How Resilient Is Your Cybersecurity Posture?  

Between adopting new technologies, modernizing operations and navigating the increased sophistication in today’s cyberattacks, how confident are you that your cybersecurity posture can withstand future cyberattacks? Ask yourself: 

  • Do you have the visibility needed to protect your most critical assets? 
  • Can your organization quickly respond to and effectively remediate a breach or attack? 
  • Are your security policies responsive to the rate of change in your business? 

If you’re uncertain about the answers, it can be tempting to invest in more technologies to fortify your security posture. Yet the solution is often best addressed by leveraging a cyber resilience framework that enables you to make better use of existing assets and capabilities. 

The Importance of a Cybersecurity Risk and Remediation Plan  

The cybersecurity function is twofold: prevention and recovery. Both require highly dynamic capabilities to mitigate catastrophic risk in an accelerating climate of change. A cyber resilience framework addresses these issues and sets your organization up for long-term success.  

It helps you: 

  • Gain greater visibility into your expanding threat surface  
  • Identify what needs to be protected and your organization’s risk tolerance for each  
  • Validate your program’s resiliency before, during and after events  
  • Pinpoint how your current cybersecurity posture can be improved daily with real-time data 
  • Determine the right resource mix to optimize costs and identify cost-savings 

More importantly, it equips you with the ability to devise a comprehensive approach by providing you with a pragmatic roadmap prioritized by risk and complexity. In turn, you’re better able to communicate with internal stakeholders on what the most pressing vulnerabilities are and how to get ahead of them before threat actors exploit them.  

Developing a Cybersecurity Resilience Framework

Undergoing a cybersecurity resilience framework exercise helps identity potential vulnerabilities so you can develop the best defense for your organization. At TekStream, there are three approaches we often deploy to help clients create a tailored framework that evolves and grows as their threat surface expands. 

One approach is to use the NIST framework to identify coverage gaps and cost-saving opportunities with a risk-based review of your cybersecurity posture. You’ll want to look at policy gaps across your people, tools and processes. Then, you want to dig deeper into critical areas that need specific or additional focus to ensure a holistic review of your cyber infrastructure.  

Another approach is to enhance your security posture with an ethical hacking exercise, also known as pen testing, to identify and validate your vulnerabilities. At TekStream, we help clients accomplish this by undergoing red-and-blue-teaming exercises.  

Results from these exercises are then used to devise a plan for addressing these vulnerabilities. This is also a great opportunity to train your people on how to identify and mitigate common attack scenarios.  

Finally, the last approach you can take is to look at your program level vulnerabilities across your portfolio. Rather than looking at detailed vulnerabilities, you look at your overall processes. The goal is to identify where the biggest gaps are and how to cover them so you can meet overall high-level objectives.   

While you can take any of the three approaches to develop your cybersecurity framework based on your immediate needs, we often advise clients to take a comprehensive approach and undergo all three. Instead of focusing on one area, take a phased approach to developing your framework to ensure all your bases are covered. 

The Value of Fortifying Your Cybersecurity Posture With a Partner

Keeping pace with today’s changing and rising threats is a challenge most cybersecurity teams face. It’s a common situation we come across in our line of business. As companies adopt more interconnected technologies in their bid for innovation, it also opens the door to potential cyberattacks. 

Yet a lack of time and resources amid changing business priorities prevent most organizations from conducting a thorough review of their cyber programs that considers people, tools and processes. If this situation sounds familiar, leveraging a partner can help you gain the visibility you need.  

An experienced partner can provide both the expertise and hands on support you need to execute your roadmap and enhance your security posture. They can use their knowledge of best-in-class solutions like Splunk and AWS to develop the right configuration based on organizational needs while addressing resource gaps.  

For example, we recently worked with Georgia Technology Authority (GTA) to develop a cyber resilience framework for their organization as part of their cloud-first strategy. Using our expertise as an AWS Advanced Tier Services partner, we helped configure AWS and Microsoft Azure to better address gaps while flagging growth opportunities and cost savings. 

Setting Your Cybersecurity Program for Long-Term Success

In 2023 alone, the number of intrusions into cloud-hosted environments increased by 75%, and that number is expected to grow as businesses continue to transform and innovate. At a time when threat actors are getting more sophisticated by the day, the question of when your defenses will be tested is not an if but when. The question then becomes, do you have a cybersecurity program that is responsive to the rate of change within your organization or your infrastructure?  

If you’re struggling to answer this question, you may benefit from a comprehensive review. Our team can help when you’re ready to take the next step.