Across industries, digital transformation continues to power businesses by unlocking innovative use cases. From AI-driven analytics that deliver personalized customer engagement to low-code app builders that give business teams the means to program, these solutions enable employees to excel at their jobs and drive future success. .
However, these benefits also come with security risks. Immediate action must be taken before serious damage occurs. From 2020 to 2022, the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) recorded 54,000 cyber threats against him. Of these, 3,000 were classified as “high-level cyberattacks,” and half of them targeted critical systems belonging to government agencies and emergency response teams.
This alarming trend shows that organizations need to do more to improve their cybersecurity stance. Therefore, it is time for organizations to integrate comprehensive visibility as a key driver of their threat detection and response strategies.
Comprehensive visibility
Comprehensive visibility is the ability to observe and assess all components of your IT environment. This is an essential element in keeping critical assets safe and maintaining strong trust with customers and stakeholders. Without comprehensive visibility, security teams are left in the dark about what threats they currently face and how to effectively counter them. As a result, organizations and their customers face an increased risk of cyber incidents.
For example, attacks targeting password management platforms can give cyber attackers unfettered access to credentials, allowing them to steal information and funds right from users’ doorsteps.
remain vigilant
Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions are central to enabling security teams to monitor activity occurring across networks, endpoints, users, and applications. This information is critical to being proactive in mitigating threats before they cause significant damage. SIEM solutions are equipped with a variety of features that can help organizations thwart cyber attackers’ objectives.
These features include:
– Log and event monitoring. SIEM solutions are designed to collect log data from all infrastructure components, including routers, switches, firewalls, servers, devices, applications, and cloud environments. This data is correlated and analyzed, allowing users to identify indicators of ransomware, brute force attack attempts, malware installations, SQL injections, and fraudulent backups.
– Abnormal behavior and detection. AI/ML-enabled SIEM solutions can correlate data to create a baseline that constitutes normal behavior. From there, security teams are notified of any unusual login attempts, data migration activity, or system access attempts that indicate a potential security breach. This feature helps organizations reduce the risk of insider attacks, information theft, and account compromise.
– Incident response and investigation. Her SIEM solution with incident dashboard allows security teams to gain deeper context about cyber threats. Specifically, teams can learn what caused the incident in the first place, when the incident occurred, and how the incident impacted business operations. This information allows users to take immediate and effective countermeasures against high-risk threats.
– Threat intelligence integration. A SIEM solution combined with a global threat feed allows users to detect network traffic to and from blocklisted IP addresses. Additionally, by matching internal security data with external threat intelligence, security teams can better understand cyber attacker tactics and indicators of compromise. This enables teams to thwart threats peeking into the cyber environment.
– Cloud infrastructure monitoring. Businesses that rely on the cloud to maintain operations need to be able to manage events that occur across their infrastructure. SIEM solutions that include cloud access security broker (CASB) functionality provide security teams with insight into user requests and the types of applications they want to open. Additionally, by combining deep packet inspection with automated workflows, teams can stop ransomware and malware before they can cause havoc. Finally, SIEM ensures consistent security by generating reports that inform organizations of compliance with local and global regulations.
Comprehensive visibility is essential to help users reap the benefits of technology without falling victim to cyber threats. A SIEM solution acts as an extra set of eyes for security teams to monitor the entire cyber environment and reduce the opportunities for attackers to break into your systems. This allows employees to continue working seamlessly, reducing workplace friction and increasing overall satisfaction.
Arun Kumar is a regional director for ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corp., an Indian multinational technology company that manufactures computer software and web-based business tools.