How to Ensure You Don’t Become the Next Cybersecurity Headline

In recent years, security operations have become more difficult at most organizations due to factors such as the evolving threat landscape, the volume and complexity of security alerts, and public cloud proliferation. A simple example is that globally, according to data from Kaspersky, 64 percent of organizations, whether public or private, have been victims of ransomware, one of the most prominent risks for businesses and government institutions. In essence, the increasingly complex and dangerous threat landscape, as well as the growing attack surface, complicate security management across all organizations.  

In fact, according to Kaspersky's recent Incident Response Analysis report, 51.9 percent  of organizations encountered ransomware in their networks last year, a significant increase compared to 2020 when the figure was 34 percent . The report also revealed that more than half (53.6 percent ) of the cyber incidents in 2021 were facilitated by the exploitation of well-known vulnerabilities and known exploits. Unfortunately, the affected organizations not only suffered the attack but damage to their reputation — especially those that made it to news headlines — and the loss of trust by their partners and customers, in addition to facing penalties from regulators and lawsuits.

So, how are companies dealing with the growing threat landscape? A recent Kaspersky report reveals that more than half (52 percent ) of respondents believe their organization’s security operations environment has become more difficult to manage over the last two years and 70 percent  of companies have difficulty dealing with the number of security alerts generated from cybersecurity analysis tools. The specialized teams of a third of the companies are overwhelmed by these notifications, as well as by the demand for emergency resolution, risking the effective management of the essential tasks by the Security Operation Center.

Additionally, the high volume of alerts these teams receive not only impacts their productivity and operation, but also their well-being. Instead of focusing on strategic tasks, analysts focus on routine activities that cause stress and mental exhaustion; for example, activities that could well be automated, such as logging online security issues or analyzing reports to fix vulnerabilities.

This represents a permanent risk for organizations. Going back to the ransomware example, around 90 percent  of companies that have been victims of this threat would pay a ransom if they were attacked again. These types of decisions could be attributed to poor knowledge on how to respond to this type of threat, but also because teams don't have enough time to deal with a security strategy and improve the process, thus increasing their chances of becoming the next data breach headline.

The good news is that this situation is preventable. In our experience, most alerts involve security situations for which solutions already exist, so the entire process can be automated with a reliable EDR solution. This will allow skilled operations center professionals to focus on the proactive search for complex threats that hide in the network. In addition to increasing the operational efficiency of this team, the company as a whole will have greater protection as they inform about new online scams with details on how to recognize and block them. Furthermore, this information can be integrated with SOC protection solutions, ensuring that the process is 100 percent  automated.

To help the teams responsible for managing alerts respond in a more efficient way and avoid saturation, it is important for companies to implement actions that consider both the human and the business approach. In other words, placing a priority on employees, avoiding work overload, distributing key tasks and considering the internal rotation of teams, while using threat intelligence services that can help with existing security controls in order to automate processes, such as triaging alerts that generate enough context to decide whether they should be investigated immediately. 

Companies often struggle to find the expertise and staff needed to track down threats so that they can make an appropriate response. Security teams are often overwhelmed as they struggle to manage systems and tools, leaving little time for thorough investigation and analysis. The solution to this problem is more affordable than you may think. In fact, you don’t need to pay US$1 million to a Big Four company to protect your operations, nor a multimillion-dollar ransom to cybercriminals if you suffer a cyberattack. The much more affordable solution is to work with a specialized cybersecurity partner that will protect your operations 24/7 and will keep all the collateral damage at bay.

In an increasingly digital world, where the survival of organizations depends on how they deal with cybersecurity incidents, it is essential that qualified professionals focus on a proactive approach for complex threats. It is only with the implementation of reliable threat insight and automation tools that an organization can drastically reduce security risks without over-stretching specialists, thus effectively protecting it from becoming the next cybersecurity headline.