Essential Cyber Resiliency Steps for Business Protection
Understanding and implementing Cyber Resiliency Steps is crucial in the current digital age where cyber threats are evolving at an alarming rate.
In February 2023 IBM X-Force team 800% increase in WannaCry ransomware traffics, which means after 5 years WannaCry ransomware vulnerabilities still remain one of the most dangerous cyber threats. Hence, emphasizing the need for organizations build essential cyber resiliency for business protection and manage risk effectively in order to recover quickly from such incidents e.g. ransomware attacks should be given the needed priority.
“It’s not about preventing every single breach but being resilient enough to withstand and recover.” This statement by leading security leaders encapsulates why focusing on resilience rather than just prevention is key to safeguarding your organization’s system.
In this blog post, we will explore MITRE’s CREF Navigator™, a tool designed specifically to aid businesses in achieving cyber resilience through goal customization and alignment with NIST guidelines.
We will also delve into the four-step approach towards achieving cyber resilience – anticipation, withstanding attacks, recovery process, and adapting strategies – along with its practical application.
Are you ready to take proactive steps towards ensuring your organization’s cyber resiliency?
Table of Contents:
- Understanding Cyber Resiliency
- Introduction to MITRE’s CREF Navigatora„¢
- Four Steps towards Achieving Cyber Resilience
- Practical Application of the Four-Step Approach
- Advantages of Adaptive Response Tools during Attack Mitigation
- Restoring Normal Functionality Post-Crisis
- Future-proofing Against Likely Changes in Threat Environment
- FAQs in Relation to Cyber Resiliency Steps
- What are the 7 steps to cyber resilience?
- What are the 5 pillars of cyber resilience?
- What is the cyber resilience process?
- What are the three critical components of cyber resilience?
- How can cybersecurity certifications help your career?
- What are some specific cybersecurity companies or products to consider?
- How much does cybersecurity services cost?
- Conclusion
Understanding Cyber Resiliency
In the constantly changing digital world, cyber resiliency is now a must-have for companies and organizations. It’s not just about having robust defenses; it’s about assuming that cyber attackers have already infiltrated your systems.
Cyber resiliency is the ability to carry out your organization’s mission despite being under a cyberattack. This involves developing strategies to continue operations even when your business or mission is being eroded by these attacks.
The Assumption of Breach Mentality
To achieve true resilience, you must adopt an “assumption of breach” mentality. This means accepting that breaches are inevitable and focusing on minimizing their impact rather than solely trying to prevent them.
A Proactive Approach Towards Cybersecurity
Rather than reacting to threats as they occur, a proactive approach towards cybersecurity requires anticipating potential risks and vulnerabilities within your system before they can be exploited by malicious actors.
Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
Your critical infrastructure – whether physical or virtual – forms the backbone of your organization’s operation. Guarding this base from possible perils should be a priority in any cyber defence plan.
Maintaining Operational Continuity Under Attack
The ultimate goal of cyber resilience is maintaining operational continuity under attack. This involves creating contingency plans for worst-case scenarios so that essential functions can continue unabated during an active threat situation.
Fostering A Culture Of Security Awareness
An important part of building resilience against cyberattacks lies in fostering a culture where every individual understands their role in maintaining security protocols and practices regularly. This includes regular training sessions on recognizing phishing attempts, using strong passwords, avoiding suspicious links or downloads, and reducing risk exposure significantly.
Introduction to MITRE’s CREF Navigatora
In the complex world of cybersecurity, having a reliable guide can make all the difference. That’s where MITRE’s Cyber Resiliency Engineering Framework (CREF) Navigatora comes in – a free visualization tool designed to help organizations navigate their way towards cyber resiliency.
This tool is more than just an aid; it’s your organization’s roadmap to resilience in the face of relentless cyber threats.
Customizing Goals with CREF Navigatora
The first step towards achieving cyber resiliency involves setting clear and specific goals for your organization. The CREF Navigatora allows you to customize these goals according to your unique needs and circumstances.
Remember, when it comes to cybersecurity, one size does not fit all. Your objectives should be tailored based on factors such as business type, size, resources available, and potential risk exposure.
Aligning Objectives using NIST Guidelines
To ensure that your objectives are aligned with best practices in the industry, MITRE has integrated guidelines from NIST SP 800-160 Volume 2. This document provides comprehensive guidance on developing resilient systems – a crucial component of any effective cybersecurity strategy.
Taking this alignment approach ensures that you’re not only setting relevant goals but also implementing them effectively across different levels within your organization.
