The growing complexity of cybersecurity threats makes traditional SOC methods less effective. The overwhelming volume of data and constant alerts can lead to analyst burnout and delayed response times. GenAI offers a solution by modernizing SOC operations, streamlining alert triage, and optimizing log management workflows.

Industry experts have highlighted , emphasizing how AI is driving SOC modernization through transformation, AI-driven applications, data modernization, and log management. We explore these insights and how GenAI for cybersecurity can help enterprise SOC teams be more efficient.

Watch: AI In The SOC – Cutting Through The Noise With GenAI And Smarter Logs

Transforming The SOC With AI

The constant influx of alerts makes it challenging for SOC teams to differentiate between genuine threats and false positives. Analysts often spend excessive time constructing queries and deciphering data, rather than addressing critical incidents.

AI in security operations speeds up threat detection by automating routine tasks. Rather than manually reviewing alerts, analysts can rely on AI-driven threat detection to identify patterns and prioritize incidents. This shift allows teams to concentrate on strategic security initiatives instead of getting bogged down in repetitive processes.

Key advantages of AI in the SOC include the following:

• Faster alert analysis: AI quickly reviews tons of past incident data and matches it with current alerts. This gives security analysts valuable context and actionable intelligence so they can quickly find the root cause of an alert, assess its potential impact, and determine the proper response. The result is drastically reduced investigation time and faster threat containment.
• Automated triage: AI-powered tools classify and prioritize threat alerts based on their severity and potential impact on the organization. Automating the triage process ensures that security analysts see the most critical and urgent threats first, allowing them to allocate their time and resources effectively. This reduces the risk of overlooking critical alerts and improves the overall efficiency of the SOC.
• Less alert fatigue: AI refines detection capabilities, thus reducing false positives. By continuously learning from past data and adapting its algorithms, AI more accurately identifies genuine threats and filters out noise, resulting in fewer alerts and improved threat detection accuracy.

As AI plays a larger role in SOC modernization, ensuring security data is properly processed before reaching analysis tools is essential. Without structure and optimization, analysts can become overwhelmed by raw data.

Solutions that refine data processing help SOC teams focus on meaningful insights. , for example, improves data management by filtering, routing, and enriching security data before it reaches SIEM and SOAR tools. This ensures analysts work with high-value data instead of excessive, unstructured information.

Watch: WEI Roundtable Discussion – Cyber Warfare & Beyond

Practical AI Applications In The SOC

AI is becoming an integral part of SOC operations, helping teams achieve efficiency across multiple areas. From AI-driven threat detection to smarter security logs, automation is transforming the way security teams analyze data, prioritize threats, and respond to incidents. One particularly impactful application is using GenAI to simplify query generation. Analysts frequently struggle with complex queries, slowing down investigations. AI streamlines this process by enabling a conversational approach to data retrieval.

Other AI use cases in the SOC include:

• Threat hunting: AI identifies suspicious behaviors based on past attack patterns.
• Incident response: AI-powered automation speeds up remediation actions, reducing response times.
• Policy enforcement: AI ensures compliance by monitoring deviations in access logs and configurations.

Managing and analyzing vast amounts of security data is time-consuming for SOC teams, often diverting attention from critical threats. Efficient tools for query building and log analysis can help streamline this process, making it easier for analysts to access relevant insights without unnecessary delays.

One such capability comes from Cribl, which offers solutions designed to simplify data exploration. provides intelligent search and summarization tools, enabling analysts to quickly extract key insights from large datasets without manually sifting through extensive logs.

Watch: Harnessing A Diverse Talent Pipeline For Cybersecurity Personnel

Data Modernization In Security

SOC teams generate and store massive amounts of security data, but not all of it is useful and relevant. The challenge is determining what data to retain and how to store it cost-effectively.

Rather than storing everything, AI in the SOC helps create smarter security logs by filtering out unnecessary data while preserving valuable insights. This data modernization has several benefits:

• Better governance: AI categorizes data and retains only what’s relevant.
• Efficient storage: AI-driven data summarization reduces log sizes without sacrificing critical information.
• Improved query performance: Well-structured data enables faster searches and analysis.

Organizations need reliable data processing solutions while maintaining compliance. Cribl supports this with tools like Cribl Stream and , which normalize and compress security logs before storage, reducing storage demands and helping maintain compliance.

Optimizing Log Management For Efficiency

As security data expands at an estimated 28% CAGR, organizations need to reevaluate their log management strategies. AI can play a key role in security operations by summarizing logs and reducing noise, making the vast amount of data more manageable. Smarter log management strategies include:

• Log compression and truncation: AI reduces redundant data, lowering storage costs.
• Dynamic retention policies: AI prioritizes storing logs that are critical for investigations while archiving less relevant data in cost-effective storage.
• Automated data classification: AI categorizes logs based on security relevance, making retrieval easier.

For example, AI can condense large volumes of NetFlow data from switches into a concise summary of key network activity. Cribl offers tools to support these strategies, enabling organizations to refine their log management strategies. With tools that help route logs intelligently and store high-volume logs in cost-effective locations, SOC teams can avoid overwhelming their SIEM and analytics systems while maintaining access to meaningful security insights.

Final Thoughts

GenAI is reshaping security operations by automating threat detection, improving alert triage, and optimizing data management. AI-driven threat detection reduces alert fatigue, while smarter security logs help SOC teams focus on valuable insights. As enterprises face growing cyber threats, integrating AI into security operations is now a practical requirement to address sophisticated attacks and data challenges.

WEI’s team of cybersecurity experts helps organizations implement AI-driven SOC modernization strategies. From smarter log management to AI-powered automation, we guide enterprises in optimizing security workflows. If you’re looking to integrate AI-driven solutions in your SOC, reach out to WEI today and take the first step toward a more efficient security operation.

Next Steps: Protecting your organization from cyber threats requires a proactive approach and the right expertise. 

Led by WEI’s cybersecurity experts and partnering with industry leaders, our available cyber assessments provide the insights needed to strengthen your defenses. Whether you need to identify vulnerabilities, test your incident response capabilities, or develop a long-term security strategy, our team is here to help. Click here to access our assessment services. 

The post Unlocking Smarter Security Logs And SOC Operations With GenAI appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

A guest writer of WEI, see Bill Frank’s biography and contact information at the end of this article.

Michael Lewis coined the term, Moneyball, in his eponymous book published in 2003 and made into a movie in 2011 starring Brad Pitt. Moneyball was about applying analytics to baseball. Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics General Manager, was the first baseball executive to use analytics to increase the probability of winning games.

Baseball is obviously about the players and constrained budgets. So Beane’s goal was to use analytics to create a better roster of players.

The analytics the Athletics developed were new and contradicted all the “rules-of-thumb” baseball scouts used to select players for over 100 years.

Moneyball for cybersecurity is about applying analytics to cybersecurity to reduce the probability of material financial impact due to cyber-related loss events.

Cybersecurity is about controls – people, processes, and technologies – constrained by budgets and resources. So the objective is to create a better portfolio of controls and to improve collaboration with the business leaders who set cybersecurity budgets.

This requires a new analytical approach that calculates and visualizes the aggregate effectiveness of an organization’s control portfolio across the cyber-related loss events of greatest concern to business leaders. In other words, visualize cyber defenses in dollars.

