Get back to the basics with this Complete Beginner’s Guide to Protecting Corporate Network Infrastructure. Here are the main items of concern when protecting your infrastructure.
In organizations, networks are set up to interlink different workstations and a central server. These interlinks form part of the corporate network allowing the organization to achieve its business functions.
Most organizations set up their networks to perform transactions, allow them to communicate with clients, and keep records. However, most organizations set up these networks and forget a critical component which is network security.
Often the result of not implementing network security is that organizations lose valuable data to hackers. But how? There have been organizations losing their whole network infrastructure to hackers, like WannaCry malware which led to many organizations losing their workstations due to ransomware.
One of the factors attributed to such attacks has been linked to the IT managers’ negligence in these corporate settings. But how can one address such cases? What measures can be taken to ensure that organization protects their network infrastructures? Well protecting network infrastructure abides by the concept of prevention is better than cure. To mitigate the risks that come with corporate network infrastructure, IT practitioners can:
Implement Physical Access Controls
Protection first starts with the physical location. With corporate network infrastructures, hackers can gain physical access to server rooms. The most damage can be done when a hacker can access the core hardware that facilitates the network connectivity within an organization. Suppose a hacker can access the server room. In that case, they can easily destroy network equipment, whether by malware or physically destroying the servers.
IT managers can implement access control measures such as biometric authentication measures and limiting access to only authorized personnel. Implementing such measures can significantly reduce occurrences of networks being compromised.
Stay Up to Date with The Latest Software
Of all the causes of network breaches, outdated software has often been attributed to organizations losing all their resources. For example, the Equifax data breach was widely attributed to outdated software. The hackers were able to access sensitive information through a software vulnerability that had earlier been patched.
The fault was attributed to the organization’s gross negligence to update its software and patching these security vulnerabilities. IT managers should practice staying updated on the latest software changes to reduce data breaches and address issues associated with security vulnerabilities.
Train Employees on Security Measures
One notable factor to consider in corporate organizations is that not every employee is a tech guru and can identify potential security threats. In organizations, employees are the most vulnerable to hacking. Employees can be hacked through malicious emails and social engineering. They can be gateways through which hackers gain access to the entire corporate network and sabotage the organization. To ensure that such cases don’t occur, IT technicians can sensitize employees on proper security measures.
These security measures can range from using strong passwords, avoiding opening unverified emails, and avoiding sharing corporate resources with outsiders. Training will ensure that employees remain protected at all times.
Protect Endpoints
The biggest source of network breaches is malware. Hackers often create malware with the intent of harming an organization. In most cases, the malware goes undetected and can cause significant harm to the organization.
Antivirus has been designed to identify and mitigate any potential threats to the network.
Related: What is Firewall Logging and Why is it Important?
Problems with Network Infrastructure in 2021
Unknown Assets and Devices
An asset is no longer just a laptop or server. It’s now a complex mix of digital computing platforms and assets which represent your modern attack surface, including cloud, containers, web applications, and mobile devices. Proactively discover true asset identities (rather than IP addresses) across any digital computing environment and keep a live view of your assets with our managed vulnerability management service.
Sporadic Vulnerability Scans
Periodic vulnerability scans, like annual physicals, are limited in the type of protection that they can provide to assure system fitness. However, continuous network monitoring is a game-changing technology and is becoming the new normal. Continuous network monitoring is not a fad, it implements the 5 healthy best practices that your organization should be monitoring, and it provides daily visibility into your progress. Tenable is proud to be leading the trend.
Performing only a single vulnerability scan each year or quarter puts organizations at risk of not uncovering new vulnerabilities. The time between each scan is all an attacker needs to compromise a network. With continuous scanning, our security experts automatically have visibility to assess where each asset is secure or exposed.
Prioritized Risk
By using risk prioritization, our security experts have the skills to understand exposures in context. They will prioritize remediation based on asset criticality, threat context, and vulnerability severity. Our reporting will help you prioritize which exposures to fix first, if at all, and apply the appropriate remediation technique
Introduction to The Modern Approach to Vulnerability Scanning
Today’s enterprise networks are in a perpetual state of flux. The use of mobile devices to access corporate data is skyrocketing. More IT services are being delivered via the cloud than ever before. And users are constantly subscribing to SaaS-based applications, including file sharing applications like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive, without IT’s consent. Meanwhile, hardly a day goes by without reports of a major data breach appearing in the trade rags or some high-profile cyberattack being featured on the evening news.
But why? Are the bad guys getting smarter? Or are our existing defenses becoming outdated? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Innovations in continuous network monitoring are giving savvy IT security teams a leg up in mitigating risks associated with advanced threats. Unlike legacy vulnerability management systems that rely on active scanning, continuous network monitoring provides real-time visibility into mobile devices, virtual platforms, cloud applications, and network infrastructure — including their inherent security risks. If you and your colleagues are tasked with reducing network security risks while maintaining compliance with industry or government regulations, then this book is for you.
Download the ebook today: https://www.cybriant.com/modern-approach-to-vulnerability-scanning-2/
Real-time Vulnerability Management
The larger the gap, the greater the risk of a business-impacting cyber event occurring. Traditional Vulnerability Management is no longer sufficient. Managed Vulnerability Management extends vulnerability management by covering the breadth of the attack surface (IT, Cloud, IoT/OT) and providing a depth of insight into the data (including prioritization/analytics/decision support). We help security leaders answer the following questions:
Where are we exposed?
What assets are affected, where, and what is the significance/severity? The changing technology and threat landscape have made this harder to see.
Where should we prioritize based on risk?
Data overload and lack of security staffing have made this more important than ever.
How are we reducing exposure over time?
Security leaders want to understand and report on their progress and show the value of their investments to senior management.
If you are unsure how to respond to these questions, let’s talk.
When you outsource your vulnerability management to a security provider like Cybriant, you’ll be able to:
- Discover: Identify and map every asset for visibility across any computing environment
- Assess: Understand the state of all assets, including vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other health indicators
- Analyze: Understand exposures in context, to prioritize remediation based on asset criticality, threat context, and vulnerability severity
- Fix: Prioritize which exposures to fix first, if at all, and apply the appropriate remediation technique
- Measure: Model and analyze cyber exposure to make better business and technology decisions
- Report: Cybriant’s staff of security experts will work report and give security and IT teams complete and accurate visibility and insight.
Conclusion
While these measures directly address corporate network vulnerabilities, the implementation rests solely on the IT managers. Prevention is better than cure, and the earlier these measures are implemented, the lower the chances of vulnerable attacks on the network infrastructure.