Achieving Cyber Resilience through Strategic Planning
Cyber resilience isn’t achieved overnight – it requires strategic planning and consistent effort over time. With tools like MITRE’s CREF Navigatora at hand, along with adherence to NIST guidelines, you’re well-equipped for the journey ahead. Becoming truly resilient means being able to anticipate attacks, withstand them when they occur, recover quickly, and adapt promptly. It’s about making sure that even if attackers breach defenses, business continues without disruption.
So gear up. Your path towards cyber resilience starts now.
MITRE’s CREF Navigatora„¢ is a free visualization tool that helps organizations achieve cyber resiliency by customizing goals, aligning objectives with NIST guidelines, and achieving resilience through strategic planning. It’s important to tailor cybersecurity goals based on unique factors such as business type, size, resources available, and potential risk exposure. Becoming truly resilient means being able to anticipate attacks, withstand them when they occur, recover quickly and adapt promptly.
Four Steps towards Achieving Cyber Resilience
In the ever-evolving world of cyber threats, achieving resilience is not a one-off task but a continuous journey. This journey can be simplified into four key steps – Anticipate, Withstand, Recover, and Adapt.
Step One – Anticipation
The first step to achieving cyber resiliency is anticipation. It involves understanding your digital environment and predicting potential attack vectors. Anticipating attack vectors allows for proactive steps to be taken in order to minimize the impact of potential security threats. Your organization can leverage on risk assessment for this discovery.
Step Two – Withstanding Attacks
The second step requires developing strategies that enable your organization to withstand attacks when they occur. This could involve creating redundant systems or implementing advanced threat detection tools that allow you to respond quickly and effectively when an attack happens.
Step Three – Recovery Process
If an attack does breach your defenses, having a robust recovery process in place is crucial. This includes restoring systems from backups as quickly as possible while minimizing downtime for essential business operations.
Determining Minimum System Requirements
To recover efficiently after an attack, it’s important to determine the minimum system requirements needed for operation during the recovery phase. This ensures that even under duress, critical functions continue operating smoothly.
Testing Plans Through Simulated Exercises
A well-planned recovery strategy needs thorough testing through simulated exercises. This helps identify any weaknesses in the plan before an actual crisis occurs, thereby ensuring seamless execution during real-time events. Cyber exercise playbooks provide detailed guidelines on how such simulations should be conducted.
Step Four – Adapting Strategies
The final step involves adapting your strategies based on lessons learned from past incidents and changes in the threat landscape. This means constantly updating security protocols, adopting new technologies, and staying abreast of the latest cybersecurity trends. Studying major data breaches of recent times can offer valuable insights into evolving cyber threats and effective countermeasures against them.
Achieving cyber resilience for small and midsize businesses requires four key steps: anticipation, withstanding attacks, having a robust recovery process in place, and adapting strategies based on past incidents. It’s important to determine minimum system requirements for operation during the recovery phase and test plans through simulated exercises to identify weaknesses before an actual crisis occurs. Staying up-to-date with evolving cyber threats and adopting new technologies is crucial for effective countermeasures against them.
Practical Application of the Four-Step Approach
When it comes to cyber resilience, planning and preparation are key. The four steps – Anticipate, Withstand, Recover, and Adapt – provide a roadmap for organizations looking to bolster their defenses against cyber threats. How to put these into action?
Identifying High-Value Assets
The first step is identifying your high-value assets. This could be anything from customer data to intellectual property. By knowing what’s most valuable in your digital infrastructure, you can prioritize resources towards protecting them. Tools like Asset Management Software can assist with this process.
Determining Minimum System Requirements
You also need to determine the minimum system requirements needed for operation. This will help you understand what systems must remain functional during an attack so that business operations aren’t disrupted. Utilizing System Requirements Analysis (SRA) allows businesses to define these parameters effectively.
Testing Plans Through Simulated Exercises
Your plans should then be tested through simulated exercises or “war games.” These exercises offer a practical way of testing response protocols without causing actual disruption.
Planning for Worst-Case Scenarios Including Non-Cyber Events That Could Exacerbate Risk
When planning for worst-case scenarios, you should consider non-cyber events that could exacerbate risk. Natural disasters or power outages may compromise physical security measures, making your organization more vulnerable. By incorporating these scenarios into your planning, you’ll ensure all bases are covered when it comes time to withstand real-world threats. Remember: The goal isn’t just about preventing breaches; it’s about being able to continue operating even when they occur. This level of preparedness requires a thorough understanding of both internal processes and external threat landscapes – and a willingness to adapt as necessary to keep pace with evolving risks.