It can be misleading to project the risk reduction value of a control improvement based on evaluating it in isolation. Yet we do this all the time. Risk reduction is about how a proposed control improvement will work in concert with the other deployed controls.

Why We need Moneyball for Cybersecurity

There is a cybersecurity paradox. Overall cybersecurity spending increases every year. New frameworks are published, and older ones are updated. In addition, various government agencies are pressuring organizations to improve their cyber postures.

Despite these efforts, the number and financial impact of cyber-related loss events continue to increase.

Some say it’s due to the increasing pace of digital transformation. Others say it’s due to the increase in remote work and cloud computing. Still others say it’s due to a lack of trained cybersecurity professionals.

While those factors may contribute, two issues are more fundamental – prioritizing control investments and justifying cybersecurity budget proposals.

1. Prioritizing Control Investments

A control’s performance when evaluated in isolation does not indicate how effective it will be in reducing risk when deployed in concert with all the other controls. This makes it difficult to select which control improvements should be funded and which should not.

The underlying issue is the complexity of cybersecurity. Organizations deploy dozens of controls. There are hundreds of threat types as defined by MITRE ATT. There are hundreds to thousands of overlapping and intertwined attack paths into and through an organization’s IT/OT estate.

Therefore, each loss event scenario involves thousands of overlapping end-to-end kill chains. Adding to the complexity, many controls appear on many kill chains and many controls appear in multiple loss event scenarios.

In addition, it’s difficult to compare controls across different IT domains. How do you compare the value of a network control to an endpoint control? How do you compare the value of identity and access controls to malware detection controls? How do you compare left-of-bang to right-of-bang controls?

2. Justifying cybersecurity budgets

Security leaders often have difficulty justifying proposed control investments to the business leaders who set cybersecurity budgets due to the security metrics – business risk gap. Security teams use a wide range of technical metrics to monitor control performance that business leaders do not understand.

Business leaders know that cyber risk is business risk. Business leaders want to manage cyber risk as they do other strategic risks. They are frustrated by the difficulties of collaborating with security leaders who don’t speak their language – money.

Business leaders want to know how control investments will reduce the probability of material financial impact due to cyber loss events. To get their budget requests approved, security leaders need a credible approach to bridge the security metrics – business risk gap.

Implementing Moneyball For Cybersecurity

Monaco Risk’s advisory services use its patented Cyber Defense Graph to make Moneyball for Cybersecurity useful to security teams and credible to business leaders.

Better control selection

Monaco Risk’s Cyber Defense Graph statistical simulation solves the exponential kill chain problem described above. All of the kill chains related to a loss event scenario are analyzed together taking into consideration the capabilities, coverage, and governance of the controls involved.

Figure 1: This is an example of Monaco Risk’s modular Cyber Defense Graphic. Threats enter from the left. Threats move along attack paths shown as arrows. Controls are shown as boxes. Loss events result from threats that are not blocked by controls.

The resulting kill graphs display the critical path weaknesses into and through the organization’s IT/OT estate.

We generate tornado charts to show each control’s current and potential contribution to the aggregate effectiveness of the control portfolio.

Figure 2: Tornado Chart example showing the contribution of individual controls to “aggregate control effectiveness.“

In addition, we aggregate control effectiveness across multiple kill graphs.

In addition, we have developed a set of standardized control parameters that enables the Cyber Defense Graph software to compare the risk reduction value of disparate types of controls. We can compare network controls to host controls, identity/access to malware prevention controls, and left-of-bang to right-of-bang controls.

This improves the decision-making process for prioritizing control selection by showing how alternative control improvements will reduce the probability of material financial impact due to cyber-related loss events.

Improved collaboration with business leaders

Better collaboration with business leaders who set cybersecurity budgets hinges on bridging the security metrics – business risk gap. The Cyber Defense Graph enables credible business risk reduction analysis, in dollars, of alternative control investments.

We generate Loss Exceedance Curve charts to show the potentially catastrophic nature of cyber-related loss events. These charts also show, in dollars, how alternative control improvements reduce the probability of material financial impact of loss events.

Figure 3: This example of a Loss Exceedance Curve chart shows how selected alternative control improvements will reduce the probabilities of dollar losses exceeding three thresholds shown as vertical lines.

Simply claiming a particular control improvement will reduce risk by X% is not sufficient. As my teachers used to say, “Show me the work!” What are your underlying assumptions? Have you evaluated lower-cost controls? How do they compare to the ones you are proposing?

Are there any controls we can eliminate to save money? Can we negotiate lower prices on controls we need for compliance but don’t significantly reduce the risk of a cyber event?

The Moneyball for Cybersecurity Analogy

I am not the first to use the Moneyball analogy for cybersecurity. It has been used to focus on cybersecurity workforce development. Since Moneyball was about player selection, clearly Moneyball can and should be applied to cybersecurity team selection and development.

We take Moneyball a step further by applying it to processes and technologies as well as people, i.e. all controls. It was also used by a cyber insurance company.

Let me know what you think!

The post Moneyball for Cybersecurity appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The goal of every security organization is to protect its data. This mission has become increasingly complex in the face of an expanding attack surface and increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks waged by relentless adversaries. Effectively responding to security incidents requires the Security Operations Center (SOC) to validate alerts and provide the IR team with critical details on the scope of the threat so they can quickly and reliably remediate the issue. However, several obstacles hinder the SOC from gaining the necessary visibility to deliver this critical insight.

Today’s SOC must monitor security across a wider digital footprint that can span multiple data centers, multi-cloud, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers, various domains and more. Gaining visibility across this enlarged IT surface can be challenging as many environments require their own tools. The lack of integration between specialized tools greatly increases the volume and frequency of alerts, making it difficult for SOC analysts to keep pace. This often results in a high burnout rate of Tier 1 SOC analysts, who typically triage alerts.

The existing three-tiered SOC structure also limits understanding of the threat landscape. Tier 1 SOC analysts manage individual alerts, without an opportunity to view them in a larger context. This restricts their ability to build threat intelligence, assess alert efficacy and deliver a comprehensive picture of the incident to the IR team. Without the necessary experience and visibility, many Tier 1 analysts escalate alerts unnecessarily to higher tiers, pulling senior analysts away from verified events that need their attention.

To manage today’s more complex security demands and provide the IR team with the intelligence it needs to address threats quickly and effectively, the SOC model needs to evolve. WEI can help organizations maximize their IR capabilities with a modern SOC.

Modernizing the SOC

When it comes to security, time is of the essence. The inherent siloes of the legacy SOC can impact an analyst’s ability to triage and tune alerts and arm the IR team with a full view of a threat. Without this thorough understanding, IR can lose precious time trying to piece this information together.

The modern SOC requires a new level of integration that speeds its team’s ability to assess alerts for efficacy and deliver the full scope of a threat, including the impacted systems, users and networks; the incident timeline; the initial access vector; identified activities and behaviors; and the tools utilized, to IR. This enhanced visibility can help IR remediate issues quickly and contain them at a micro level without impacting more systems, business units and users than necessary. It can also help IR understand root cause to ensure a threat is not lying dormant, waiting to reestablish a foothold.

