Every business – no matter the size or industry – is faced with cyber-attacks every day. Security challenges are greater in the present than ever before, including ever-growing sources of data and advanced persistent threats and cloud-based security vulnerabilities, to mention just a few.
As a result, many enterprises have begun to prioritize cybersecurity as part of their risk management strategies to protect themselves against the ever-changing cyber-security landscape. It begs the question: what exactly is threat management? Read on to find out everything you have to be aware of.
Table of Contents
Explaining Cyber Threat Management
In explaining the concept of the concept of cyber threat management, the best first step is to explain the definition of threat management. In a broad sense threat management is an approach used to avoid cyberattacks, identify cyber threats and respond to security incidents in order to reduce the cyber-risk.
How Does Threat Management Work?
A complete security system for managing cyber threats should be based on the cybersecurity framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This NIST security framework consists of standards for five fundamental tasks – identify, protect as well as detect, respond and recover. They are described below.
Identify
The business must be aware of their most valuable resource and asset. They should create a checklist of all the equipment including software, data, and other equipment such as laptops, smartphones tablets, point-of sale devices.
Protect
The Protect function is comprised of practices like setting security controls and permissions regarding who is allowed to access your network, as well as ensuring frequent updates to devices and software and backups of your data and establishing security policies and educating users.
Detect
The company should be aware of their computers for any unauthorized access by employees, software and devices such as USB drives. Then, they should look into any suspicious or unusual activities on their network or by employees and also check the network for any unauthorized connection or users.
Respond
If a breach of data or security breach occur, it’s crucial to plan a strategy to inform employees, customers and other stakeholders to keep the operation up and running and report the incident to law enforcement agencies and other authorities.
It is equally important that, once the threat is removed that it is thoroughly examined. With this information the cybersecurity policies and plans should be reviewed to reflect the latest findings, and ensure that the revised plan is regularly tested.
Recover
Recovery efforts include fixing and restoring the infrastructure as well as components of the network that were affected, as well as keeping employees and customers aware about the response of the company and actions to recover.
Common Threat Management Challenges
Security professionals are discovering it increasingly and harder to safeguard their networks as well as other important infrastructures of business from new security threats, which include:
- The network is not visible
- Misconfiguration
- Insider dangers
- Ransomware
- Phishing
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
Alongside the ever sophisticated nature of the threats, companies are also facing budgetary limitations and a lack of cybersecurity professionals, making it difficult to find skilled professionals and equally difficult to keep these professionals.
Best Practices for Effective Cyber Threat Management
Effective solutions for managing threats can be crucial in actively defending against cyberattacks or other security threats. There are a myriad of best practices that address all phases of a threat’s lifecycle from detection of threats to response.
As companies continue to contend with threats that are increasing in complexity and volume it is vital to bring together people, processes and technology in order to remove threats faster and more effectively.
The implementation of efficient security solutions for managing threats will help companies identify and prioritize threats and study them more effectively using AI (AI) as well as advanced analytics to gain a deeper understanding of the threats. Armed with this information, businesses can quickly remediate and make sure they are secure from the potential risks of digital.
Threat management is beneficial for companies of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to giants. Depending on the size your organization, as well as the amount of mission-critical information, it might be advantageous to set up a self-service option as well as outsource risk management services to a third party partner.
Simplify Cyber-Terror Management with Buchanan
Buchanan provides a complete range that includes managed service, which includes cyber security solutions that will help you build cyber security for your business by implementing an effective risk management program.
Our security experts will help you determine and evaluate risks and establish priorities to reduce risks, increase operational efficiency when managing the process of managing cyber threats and so on.
