate measures to limit any damage done by infected systems – including taking steps such as shutting them down quickly to limit further infection or delete files or terminate processes used for financial or data theft.
As cybercriminals evolve their tactics, organizations must keep pace by regularly implementing improvements that allow the Security Operations Center (SOC) to anticipate and prevent cyberattacks before they happen.
Implementing and maintaining SecOps can be difficult due to tensions that exist between IT operations, which must be agile and responsive in order to meet business demands, and security, which must slow down deployments to ensure adequate measures are in place. SecOps eliminates this friction by integrating security directly into IT operations processes – thus helping security and IT team members work together on mitigating vulnerabilities without impeding innovation or productivity. Integrated SecOps forms part of DevSecOps which promotes continuous collaboration between IT teams to detect and respond more quickly to security breaches.
Security Monitoring
Organizations increasingly reliant on technology for mission-critical functions must regularly assess their cybersecurity posture. This involves verifying whether internal information security policies are being followed and that systems and data are protected day-to-day. Continuous monitoring allows cybersecurity professionals to spot any vulnerabilities that have developed quickly enough that appropriate action can be taken accordingly.
Security monitoring involves regularly inspecting an organization’s computer networks, desktops, servers and endpoint devices for any signs of cyber attacks or potential vulnerabilities. This involves evaluating existing security protection tools’ effectiveness as well as detecting any threats or malicious activity and responding appropriately.
Malware scanners are software programs designed to identify the most prevalent forms of malware and remove it from an organization’s computer network. Furthermore, malware scanners attempt to gauge attack severity by measuring how long it takes them to detect an incident and their average response time; this phenomenon is referred to as Mean Time to Detection (MTTD).
OSINT (Open Source Intelligence Networks and Ties) refers to information gleaned from publicly accessible sources that is collected, exploited and reported on in order to meet intelligence requirements. Such sources might include social media posts, news articles or publicly accessible websites.
An attack that makes a target server or service unusable by flooding it with traffic from multiple sources, usually via botnets, in order to force money from businesses through ransomware attacks. This type of attack has become an increasingly popular way of extracting money from businesses.
XDR and EDR technologies use behavioral analysis of an operating system and applications to detect malware and other threats on devices. They often come combined with other protective measures like antivirus software or firewalls for maximum effectiveness.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) is a set of regulations designed to ensure companies that accept, store or transmit credit card data maintain a secure environment. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council administers this standard.
NIST offers a cryptographic algorithm validation program which offers testing for FIPS-approved and NIST-recommended algorithms, modules and components of cryptography systems.