To improve threat awareness, organizations must modernize three key areas of their SOCs:

• The SOC team structure
• The security platform
• The SOC-IR relationship

Integrate the SOC Team

By moving away from the tiered, legacy SOC structure, in favor of a more integrated SOC, analysts can see other aspects of the security investigation and response pipeline to help build their awareness of the threat landscape. This broader context helps the SOC more definitively verify existing alerts and provide IR with the critical details it needs to remediate the threat, identify its root cause and return the environment to a healthy state. This awareness also helps analysts fine tune alerts to improve their future efficacy.

Many organizations are also outsourcing triage duties to managed security service providers (MSSP), staffing their internal SOCs with more experienced analysts.

Utilize an Integrated Platform

The modern SOC should also employ a holistic platform, enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and automation, to aggregate alerts across disparate sources. These advanced technologies can identify alert commonalities to form a more comprehensive understanding of a potential threat. They can also group similar alerts to reduce the volume of notifications the SOC must manage. This can help temper the burnout rate of SOC analysts, helping organizations retain knowledgeable analysts.

With improved insight into a threat, the SOC can provide the IR team with a concise package of intelligence to help them more quickly contain a threat. Additionally, by automating specific security tasks, the platform helps speed responses to limit potential damage and better protect the organization.

Foster a Symbiotic Relationship Between the SOC and IR

While the SOC commonly feeds data to the IR team, IR should also relay its findings back to the SOC. This reciprocal relationship helps strengthen threat intelligence, offering a more complete, real-world security picture that bolsters alert management, IR and the overall security posture. This closed-loop feedback cycle should also extend beyond the SOC and IR teams to include cloud engineers, service providers and other IT stakeholders to ensure all reoccurring issues and vulnerabilities are addressed fully and do not continue to impact the organization.

Video: Harnessing A Diverse Talent Pipeline For Cybersecurity Personnel

Strengthening IR with Preparedness Training

To be truly impactful, the modern SOC should carry forward the best practice of preparedness training. Simulations such as tabletop exercises enable security teams to rehearse their IR, ensuring all team members recognize and can execute their duties seamlessly during a real incident. Conducting frequent simulations of specific security events also allows the team to iron out issues and adapt specific responses, if necessary.

In addition to regular exercises with the security team, an enterprise-wide simulation should be performed at least annually to encourage mindfulness that security is everyone’s responsibility. Additionally, the security team should involve nontechnical stakeholders, such as general counsel, business partners and the public relations team, in select sessions to ensure they understand their roles as well.

WEI is Your Trusted Partner

Modernizing the SOC can be challenging for organizations without deep-seated security experience. WEI’s seasoned security experts can help organizations redesign their SOCs to integrate the structure, technology and practices required to effectively triage and tune alerts in a fast-paced and ever-evolving threat landscape.

WEI partners with the world’s most lauded technology providers, yielding expertise in the modern tools designed to address increasingly complex security demands. Working as an extension of an organization’s internal team, WEI gains a thorough understanding of the organization’s goals, direction and requirements. Our knowledgeable team can help organizations navigate the full spectrum of security needs, from assessing the current environment and building an innovative security strategy to implementing the tools, platforms and processes necessary to manage risk effectively. Contact us today to get started.

Next Steps: Following a cyber incident, cybersecurity teams often resort to their data sources to identify how the incident transpired. While analyzing these data sources, a critical question must be asked –what prevented cyber personnel from stopping the cyberattack in real time? 

In this data-driven era, cybersecurity practices have increasingly focused on the prevention phase, made possible by leveraging the data already present in a cybersecurity environment. Prevention is your first line of defense, it is time to leverage its power and potential.

o learn more about this cloud-based, integrated SOC platform that includes best-in-class functions including EDR, XDR, SOAR, ASM, UEBA, TIP, and SIEM.

The post Maximizing Incident Response with a Modern SOC appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

See Bill Frank’s biography and contact information at the end of this article.

[Note: This is an updated version of the original article posted on March 21, 2024. I replaced the term “Governance” Controls with “Performance” Controls to eliminate any confusion with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 use of the term “Governance.”

I focus here on automated controls that monitor and measure the “performance” of “Defensive” controls that directly block threats or at least alert on suspicious activities.

How well are your cybersecurity controls performing? Measuring control efficacy is challenging. In fact, under-configured, misconfigured, and poorly tuned controls, as well as variances in security processes are the Achilles Heels of cybersecurity programs.

A mismatch between risk reduction potential and performance results in undetected threats (false negatives) as well as an excessive number of false positives. This leads to an increase in the likelihood of loss events.

All controls, whether people, processes, or technologies, can be categorized in one of two ways – Defensive or Performance.

• Defensive Controls: These are controls that block threats or at least detect and alert on suspected activities. Effective Defensive Controls directly reduce the likelihood of loss events.
• Performance Controls: These are indirect controls that measure the performance of Defensive Controls, highlight Defensive Control deficiencies, and/or evaluate the maturity of Defensive Controls’ configurations. Performance includes, but is not limited to, offensive security controls.

Most controls are easily categorized. Firewalls and EDR agents are examples of Defensive Controls. We categorize Offensive Controls as Performance because their purpose includes testing the efficacy of Defensive controls.

Vulnerability management (discovery, analysis, and prioritization) is a Performance Control because vulnerabilities, whether in security controls, application code, or infrastructure, are a type of control deficiency.

Patching is a Defensive Control because patched vulnerabilities prevent threats targeting those vulnerabilities from being exploited.

Manual Performance- Human Penetration Testing

Attempting to conduct Performance functions manually is time-consuming, limited in scope, and error prone. Human Penetration Testing has been the go-to Performance Control for decades. However, only the very largest organizations can afford to fund a Red Team to provide anything close to continuous testing.

Most organizations hire an outside firm to perform pentesting. Due to high costs, the scope of human pentesting is limited. In addition, it is typically performed only once a year or once a quarter. Therefore, for most organizations, human pentesting is little more than a checkbox exercise.

Note that human pen testers use a variety of tools to address many of the standard and repetitive tasks associated with pentesting. However, in general, these tools are not revealed to the client.

Have said that, I am not here to denigrate human pen testing. There are surely many pen testers that have deep expertise and creativity that goes beyond what any automated tool can provide. This is why bug bounty programs are popular.

The cybersecurity market has responded to the need for automated Performance Controls. Since no two organizations are the same, my goal for this article is to describe different types of Performance Controls to help you decide which approach is right for you.

Automated Performance Controls

There are five types of automated Performance Controls I will discuss:

1. Attack Simulation
2. Risk-based Vulnerability Management
3. Metrics
4. Security Control Posture Management
5. Process Mining.

Note that since virtually all of these tools are SaaS platforms, factors including costs, support and training, community, data security, and compliance must always be evaluated!

1. Attack Simulation

Attack Simulation is my simplified term that covers a variety of vendors who use terms like Automated Penetration Testing, Breach and Attack Simulation, and Security Control Validation.

The one thing they all have in common is executing simulations of known threats against deployed controls. However, the vendors in this space use a variety of architectures to accomplish their goals.

