The world of digital security has changed dramatically over the past several years. The emergence of a new generation of threat actors and an increasingly complex and evolving threat landscape has made it more important than ever to assess your organization’s digital risk exposure. To mitigate those risks effectively, it’s important to understand how the attackers operate and what we can do about them. One thing is certain: our adversaries are getting smarter every day.
With an ever-changing threat landscape, your organization needs to be able to quickly identify and respond to new threats. Threat intelligence is an important component of any information security program because it provides you with the knowledge you need to mitigate your digital risk efficiently and effectively. If you’re not keeping up with the latest information about security threats, you could be putting your organization at risk of a breach. Threat intelligence solutions can help you mitigate digital risk by providing you with up-to-date information about threats in the cyber world. This way, you can stay ahead of the game and protect your organization from being attacked.
Now that we have a baseline understanding of what digital risks are and how they affect organizations, let’s look at ways you can mitigate them in 2023:
Table of Contents
1. Identify All Exposed Assets
First and foremost, you need to know what assets are at risk of being exposed or stolen. This is a fundamental step that must be performed before you can determine whether there is a digital risk management problem and how to mitigate it.
Identifying all exposed assets means determining where your data resides, who has access to it, how the data is being used, and how long it will be retained by an organization or individual if no longer needed (i.e., “data retention”). Once you have identified these factors, take stock of what could go wrong with each one—for example:
- If personal information like Social Security numbers were stolen from our database by hackers or fraudsters, then they could use them for identity theft purposes;
- If confidential business plans were leaked online, then competitors would be able to view them before launch;
- If customer payment card details were lost after a cyberattack, then we may have to pay fines associated with fraudulent transactions occurring on our network due to possible negligence on our part in protecting sensitive data stored on servers owned by third-party providers under contract with us
2. Create an Incident Response Plan
The first step in creating an incident response plan is to define the problem. Before deciding what you need to do to mitigate digital risk, it’s important to identify what’s causing the risk in the first place. For example, if your organization is having problems with phishing emails, then you know that a strong cybersecurity strategy will have to include measures like training employees on how not to fall for these attempts at stealing information.
If you don’t already have an incident response plan in place and are looking for guidance on where and how such a document could be useful for your organization, consider asking yourself the following questions:
- What are my goals?
- How much time do I want/need my team members to spend working on this project?
- Do I want them all doing the same things or different ones?
- Are there any external parties that might help us achieve our goals faster (e.g., vendors)?
3. Reduce Your Attack Surface
Reduce your attack surface. In order to achieve this, you’ll need to reduce the number of entry points into your network by using firewalls to control network traffic and implement intrusion detection systems that identify suspicious activity on your system. You should also use data loss prevention (DLP) systems to monitor for sensitive data leaving the network.
Determine what information is most important, then protect it with encryption technology. Suppose you have employees who access confidential information remotely or while they’re on their phones, use encryption software to keep that information safe. Encryption software can be used to protect data at rest and in transit, so you’ll need to decide which type of encryption is best for your business.
4. Monitor All Network Access
In the past, network security often focused on protecting a few specific points of entry into the network (such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems). Today, however, companies need to monitor all network access to ensure that data isn’t being compromised through any means at any time.
To do this effectively, it’s important to use a hybrid approach: you’ll need both behavioral analytics tools and endpoint-based solutions. With behavioral analytics software monitoring your employee patterns and activities online, if there are any suspicious or unusual behaviors detected by these types of tools, then they can alert IT staff, who will be able to investigate further before anything happens on an endpoint level with an endpoint solution. And don’t overlook third-parties with access to your network. Visit Website to learn about third party risk management solutions.
5. Continuously Monitor Your Attack Surface
A threat intelligence solution can help you continuously monitor your network and identify and respond to threats faster than humans.
A key part of incident response is monitoring your attack surface, as it can help you understand what areas are being targeted by a threat actor and prevent attacks. A threat intelligence solution can automate this process by providing insight into how an attacker might use your data or infrastructure as a launching pad for their next attack.
Using smart detection rules that are based on behavioral patterns rather than static signatures allows cloud security providers to provide deeper visibility into the behavior of users, devices, and applications across their networks so they can detect anomalies earlier and respond faster than by using traditional security technologies such as firewalls or intrusion detection systems (IDS).
Final Thoughts:
In conclusion, there are many ways you can mitigate digital risk in 2023. By implementing the strategies outlined here and understanding the importance of digital risk management, you can create a safer environment for your company to thrive in today’s global economy. The most effective way to defeat an attack is to have a plan in place before one occurs. In the event that you do fall victim to an attack, it’s important to know what actions are available and when they should be taken. This will help you quickly identify the source of the threat and contain its damage.
