An organization’s security posture is a measurement of its overall cyber readiness and  its ability to prevent, detect, and respond to threats. This includes the security of its assets, attack vectors, and existing security procedures, such as access controls, vulnerability management, and other key components. Last but not least, it includes the security posture of its third parties.

The Snowflake data breach, the Bank of America breach, and the Crowdstrike supply chain attack this year all demonstrated that enterprise-level organizations still struggle to defend against cyber threats from third parties. As a result, they must do everything in their power to strengthen both their security posture and that of their third parties.    

Why Security Posture is Important

With data breaches now costing companies $4.88 million last year, it’s important for them to have a strong security posture that mitigates against threats such as ransomware and data breaches while at the same time minimizing reputational damage, regulatory penalties and other financial impact. 

Other benefits of a strong security posture include: 

  • Stronger defense against current and evolving threats. Mitigate against threats.When organizations continuously update their security posture, it remains strong in the face of evolving threats. Policies, procedures, and security controls must be continuously reviewed to evaluate their effectiveness and updated when necessary. In addition, regular training and employee awareness programs that inform employees about the latest cyber threats is crucial. 
  • More effective incident response and recovery. When attacks occur, your organization is clear on how it will respond, including the roles and responsibilities of specific managers and stakeholders in the organization.  This is not only due to a well-defined incident response plan, but its proactive approach to threat detection and monitoring, and application of past lessons to future incidents. 
  • Helps ensure business continuity. With a strong incident response and recovery plan, organizations can reduce or eliminate the potential for operational disruption. This is particularly important for those who deliver critical infrastructure and services (e.g., energy, finance, healthcare) or serve a critical  role in the supply chain of those who deliver them. 

Key Components of Security Posture

An organization’s security posture is composed of a number of components that work together to provide a comprehensive framework for identifying vulnerabilities, mitigating risks, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Integrating these components into their security posture allows organizations to proactively defend against threats, minimize the impact of security incidents, and build resilience to maintain trust in your organization and operational continuity.

Asset Management

You’ll need to take inventory of both the digital and physical assets in your IT infrastructure, (e.g, desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, networking routers and switches, cloud infrastructure, user accounts, and third-party software) so that you know where it is and which employees have access to it. This level of visibility limits security risks from Shadow IT and helps ensure that critical vulnerabilities are identified as soon as possible.  When managed throughout the asset lifecycle, it can prioritize risks according to the resources an organization has available. 

Threat Detection

Threat detection is a crucial component of building a strong security posture. In today’s cybersecurity landscape, organizations face a myriad of potential threats, including malware, phishing, data breaches, third-party vulnerabilities, and unauthorized access. By integrating threat detection tools with real-time monitoring and rapid response capabilities, organizations can shift from a reactive security approach to one that proactively identifies risks as early as possible. Over time, the data gathered through threat detection can be logged and analyzed, providing valuable insights that strengthen defenses and enhance preparedness against future threats.

Risk Assessment

In addition, security teams conduct risk assessments to uncover weaknesses and vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure. These assessments typically include questions designed to understand the level of sensitivity of data the organization collects, the employees and additional stakeholders with access to the data, and the different controls, policies, and procedures used to protect the data from unauthorized access. It also helps your organization prioritize risks and allocate resources to mitigate against them accordingly.  

Access Controls

The policies and procedures your organization uses to control access to sensitive data are key in protecting against data breaches, insider threats, and exfiltration of data that could lead to ransomware attacks. It can also help defend against attackers moving laterally throughout your network and supply chain attacks. In addition, many regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC2 require specific types of access control to meet compliance and avoid financial and legal penalties. 

Incident Response Plan

Having a concrete incident response plan also strengthens your security posture since your security team knows exactly its role and responsibilities in the event of an attack. A well-defined incident response plan mitigates damage from an attack, minimizes operational disruption, and has a plan for recovery of your organization’s lost data, systems, and network. It is also often a requirement for compliance with specific regulations and standards such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and SOC2. In addition, many organizations regularly simulate various cybersecurity scenarios to assess their cyber readiness and refine their incident response strategies as needed.