The key factors to consider when evaluating Attack Simulation tools are (1) the number of agents that are required or recommended, (2) integrations with deployed controls, (3) the degree to which the simulation software mimics adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), (4) the vendor’s advice on running their software in a production environment, (5) firewall / network segmentation validation, (6) threat intelligence responsiveness, and (7) the range and quality of simulated techniques and sub-techniques.

Agents. The number of agents needed for internal testing. This ranges from only one agent needed to start the test to the requirement for agents on all on-premise workstations and workloads. No agents may be needed for testing cloud-based controls.

Defensive Control Integrations. Integrating Attack Simulation tools with Defensive Controls enables blue/purple teamers to better understand how a control reacted to a specific technique generated by the attack simulation tool.

Simulation. An indicator of how close a vendor gets to simulating real attackers is its approach to discovering and using passwords to execute credentialed lateral movement. Are clear-text passwords taken from memory? Are password hashes cracked in the vendor’s cloud environment (or on the vendor’s locally deployed software)? Adversaries use these techniques regularly, your attack simulation tool should too.

Production / Lab Testing. Attack Simulation vendors vary in their recommendations regarding running their tools in production vs lab environments. Of course, it’s advisable to perform initial evaluations in a lab environment first. But to get maximum value from an attack simulation tool, you should be able to run it in a production environment.

Firewall / Network Segmentation. There is a special case for testing firewall/intrusion detection efficacy. Agents may be deployed on each side of the firewall. This allows for validating firewall policies in a production environment without running malware on any production workstations or workloads.

Threat Intelligence Responsiveness. New threats, vulnerabilities and control deficiencies are discovered with alarming regularity. How quickly does the attack simulation vendor respond with safe variations for you to test against your controls? Do you need to upgrade the tool, or just deploy the new simulated TTPs?

Range and Quality of techniques and sub-techniques. Attack simulation vendors should be able to show you their supported MITRE ATT&CK techniques and sub-techniques. As to quality of those techniques and sub-techniques, it’s very difficult to determine. The data generated via the Integrations with deployed controls surely helps. We recommend testing at least two similarly architected tools in your environment to determine the quality of their attack simulations.

2. Risk-based Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability management is a cornerstone of every cybersecurity compliance framework, maturity model, and set of best practice recommendations. However, most organizations are overwhelmed with the number of vulnerabilities that are discovered, and do not have the resources to remediate all of them.

In response to this triage problem, vendors developed a variety of prioritization methods over the years. Despite its limitations, the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is the dominant means of scoring the severity of vulnerabilities. However, even NIST itself states that “CVSS is not a measure of risk.” Furthermore, NIST states that CVSS is only “a factor in prioritization of vulnerability remediation activities.”

Risk-based factors for vulnerability management include the following:

Business Context. What is the criticality of the asset in which the vulnerability exists? For example, production systems vs development systems.

Likelihood of exploitability. A combination of threat intelligence and factors associated with the vulnerability itself determine the likelihood that a vulnerability will be exploited. is an example of this approach.

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains the Vulnerabilities on the KEV list should get the highest priority for remediation.

Asset Location. What is the location of the asset with the vulnerability in question? Internet-facing assets get the highest priority.

Compensating Defensive Control. Is there a Defensive Control that can prevent the vulnerability from being exploited?

3. Metrics

Modern Defensive Controls generate large amounts of telemetry that can be used to monitor their performance and effectiveness. Automating metrics reporting enables continuous monitoring and measuring the performance of a larger number of deployed controls.

While automated cybersecurity performance management platforms are not always considered an alternative to Attack Simulation and Risk-based Vulnerability Management solutions, they do have the advantage of being less intrusive because they are passive. All they need is read-only access to the Defensive Controls. There are no agents to deploy and no risk of unplanned outages.

The key factors when evaluating automated metrics solutions include the following:

Scope of Coverage. The range of metrics based on your priorities such as vulnerability management, incident detection and response, compliance, and control performance.

Integrations. Does the metrics solution vendor support integrations to your controls? If not, are they willing to add support for your controls? Will they charge extra for that?

Reporting flexibility. How flexible is the report building interface? What, if any, constraints are there to generate the reports you want? Can you build customized dashboards for different users? Is trend analysis supported?

Ease-of-Use. How easy is it to generate custom reports?

Scalability and Performance. Given the amount of data you want to retain, how fast are the queries/reports generated?

4. Security Control Posture Management

All security controls need to be configured and maintained to meet individual organization’s policy requirements, threat profile, and risk culture. The amount of time and effort needed to initially implement the controls and then keep them up to date varies depending on the control type and the functionality provided by the vendor.

Firewalls are at or close to the top of the list of controls requiring the most care and feeding. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the first security control configuration management tools were created two decades ago to improve firewall policy (rule) management. These tools eliminate unused and overlapping rules, and improve responsiveness to the steady stream of requests for changes, additions, and exceptions.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems are also at or near the top of the list of controls requiring extensive care and feeding. One critical aspect of a SIEM’s effectiveness is the extent of its coverage of MITRE ATT&CK techniques and sub-techniques. This also maps back to the SIEM’s sources of log ingestion. Furthermore, SIEM vendors provide hundreds of rules which generally need to be tailored to the organization.

To reduce the level of effort needed to tune SIEMs, consider tools that evaluate SIEM rule sets and provide assistance to detection engineers.

The variety of tools available for managing security control configurations will continue to grow, encompassing additional types such as endpoint agents, email security, identity and access management, data security, and cloud security.

5. Process Mining

Process mining is a method used to analyze and optimize business processes by collecting and analyzing event logs generated by information systems. These logs contain details about process execution, such as the sequence of activities, the time taken to complete each activity, and the resources involved. Process mining algorithms use this data to automatically generate process models that visualize how a process is executed in reality, as opposed to how it is expected to be executed.

While process mining is not a new concept, it is new for cybersecurity processes. For cybersecurity process mining to be useful, logs must be collected from non-security sources as well as cybersecurity controls.

Process mining is actually a separate class of higher-level analysis and measurement. All the others, with the exception of security operations platforms (SIEMs) here are testing, measuring, or obtaining data on individual controls. Having said that, at present, processing mining does not specifically measure the effectiveness of defensive controls.

An example of a common cybersecurity process use case is user on-boarding and off-boarding. To perform this analysis, the process mining tool must integrate with human resource systems in addition to authentication and authorization systems.

In addition to (1) improving compliance to defined processes, process mining will (2) expose bottlenecks, (3) reveal opportunities for additional process automation, and (4) make it easier for stakeholders to understand how processes are executed using visual representations of the processes.

While scalability, performance, and integrations are important, the way processes and variances are rendered in the user interface and the way you can interact with them is critical to understand the causes of variances and opportunities for improvement.

Individual vs. Aggregate Control Effectiveness

Having reviewed the types of Performance Controls available to monitor and measure Defensive Control efficacy, it’s worth noting that they all monitor and measure control effectiveness individually.

The processing mining folks might disagree with the above statement in the sense that they aggregate multiple control functions by the processes in which they play a role. However, process mining does not actually measure the efficacy of the individual controls in processes. It focuses on improving the effectiveness of processes.

While there is no doubt about the value of discovering and remediating deficiencies in individual controls, there is another function needed from a risk management perspective. That is calculating Aggregate Control Effectiveness. How well does your portfolio of Defensive Controls work together to reduce the likelihood of a loss event?

