What is Security Posture, and why is it important?
Security Posture refers to an organisations overall cybersecurity strength and how well it can predict and respond to the ever evolving cyber threats. It comprises its network, information security, network security, data security and internet security, as well as penetration testing, vendor risk management, vulnerability management, data breach prevention, security awareness training for employees to prevent social engineering attacks and other security controls.
Cybersecurity can be daunting, thus a guide on where to start is just what you need to kickstart this journey.
Here are five steps to improve your security posture;
1. Inventory Identification/Assessment
The first step is to get a comprehensive inventory of your assets. An asset is any device, application, service, or cloud instance that has access to your organisations network or data. Knowing detailed information about each asset will assist in mapping your attack surface and understanding the risks associated with the asset. Getting an accurate asset inventory is foundational to your security posture.
2. Identify Risks
Once an organisation has accurately identified all its assets, the next step is to carry out a risk assessment. A risk assessment identifies the level of vulnerability across an organisation’s assets. The results enable organisations to determine what they need to do to improve their security postures and help identify the security controls they should put in place to protect the business against attacks. It is prudent to define which departments own what risk and assign risk managers; having accountability of the vulnerabilities will ensure that they do not go ignored or unattended.
3. Monitoring
Consistently monitor your organisations assets across a wide range of attack vectors like unpatched software, phishing, misconfigurations, weak passwords. Next is to evaluate these vulnerabilities based on risk and task the risk managers identified in the previous step to ensure mitigation is done.
4. Gap Analysis
With mitigation action taken against the identified attack vectors and security controls in place, it is imperative that the organisation regularly analyse gaps in the existing controls. This can be done by doing regular audits to check on new applications and assets. Make appropriate changes to these controls, as the cybersecurity threat landscape is ever-changing.
5. Incident Response Plan
Lastly, define key security metrics and develop an incident response plan; this can be guided by industry standard and customized to meet the needs of the organisation. Continuously measure and track these metrics to ensure that security risk are minimized.
The steps identified above can be achieved by integrating a vulnerability management solution to your organisation’s network. Automated tools assist in automating all the steps as well as generating vulnerability reports, dashboards showcasing level of vulnerability as compared to industry standards. At Tribus Technologies, we advocate for the adoption of open source technologies and believe that security does not need to break the bank.
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