Network security threats are continuously growing in quantity and severity. Here are three easy steps to improve your network security threat detection.
These days, working in a SOC (Security Operations Center) is not easy. According to the recent Cybersecurity Insiders Threat Hunting Report, which gathered insights from the Information Security Community on LinkedIn, detection of advanced threats remains the #1 challenge for SOCs (55 percent), followed by lack of security expertise (43 percent). 76 percent of respondents feel that not enough time is spent searching for emerging and advanced threats in their SOC. Lack of budget (45 percent) remains the top barrier to SOCs that have not yet adopted a threat-hunting platform.
Cybersecurity professionals are already challenged with the daily task of defending against the increasing number of security threats, and now the severity of those attacks has increased. Nearly 52% of organizations have experienced at least a doubling of security attacks. Over 28% of respondents say that the severity of the cyber-attacks has increased by at least 2 times in the past year.
In another network security threat detection survey, 75% of respondents say they are unsatisfied with their organization’s ability to detect and investigate threats.
What does this mean for you and your organization? What if you don’t even have a SOC, and don’t have the people on board that would know how to look for a network security threat? If you are ready to improve your network security threat detection, we’ll help walk you through the options.
Network Security Threat Detection? Start with a SIEM
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) – A SIEM platform centrally collects data from multiple devices on your network, including your existing security appliances. Through an advanced correlation engine, it can proactively identify security events not otherwise detected by standalone security technology.
A SIEM system centralizes logging capabilities on security events for enterprises and is principally used to analyze and/or report on the log entries received. The analysis capabilities of SIEM systems can detect attacks not discovered through other means and can direct the reconfiguration of other enterprise security controls to plug holes in enterprise security. Some of the top SIEM products — assuming an attack is still in progress — can even stop detected security breaches.
A SIEM is used differently based on the perceived outcomes and benefits of the tool. The top reasons organizations purchase a SIEM is as follows:
- Compliance with reporting obligations
- Log management and retention
- Continuous monitoring and incident response
- Case management or ticketing systems
- Policy enforcement validation and policy violations
To understand more about SIEMs, please go to our SIEM FAQ page. If you want to know about Managed SIEM, please go to our Managed SIEM page.
Here’s the kicker about your SIEM, many of our clients follow the path of attempting to implement and operate a SIEM on their own only to learn later that their resources do not have the proper experience or the bandwidth to acquire it, and effectively use the tool. Additionally, for most small to mid-sized organizations, when you do the math, it rarely pencils out to be more cost-effective to deploy and manage a SIEM with in-house resources.
Another kicker, if the SIEM isn’t implemented correctly and fine-tuned to your organization’s specific business needs, you might find yourself in alert/notification hell. Even if you outsource to certain security providers, they may only FORWARD you an email of those notifications, without providing details on the alarm, or potential fixes.
Yes, you need a SIEM. If you need help walking through the options for the BEST SIEM, let us know. We have some very experienced SIEM experts on hand that will help you walk through the options, and the best steps moving forward. Our staff works with different SIEMs 24/7 and we have some opinions about the ones we like best and that get the best results.
If you have a SIEM in place, you are on the right track to improving your network security threat detection.
Network Security Threat Detection is still all about People Process Technology
You may want to take a step back and look at your overall cybersecurity policy to include people, process, and technology. We talk a lot about the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
The cool thing about having a framework is that when you bring on a new product, service, or tool, you can align it with your goals, test the product and verify that the management of the product is appropriate. Read more about people, processes, and technology in cybersecurity here.
Here are the 3 Easy* Steps to Improve Your Network Security Threat Detection
# 1 – Identify Your Assets
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. Most SIEM products have the option to help identify assets, but many times only a complete vulnerability scan can truly identify every asset on your network. You can 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.
#2 – Monitor, Monitor, Monitor
When your team has a baseline understanding of what is normal behavior in your organization, you can analyze patterns and identify anything that seems out of the ordinary. This should be done on a 24/7 basis unless your company’s email, website, and networks shut down except during business hours. Once our team is training on your system, we have an intimate knowledge of your environment, and your employees’ behavior, so we can detect not only with the SIEM technology but with our expertise if we discover an anomaly based on behavior.
#3 – Vulnerability Scanning
Did you know that 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. We go into detail about the modern approach to vulnerability scanning in our ebook. Download here: https://www.cybriant.com/modern-approach-to-vulnerability-scanning-2/
*If these steps do not seem easy, please contact us for a consultation. We offer a complimentary cyber risk analysis where one of our security experts will talk to you and give you a professional assessment of the general health of your security program.
If Network Security Threat Detection is a concern Cybriant’s complimentary Cyber Risk Analysis will show you the value a Cyber Risk Assessment could provide. Our targeted questionnaire based on the NIST CSF Framework will allow our risk experts to evaluate key indicators of your security program and give you a broad look at where your organization stands.
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