Aggregate Control Effectiveness must consider attack paths into and through an organization. A Defensive Control that has strong capabilities and is well configured will not reduce risk as much as anticipated if it is on a path that does not see many threats or is on a path with other strong controls.

In addition to discovering and prioritizing Defensive Control deficiencies, a Performance Control measurement program will improve the accuracy and precision of Aggregate Control Effectiveness calculations.

My next article will address the issue of Aggregate Control Effectiveness and its relevance to risk management. Stay tuned!

Next Steps: WEI provides enterprises with increased visibility at all touch points of the IT estate, and that includes at the edge and applications within the data center. How can we help your enterprise with its current and future cybersecurity architecture? Contact our experts today to get started.

About The Author

Bill Frank has over 24 years of cybersecurity experience. At present, as Chief Client Officer at Mr. Frank is responsible for leading Monaco Risk’s cybersecurity risk management engagements. In addition, he collaborates on the design of Monaco Risk’s cyber risk quantification software used in client engagements.

Mr. Frank is one of two inventors of Monaco Risk’s patented Cyber Defense Graph. It is the core innovation for Monaco Risk’s cyber risk quantification software which enables a more accurate estimate of the likelihood of loss events.

Prior to Monaco Risk, Mr. Frank spent 12 years assisting clients select and implement cybersecurity controls to strengthen cyber posture. Projects focused on controls to protect, detect, and respond to threats across a wide range of attack surfaces.

Prior to his consulting work, Mr. Frank spent most of the 2000s at a SIEM software company where he designed a novel approach to correlating alerts from multiple log sources using finite state machine-based, risk-scoring algorithms. The first use case was user and entity behavior analysis. The technology was acquired by Nitro Security who in turn was acquired by McAfee.

Bill Frank’s contact information:

• Email: bfrank@monacorisk.com

The post Using Performance Controls to Address Cybersecurity’s Achilles Heel appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

This is the first installment of a two-part series dissecting the Left of Bang strategy and mindset and how it applies to modern cybersecurity practices. Click here to read part two. 

Cybersecurity threats, including ransomware, malware and phishing, continue to grow and evolve, increasing risk for businesses of all sizes and across all industries. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Risks Report, cybercrimes rank among the ahead of the natural resources and debt crises, prolonged economic downturn and the use of weapons of mass destruction. With of respondents in the 2023 Global Cybersecurity Outlook study reporting that a “far-reaching, catastrophic cyber event is at least somewhat likely in the next two years,” organizations need to do more to keep pace with the diverse, ever-changing threat landscape to better manage cyber risk.

Left of bang is a compelling strategy and mindset to help enterprises go on the offensive and detect threats earlier to improve their cyber resilience. Let’s explore.

What is Left of Bang?

In a cyber context, “left of bang” is a proactive cybersecurity approach that can bolster incident detection and response by helping IT teams identify and address threats before they wreak havoc on the organization.

A Powerful Strategy with a Military Background

Left of bang has a military history, originating in 2006 during the Iraq War to better protect Marine convoys from buried improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The military viewed an incident, the bang of a detonated IED, as an event in the center of a timeline. Right of bang referred to the time and events that occurred after the explosion, while left of bang included everything prior to the incident. By training Marines to be more aware of their surroundings, recognizing subtle and explicit environmental changes, and unexpected human behaviors and other anomalies, the left-of-bang approach significantly enhanced Marine’s situational awareness, enabling them to detect threats before they occurred to improve convoy safety.

The same strategy and mindset can be applied in the cyber space to help IT teams identify cyber threats before they impact the organization.

The Value of Left-of-bang Cybersecurity

Left of bang trains security teams to recognize and address inconsistencies within the IT environment earlier on the threat continuum to strengthen their cybersecurity postures. Utilizing the right technologies, processes and practices, IT teams increase visibility into their IT environments to boost threat recognition, speed responses, and reduce the number and intensity of attacks. This is a critical differentiator that allows enterprises to prevent malicious activity, rather than deal with the fall out of a successful attack.

Proactively Detect Threats

With improved views of the IT environment and all its endpoints, IT teams achieve a better understanding of normal network behavior, allowing them to compare it against current network activity and any known exploits or indicators of threat-actor activity. This supports enterprises’ abilities to better manage their cybersecurity. Left of bang helps enterprises:

• Understand normal network behavior
• Proactively detect anomalies and potential threats
• Respond to threats quickly
• Reduce the number and intensity of attacks
• Establish a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy

Speed Recognition and Response

The ability to recognize early-warning signs of a potential attack or breach allows IT teams to react to malicious activity more rapidly to mitigate risk, limit exposure and improve outcomes. The intensified training also enables IT personnel to be more agile and purposeful in their decision making and responses to better protect the enterprise.

Enable a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy

While a left of bang approach has proven to strengthen incident detection and response capabilities, combining left-of-bang and right-of-bang technologies offers a more powerful solution. Information identified from the right of bang can feed the left of bang with critical data on new attack scenarios, including how an attack occurs, specific threat indicators and behaviors, and other lessons learned from an attack. This critical feedback can expand enterprises’ situational awareness, helping them stay abreast of constantly changing attack scenarios.

At a minimum, IT security leaders should be looking to prevent and interfere with any indicator leading up to an attack. Preventing even just one step in the attack can disrupt an entire incident’s potential. The earlier your team can detect, the earlier it can be prevented, which is always the best strategy.

WEI Roundtable Discussion: Cyber Warfare & Beyond

Partner with WEI for a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Solution

Beginning the journey toward a more proactive cybersecurity strategy can be overwhelming. WEI’s experienced security engineers can help enterprises navigate these complex waters, devising cybersecurity solutions that integrate left-of-bang and right-of-bang technologies.

To ensure the right fit, WEI works with enterprises to assess their current network states, identify hidden vulnerabilities, and understand their unique needs and risk tolerances. With experience across a broad range of cybersecurity solutions, WEI can develop a multi-layered strategy that integrates automation and intelligence tools to optimize visibility across all touch points of the IT environment to help proactively detect, alert and remediate threats without impeding authorized workflows. Serving as an extension of the organization, WEI can deliver a comprehensive incident detection and response strategy that helps future-proof organizations against the increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape.

Up Next: Stay tuned for our follow-up blog on the specific left-of-bang and right-of-bang technologies that can fortify your overall cybersecurity posture. In the meantime, contact WEI today for any questions about our next-gen cybersecurity solutions.

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Email is a vital part of our lives, both for business and personal communications. However, this integral tool is increasingly vulnerable to malicious attacks by cybercriminals aiming to steal credentials, confidential data, or funds. To protect against these complex threats, companies need a robust multi-layered security measure in place when handling emails.

Fortunately, you can protect your business from the ever-present threat of cyber criminals by utilizing Fortinet’s comprehensive email security solution, . With its wide range of options and unmatched flexibility in deployment modes, it is an ideal choice for organizations or service providers to keep threats out while ensuring existing data remains safe.

Cloud-Based Email Security

Powered by the renowned threat intelligence network, this solution provides multi-layered protection against spam, phishing attempts, malware infections, and zero-day threats. This offers your enterprise peace of mind knowing all emails are scanned for potential risks.