Security Policies and Procedures

Another important component of your security posture are the different processes and procedures your organization uses to enforce best practices for each technical defense. For example, an organization may implement an explicit patch management policy that ensures regular monitoring for vulnerabilities and outdated software and identifies and prioritizes when vulnerabilities need to be urgently patched for critical systems. Or it might have a network security policy that requires the use of firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), and VPNs. Having a structured approach to these components helps to clearly define the organization’s cybersecurity and standardize it across the organization. 

Network Security

Network security is considered to be the first line of defense for an organization’s IT infrastructure, protecting it against unauthorized access, ransomware or misuse. Defense systems and tools include network segmentation, anti-virus and anti-malware, virtual private networks (VPNs), encryption, firewalls, and Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS). The goal of these systems and tools is to monitor traffic, detect suspicious behavior, and mitigate any incidents in real-time to ensure business continuity and compliance. 

Patch Management

Ensuring that software is regularly updated and vulnerabilities are patched as soon as possible can strengthen your security posture, as it helps defend against a majority of attacks. This includes firmware, applications, and your operating system. With many applications based on open-source frameworks, keeping track of vulnerable dependencies which are often from third-party sources and patching them regularly can be challenging. For example, attackers successfully exploited the Log4j vulnerability,  impacting enterprise software, cloud platforms, and IoT devices in a large number of organizations across industries. 

Employee Training and Awareness

With 74% of data breaches occurring due to human error, it is often said that humans are the weakest link in every organization’s security. That’s why it’s essential that your employees are given regular training and education about the latest methods cybercriminals are using, such as social engineering and phishing aimed at specific roles within the organization. For example, a recent phishing scam specifically targeted employees by impersonating the company’s human resources department. The email urgently requested employees to review the employee handbook, attempting to get the employee to click on a malicious link and enter their credentials. This sophisticated phishing scam often works because it seems to be an authentic email from the company’s HR department. Employee training and awareness can help minimize the successful attempts cybercriminals attempt and potential damage to your organization. 

Monitoring and Logging

A strong security posture demands the continuous tracking of an organization’s system, network, and applications to detect anomalies in user behavior. Security information and event management (SIEM) systems, intrusion detection systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), and log monitoring are all tools organizations use to track user behavior and respond in real-time. Cybersecurity monitoring today, especially of an organization’s network, endpoints, and cloud infrastructure, includes the use of AI, which can collect and analyze large amounts of data in real-time to quickly detect and even predict security threats. Monitoring and logging are also important as they record details of user behavior that help the security team understand the cause of an incident. Finally, detailed logging activity also demonstrates accountability that is also necessary for compliance.    

Compliance and Governance

Your organization’s ability to adhere to legal, regulatory, and organizational security requirements also impact its security requirements. For example, a payment processor would need to ensure compliance with GDPR and have a data protection and privacy policy that includes security measures such as encryption, pseudonymization, and access controls. In addition, it would require the processor to have a proper incident response plan in place and ensure its third-party vendors adhere to GDPR through contractual agreements and regular vendor risk assessments. In the event of a security incident, its GDPR compliance and governance framework would help minimize downtime and data loss by detecting the attack before sensitive data was exposed, and notify regulators quickly to avoid penalties. As a result, customers remain confident in the brand despite the attack, knowing that the institution had the proper security procedures in place.  

Why Third-Party Risk Management Matters for Security Posture

A strong security posture is a must not only for your organization, but for your third-parties and suppliers as well. These third parties often gain access to your critical data, directly impacting your organization’s security. Having a strong third-party security posture, however, helps to ensure the resilience of your supply chain, build trust with customers, and make it easier to comply with many regulations such as DORA, NIST CSF, NYDFS, and the NIS2 Directive. These regulations specifically mention the risk that is a result of the increased outsourcing of services to third-party vendors.

Security Posture Solutions

The increase in outsourcing of third-party services (who often outsource critical services to fourth parties) has made the strengthening of third-party security challenging due to a lack of visibility into the supply chain as well as direct control over its third-party security practices. Panoray’s third-party cyber risk management solution delivers this visibility by detecting third, fourth, and n-th parties in your supply chain. It then identifies and prioritizes risk using the most comprehensive assessments, delivering a hassle-free process throughout the third-party lifecycle, with a minimal dependence on these third parties.  This new business approach to third-party cyber risk enables companies to adapt their defenses, minimize risk and proactively prevent the next breach from affecting their business.

Want to learn more about how Panorays can help you improve both your security posture and that of your third parties? Get a demo today! 

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