Organizations are at different stages of their digital transformation journey, but no matter how far along you are, security has always been and should continue to be a top consideration. With an ever-evolving threat landscape, organizations face daily challenges in keeping up with new risks and vulnerabilities. In the RSA 2018 Cybersecurity and Business Risk Survey 70% of respondents confirmed their organization had experienced a security breach in the past two years and 85% of those indicated they had actually experienced two or more breaches in that same timeframe. So, how can you prepare for a threat you don’t know exists?
RSA and Secureworks CTOs recently weighed in on the top considerations organizations should be looking at when it comes to security and digital transformation. Here are the top three things you should know.
Take a Hard Look at Where Your Critical Data is…and Where the Risk Lies
As new technologies – and vulnerabilities – are introduced into the IT ecosystem, it’s essential to first take a risk-orientated view at what’s already occurring in the environment, identifying what assets need to be protected and understanding where the organization’s critical data is. In addition to the technology, be sure the organization is considering the people and processes needed to ensure security isn’t an afterthought. Above all, visibility in the network, and across all systems being added to the network, is absolutely essential. You can’t defend what you can’t see.
Artificial Intelligence Will Help You Make Smarter Security Decisions
There aren’t enough security analysts out there to deal with every single security issue facing organizations. When applied correctly, artificial intelligence can serve as a force multiplier, helping to make analysts more powerful. While AI helps detect interesting events and helps orchestrate and automate various systems, a human analyst can stay focused on the threat actor tactics and then supervise the machine learning model to learn those tactics. Artificial intelligence will play a bigger role shortening the time to value by contextualizing the data, providing the confidence to take action. In addition, more organizations will have to establish a common taxonomy for risk.
Defend What’s Important to the Business
As the C-Suite and Board become more concerned with cybersecurity risk, security will be considered part of a holistic risk management program – taking a proactive, business-driven approach and moving beyond traditional reactive tactics. As new threats and technologies are introduced into the IT mindset, security professionals cannot rest on their laurels, because as long as there’s a bad guy, there’s a need for a good guy to defend against the threat.