Fortinet also offers a variety of customizable solutions, from FortiMail appliances and virtual machines to FortiMail Cloud. These solutions adequately protect your organization’s email, allowing you to choose the right deployment model and operation mode for your specific needs, whether on-premise or in the cloud.

Common Email Security Phishing Scams

Phishing is a malicious form of cyber-attacks that attempts to deceive users into giving away private information such as passwords, bank details, and credit card numbers. Cybercriminals have become increasingly advanced with their phishing attempts ranging from identity theft to malware installation. Here are a few common phishing scams to look out for:

1. Spear Phishing

Spear phishing is a highly targeted form of email attack in which hackers take the time to research and customize their messages with detailed personal information about an individual. This type of scam requires resources that can only be accessed by larger organizations, making it far more dangerous than traditional spam tactics.

2. Business Email Compromise (BEC)

BEC attacks are an important threat to be aware of for business email security. These use sophisticated techniques to impersonate senior executives and redirect payments into malicious accounts. By manipulating trust relationships between organizations and their customers or vendors, these attackers aim to steal funds from unsuspecting individuals.

3. Clone Phishing

This attack deceives victims into providing sensitive information. Scammers create fake emails which look legitimate and replace the original links or attachments with malicious versions to trick users. These fraudulent messages are often sent from addresses similar enough to the real sender’s address, which makes the incorrect address appear valid at first glance.

4. Whaling Phishing

We’ve written about whaling in the past, but it has been a while since we touched on it. Primarily targeting employees at the senior level, whale phishing is where the scammer poses as a trusted party to encourage a user to open a malicious website or attachment. To be clear, a whaling attack is a spear phishing attack that focuses on a high-level manager or executive. Despite the differences, some security experts do not distinguish between spear phishing and whaling. We just did, so there’s that.

How FortiMail Provides Protection

1. Wide-range Protection

FortiMail is your one-stop solution to combat email threats such as phishing, , impersonation, and BEC attacks. It provides complete protection with flexible deployment options for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments – all backed by API support for !

2. Email Security Fabric

FortiMail is an essential part of the Fortinet Security Fabric. It provides enhanced email protection through automated operations and workflow capabilities using shared Indicators of Compromise (IoC) across your IT environment to enable better intelligence-driven decisions that strengthen overall cybersecurity.

3. Consistent High Performance

Fortinet stands out among the competition, having been independently tested and proven to be email security vendors. This solution has an incredible AAA rating from SE Labs and a practically invincible Spam Catch Rate from Virus Bulletin.

4. Powered By FortiGaurd Labs

Fortinet’s FortiMail is powered by advanced threat intelligence and AI-powered Security Services like antivirus, virus outbreak protection, and anti-spam from the established security experts at FortiGuard Labs. In fact, FortiGaurd experts analyze threats and can protect against a staggering amount. This service enables:

• 319,000 phishing attempts blocked per minute.
• 595,000 malware programs neutralized per minute.
• 790,000 malicious website accesses blocked per minute.
• 30,000 spam events blocked per minute.

Conclusion

Cybercriminals constantly innovate their attack techniques to evade security measures, but Fortinet presents a comprehensive solution that consolidates and converges critical technologies. FortiMail is a single-vendor platform that is increasingly essential in the fight against modern cyber threats, as they become ever more sophisticated and difficult to detect.

If you’re ready to implement FortiMail into your security efforts, contact WEI today. Our experts will help you identify which services are best suited for protecting your enterprise from potential email security threats.

Next Steps: Curious about what your business can do right now to make the most of your hybrid workforce? Download our to learn more about how you can improve the efficiency of your team.

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Over the last decade, the topic of cybersecurity has shifted from being a technical subject to a mainstream topic impacting every facet of the organization. As cyberattacks become increasingly more sophisticated, frequent and disruptive executive leaders now face a new complex blend of issues, including economics, business processes, and psychology.

During a recent event, presented in partnership with , we featured Michael Daniel, an industry thought leader and expert in cybersecurity. Serving as former Cybersecurity Advisor to the White House and current president and . Michael shared his outlook on the global security landscape and applicable steps to help you avoid becoming the next breaking cybersecurity story.

In the article below, we’ll share the top three strategies to level up your cyber game.

1. Change Your Cybersecurity Mindset

When it comes to cybersecurity, it’s often treated as a problem that you just purchase a solution for. The reality is cybersecurity is constantly evolving and requires a new mindset to protect the organization from emerging threats.

Here are two reasons why cybersecurity isn’t just a technical problem.

1. Cybersecurity is an economic problem. Enterprises need to develop incentives for their employees by addressing cybersecurity as a shared risk and promoting that through collaboration across organizational boundaries.
2. Cybersecurity is a psychological problem. Cybercriminals have been manipulating people for years and enterprises still struggle to apply the correct solutions because they are solving the problem only through technology.

By shifting your mindset about cybersecurity from a problem to be solved to a long-term strategy focused around a blended approach encompassing economics, business processes and human psychology, enterprises are better equip to manage risk and protect the enterprise from emerging threats.

2. Redefine Success For Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity lives inside cyberspace, which doesn’t operate like the physical world does. It’s difficult to understand cyberspace because none of the features of cyberspace work in the real world.

According to Michael, “Everybody will always say that cyberspace is borderless and that’s not true.”

It’s actually the complete opposite – borders are everywhere in cyberspace. There are routers, firewalls, and switches that create the borders. It’s just a difficult concept because the borders aren’t the same arbitrary political boundaries we’ve made in the physical world. Border security doesn’t work in cyberspace, and since our mental models can’t translate a borderless network, enterprises struggle with protecting themselves from cybersecurity threats.

Michael explained four ways cybersecurity threats are consistently evolving.

1. Cybersecurity threats have become more diverse. The number and type of devices to attack is getting larger by every passing year. The volume and the diversity of connected devices increases the complexity of cybersecurity threats making it difficult to defend.
2. The volume of malicious activity is increasing as the barriers to entry are low and the returns are high. Cybercriminals can make a lot of money or gain information with the low probability of being arrested and prosecuted.
3. Cybersecurity threats are increasingly more sophisticated. In the last couple of years cybersecurity threats have increased exponentially. The criminal ecosystem is now diversified and highly specialized making cybercrime is far more organized than you think. They have access to key resources making them better prepared and knowledgeable. Cybercrime runs like a business and the “big ticket items” are enterprises. That’s why there has been an increase in ransomware.
4. Cybercriminals are designing cyberthreats that are increasingly more disruptive. The impact of cyber incidents has increased because enterprises and individuals are more digitally dependent than ever. Having a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy involves acknowledging how cybersecurity threats are evolving in order to properly protect ourselves.

Cybersecurity is often seen as something you can simply fix, but rather a part of doing business in the modern world. You want to treat cybersecurity like a core operational risk that will occur throughout the life of your business. If not, one cyber incident could be catastrophic.

3. Recognize That Cybersecurity Is Still “New”

Cybersecurity is still very “new.” Many enterprises will say cybersecurity has been around for a long time. However, they haven’t been able to develop customs, habits, policies, or laws that consistently work well in cyberspace. We understand cyberspace as this highly connected and interactive environment – the internet. People are connected to the network all the time, more so every single year. Only in the last 20- 25 years has the network really evolved. In regard to customs, policies, and laws this is a very short amount of time.

How Cisco SecureX Aligns With Your Cybersecurity Strategy

Cisco offers a simplified security experience that allows enterprises to continue using the three strategies to successfully protect themselves from cybersecurity threats. , built-in platform that connects their secure portfolio and an enterprise’s infrastructure seamlessly for a consistent experience. SecureX unifies visibility, enables automation, and strengthens security across your network. It does this without replacing your current security infrastructure or layering on another technology. confidently secure every business aspect, lets you build your own customizable security, collaborates across shared workflows and teams, and turns security from a blocker into an enabler. It aligns with Michael Daniels’ three strategies and will keep you updated on any approaching cybersecurity threats.

NEXT STEPS: Lack of visibility across your entire IT estate is often the biggest challenge when it comes to effectively securing your company from intrusion. Cisco can help you spot those vulnerabilities faster with a proactive security strategy. It really comes down to having the right tools AND frequent cybersecurity training for your employees, but let’s start at square one and take a look at what’s possible when you have full visibility!

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Regardless of the subject, there’s no one better to learn from than the experts. With this thought in mind, we recently held a featuring Kevin Mitnick, a famous hacker and New York Times bestselling author, James Morrison, a Distinguished Technologist and a former FBI agent, and our own Greg LaBrie, an enterprise security industry veteran and our Vice President of Technology Solutions and Services.

The webinar titled “Hack Me If You Can!” is now available for , and it shared expert insights on key cybersecurity topics including:

• Common threats and tactics used by today’s hackers
• Which new technologies can improve your cybersecurity strategy
• How to turn the tables on cyberattacks through offensive and defensive security strategies

In this article, we’ll share the top three takeaways from the webinar that you need to know to effectively combat today’s evolving cybersecurity threats.

1. Identifying Your Priorities Should Be The First Step In Your Cybersecurity Strategy

In the last year and a half, enterprises around the world have been faced with a substantial, new challenges. In terms of IT and cybersecurity, the exodus to remote working, maintaining that, and the evolution of the hybrid workspace has stretched enterprise security teams to the breaking point. Unfortunately, the bad guys know it and have no qualms about taking advantage.

According to a from INTERPOL, the rapid deployment of remote systems and networks allowed criminals to take “advantage of increased security vulnerabilities to steal data, generate profits and cause disruption.”

Even now, as some companies go back to the office and others delay in-person plans, or adopt a hybrid approach, cybercriminals are waiting for their opportunity to strike and these transitional periods are the perfect target.

In addition to the confusion and uncertainty created by the pandemic and the subsequent rise in cybercrime, companies are overwhelmed as they re-evaluate their security strategy and solutions as they begin to implement a more comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.

During the cybersecurity webinar, Greg LaBrie shared how the amount of enterprise security solutions on the market and the complexity of setting up security throughout an enterprise’s digital environment is making it hard for companies to determine their security priorities. As a result, many companies end up utilizing solutions that aren’t the best fit for their needs or leave vulnerabilities by neglecting to secure certain aspects of their digital environment.

“Don’t just buy any server, but look carefully at your server. Just don’t throw any solution out there, but really look at one of these confusing acronyms like ZTNA (zero trust network access). It means you have to have endpoint protection. It means you need to have multi-factor authentication. It means you need to have network access control and identity management,” Greg shared during the webinar.

“Put those solutions in place and also have a plan B. Have a backup. Have a way that if you do get ransomware that you can recover. That you don’t need to even be concerned about paying a ransom or the threat of paying ransom.”

2. Utilize Penetration Testing To Analyze Your Cybersecurity Strategy

Once your cybersecurity strategy is in place and you’re up and running, the next step should be to test for any vulnerabilities. That’s where ethical hackers like come in.

After getting himself into some hot water utilizing his talents in not-so-legal ways, Kevin eventually began operating a cybersecurity testing company and now helps enterprises determine areas of improvement in their defense strategy.

“I think penetration testing is absolutely necessary, because how do you know what weaknesses are in your security controls? How do you know that your network services aren’t exploitable? What about your web applications?” Kevin said during the webinar.

During the course of a penetration test, teams like Kevin’s make use of strategies that today’s hackers would utilize, using their creativity and expertise to determine how a cybercriminal could gain access and then, figure out what needs to be done to remove that vulnerability.

Sometimes it’s the simplest things that give cybercriminals the keys to your digital environment.

“I can’t tell you how many times organizations we tested that have all the privileged passwords sitting there on unencrypted Excel spreadsheets on the IT drive. And that’s the first place a bad actor is going to look.”

3. You Don’t Have To Go It Alone

Just like any other predator, cybercriminals want their prey scared and isolated. Thankfully, as it is in the animal kingdom, there is strength in numbers when it comes to cybersecurity.

New security guidance is coming out every day and sharing information is one way we can get ahead of bad actors.

For enterprises, another method is to work with a partner like WEI on your cybersecurity strategy.

As shared by James Morrison during the webinar, security is being built into tools that never had it before and while not every solution is going to fit your enterprise, by talking to your IT solutions provider, you can better determine what your cybersecurity needs are.

“Modernization is not just about us tech companies trying to sell the new gadget. There are new security features built into a lot of the things that we do. So, let’s have that conversation. Don’t just ignore it because you think we’re trying to pump a product. If it’s ransomware that bugs you, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about ransomware avoidance, ransomware remediation, ransomware recovery. All of these things, but we’ve got to start with having that honest conversation. Can you afford $11 million for ransomware? Because if you think your insurance is going to protect you from it, that ship is sailing.”

Ensure a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy With WEI

Having a trusted technology partner like WEI can help you build the right security foundation with secure tools like integrated with Processors, while walking you through a cyber-savvy strategy to identify vulnerabilities and take a proactive approach to risk mitigation.

NEXT STEPS: Watch the webinar for other cybersecurity pearls of wisdom as you take a closer look at strengthening your own security posture. You can also sign up for a one-on-one .

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In the last six months, the fear of cyberattacks has grown significantly, largely due to several high-profile incidents that left enterprises struggling to deal with the fall out and the general public fearful of the next attack.

Today’s cybercriminals aren’t just targeting corporations or financial institutions. They’re paralyzing oil pipelines, shutting down public transportation, and holding police forces hostage. Anyone and anything can be a target and businesses need to prepare accordingly.

So, what are you doing to protect against omnipresent cyberthreats? Below we have provided five tips that can help IT leaders ensure their cybersecurity strategy is comprehensive.

1. Carefully Consider Your Cybersecurity Budget

According to , cybersecurity spending is to exceed $1 trillion over a five-year period ending in 2021. That constitutes a growth rate of 12 percent to 15 percent a year. However, that the cost of cybercrime around the world will rise to $6 trillion over that same period.

Obviously, there seems to be a disconnect. We are spending more money to protect against threats that are in turn costing an increasing amount of money. You don’t have to be a financial advisor or CFO to know that the ROI on that $1 trillion isn’t very good.

A conducted by Deloitte showed that financial institutions spend an average of 10 percent of their IT budget on cybersecurity, while a 2019 showed a mean of 15 percent.

While there is no hard answer to how much a company should spend on cybersecurity, companies should be getting some type of return on their investment, just like any other IT acquisition. Just throwing money at the problem won’t make it disappear if you don’t have a strategic plan for those funds.

2. Make Sure You’re Focusing On The Right Threats

involving approx. 1,100 cybersecurity executives showed a blaring disconnect between the security solutions their organizations spent money on and the solutions they actually needed to address their most pertinent threats.

While 30 percent of the respondents classified their organizations as “very or extremely vulnerable to data attacks,” 62 percent listed network security as their top spending priority, while 56 percent cited an endpoint solution. As it turns out, data-at-rest security solutions ranked last.

So, why does spending not match up with cybersecurity vulnerabilities? One possible explanation for this quandary is that companies continue to purchase what they are used to or what has worked in the past. However, threats are continually evolving, therefore your required solution sets must evolve as well. Another factor is that many organizations implement security measures without first assessing what their digital environment truly compasses, leading to an incomplete picture of their cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

3. Don’t Get Caught Up On Every New “Best Of Breed” Solution

If you’re involved with IT solution purchasing, you should be familiar with the term “best in breed,” which signifies a solution is the best option available. In theory, best of breed sounds wonderful and at WEI, we stand behind solutions that we can attest are the best solution available for your unique business needs.

That being said, when it comes to purchasing, cybersecurity is a bit different than other areas of IT. Cybercriminals evolve quickly and new attack strategies emerge every day. Trying to stay ahead of these developments by snapping up every new best in breed solution is an inefficient strategy and may actually create more cybersecurity risks. According to a , 40 percent of security professionals say that purchasing from a multitude of security vendors adds cost and purchasing complexity to their organization. In fact, the underscored a direct correlation between the number of security vendors a company had with the amount of downtime they experienced as a result of a security incident.

The bottom line is that more solutions create more complexity and reduce the effectiveness of your overall cybersecurity strategy. Unfortunately, adequately defending your digital environment is more complicated than just picking up the newest and hottest cybersecurity solution.

4. Avoid Cybersecurity Silos At All Costs

You’ve probably heard this a million times already. To be truly successful, enterprises need to break down IT silos. We often associate silos with management systems or data storage solutions and while companies have made great headway over the years in breaking these down, the average cybersecurity estate remains plagued with them.

Each tool works independently and forces IT professionals to perpetually bounce back and forth between tools, creating both visibility and attention gaps. It also creates a deluge of unfiltered alerts. According to the 2020 CISO Benchmark Study, 44 percent of organizations see more than 10,000 daily alerts, of which only half are addressed. The same study showed that 82 percent of CISOs acknowledged that orchestrating alerts from multiple vendor products was challenging.

5. Utilize A Cybersecurity Platform

Today’s enterprises need a security strategy that enables a more holistic and collaborative approach to combat threats, especially as the industry suffers from a lack of qualified cybersecurity professionals.

While many IT leaders are familiar with the concept of solution-based platforms, such as an endpoint protection platform or the platform of tools conglomerated in a next generation firewall appliance, portfolio-based platforms allow you to integrate the products you already use now with the products you may want to use in the future, even third-party products.

These agnostic security platforms, such as , can unify visibility across all parts of your infrastructure through a combined console that vastly increases operational efficiency. These platforms provide actionable automation when it comes to workflows in order to better hunt and remediate threats.

In particular, security platform enables better decision making through comprehensive threat detection, powerful analytics and security policy management. In addition to its security offerings, a modernized security platform provides value through greater efficiency and ROI metrics that can greatly accelerate time to value.

Achieve Comprehensive Cybersecurity With Cisco

As a leader in enterprise security, and with products ranging from to , Cisco can help any enterprise ensure comprehensive cybersecurity. With Cisco SecureX, enterprises can simplify their cybersecurity strategy and improve response efficiency without compromising data.

NEXT STEPS: Learn more about how Cisco SecureX is unifying and simplifying enterprise security in our free solution brief download below. Click below to start reading.

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Effective Security

Nearly three-quarters of network traffic is now encrypted through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) technology. However, cyberattacks often hide in SSL/TLS traffic. Studies estimate that up to 50% of attacks come from encrypted traffic. An effective NGFW thoroughly inspects encrypted traffic for malware and other threats. Your firewall solution should also provide end-to-end security throughout the network. Many NGFW tools and features already exist as standalone point products. While all of these products work well on their own, they are not designed to work together. An NGFW combines these separate solutions into an integrated system spanning the entire network. With network-wide security architecture, separate locations can share threat intelligence, resulting in fast, automated protection throughout the enterprise.

Proven Speed and Performance

While security is the primary goal of an NGFW, it should not come at the expense of network performance and speed. Modern enterprises need an NGFW that can keep up with their network traffic. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to verify the performance claims of NGFW vendors. Organizations should look for a firewall solution that has been tested by a reliable third-party. Determine what throughput speeds your business needs and choose an that has been proven to meet or exceed those speeds. A high-performing NGFW should be capable of effectively inspecting encrypted traffic without impeding network performance. Scalability is also a vital performance standard. Your NGFW should be able to scale as needed to continue providing fast, effective security even during network spikes.

Simple Management

Networks have become increasingly complex, but protecting them can be simple. A high-quality NGFW should offer a granular, high-visibility, single pane of glass security management. You should be able to view and manage security policies for your entire network from any location. Look for a firewall solution that also provides effective automation. Automated auditing and workflow capabilities ensure complete protection even with minimal security personnel.

Fortinet’s Solution

Fortinet continues to provide best-in-class security and performance with their FortiGate-500E NGFW. FortiGate-500E has undergone extensive third-party testing through NSS Labs and recently received its sixth “Recommended” rating from the validation center. The most recent results highlight FortiGate-500E’s robust security and high performance. In NSS’s tests, :

• Blocked 98.96% of exploits
• Stopped all live exploits
• Achieved 5.978Gbps throughput on combined traffic and 5.82Gbps on encrypted traffic
• Effectively inspected 100% of encrypted traffic and detected hidden threats

FortiGate-500E provides complete network security with the Fortinet Security Fabric. This end-to-end security architecture enables shared threat intelligence throughout the network, increasing security for every part of the enterprise. Purpose-built security processors maximize scalability of advanced security features. The enterprise-level management system provides high-visibility and control of the entire network. Fortinet’s streamlined, comprehensive NGFW solution is proven to offer a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and is designed to deliver an industry-best ROI.

Effective security is a vital requirement of an NGFW, but speed and performance should not be overlooked. A best-in-class NGFW should enhance your network, not hinder it. Look for an NGFW solution that provides thorough, rapid inspections of all traffic. A quality firewall should have a proven record of recognizing and blocking threats, including those hiding in encrypted traffic. Your NGFW should be highly scalable for complete protection even during network spikes. The management platform should also be taken into consideration. Your firewall solution should simplify network security management, providing granular control and high-visibility. Invest in the future of your enterprise with a quality NGFW that offers a low TCO, high ROI, and best-in-class security and performance.

NEXT STEPS: Looking for insight on how to “up your security game” to meet the needs of your organization’s digital transformation initiatives? We invite you to check out the Fortinet Solution Guide, Read it today!

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