This section discusses the practical application of the four-step approach for cyber resilience, which includes identifying high-value assets, determining minimum system requirements, testing plans through simulated exercises and planning for worst-case scenarios. It emphasizes that being prepared is key to withstanding real-world threats and requires a thorough understanding of both internal processes and external threat landscapes.
Advantages of Adaptive Response Tools during Attack Mitigation
In the event of a cyber attack, rapid adaptation and response is key to protecting your organization. One way to enhance this capability is through the use of adaptive response tools.
Adaptive security, as it’s often called, offers an advanced approach that allows you to move assets physically or logically—using virtualization—and maintain core functionalities via redundant systems if necessary.
The Importance of Redundant Systems in Maintaining Functionality
Redundancy in cybersecurity refers to having multiple copies or versions of data stored in different locations. This ensures that even if one system fails or gets compromised, another can take over without causing significant disruption. A well-implemented redundancy plan forms a key part of any robust cyber resilience strategy.
To illustrate this point further, consider how airlines manage their flight operations. They don’t rely on just one plane; they have multiple planes ready for deployment at all times. Similarly, your business should not depend solely on one server or database but have several backups ready for immediate activation when needed.
This level of preparedness could be the difference between weathering a cyber storm with minimal damage and suffering catastrophic losses from which recovery might be difficult or impossible.
Moving Assets Using Virtualization Techniques
Beyond redundancy, adaptive response also involves moving assets around using virtualization techniques. This makes it harder for attackers to locate and compromise valuable resources because these are constantly shifting positions within your digital infrastructure.
Maintaining Core Functionalities Via Redundant Systems
If worst comes to worst and some systems do get compromised despite your best efforts at defense and evasion, maintaining core functionalities via redundant systems becomes paramount. Having backup servers kick into action immediately after primary ones fail helps ensure continuity in service delivery while minimizing potential downtime caused by attacks.
Your business’ survival amidst escalating threats depends largely on its capacity for rapid adaptation backed by reliable redundancies.
Adaptive response tools and redundant systems are crucial for cyber resiliency in small and midsize businesses. Redundancy ensures continuity of service delivery, while virtualization techniques make it harder for attackers to locate valuable resources. The ability to adapt quickly with reliable redundancies can be the difference between minimal damage and catastrophic losses from a cyber attack.
Restoring Normal Functionality Post-Crisis
Once the crisis has been managed, returning to a secure state of normalcy is essential. This includes recovering from backups, building new invulnerable systems, and segmenting your systems.
Segment Your Recovery To Prevent Re-compromise
The first step in recovery is getting your high-value assets back online. However, rushing this process can leave you vulnerable to another attack. It’s important to take a systematic approach by segmenting your network during recovery. This segmentation allows for controlled access, preventing an attacker from gaining control over all aspects of your business or mission at once.
To achieve this, start with restoring the most critical functions that have minimal dependencies on other systems. Then gradually bring other components back online while ensuring they are secured against potential re-compromises.
In addition to system segmentation, consider implementing additional security measures such as multi-factor authentication and strict user access controls during the recovery phase.
Maintaining Backups For Quick Recovery
A key aspect of post-crisis management is having a robust backup strategy in place before an incident occurs. Regularly backing up data not only helps maintain business continuity but also aids in quick recovery after an attack. Data backup should be part of every IT practice.
Your backups should include all essential files needed for daily operations. These could range from customer databases and financial records to proprietary software codebases and digital assets like website content or marketing materials.
Create Invulnerable Systems After An Attack
An integral part of recovering from a cyberattack involves rebuilding compromised systems so they’re more resilient than before. You can accomplish this by applying patches or updates that fix known vulnerabilities, hardening servers, strengthening firewalls, and improving intrusion detection mechanisms, among others.
All these steps will help create invulnerable systems capable of resisting future attacks, hence safeguarding your organization’s valuable resources.
After mitigating the impact of a cyber attack, it is important to restore normal functionality by recovering from backups, segmenting systems during recovery to prevent re-compromise and implementing additional security measures such as multi-factor authentication. Maintaining regular data backups can aid in quick recovery after an attack while creating invulnerable systems involves rebuilding compromised systems so they’re more resilient than before through various steps like applying patches or updates that fix known vulnerabilities and strengthening firewalls.
Future-proofing Against Likely Changes in Threat Environment
Once you’ve recovered from a cyber attack, it’s time to create an unpredictable environment for potential attackers by distributing various tools across your digital infrastructure in order to make your systems more dynamic. This means creating an unpredictable landscape for future attackers and distributing different tools across your digital infrastructure.
The goal is to make your systems more dynamic and less static, reducing predictability for potential threats.
Creating Unpredictable Environments for Future Attackers
To create unpredictability, consider implementing dynamic security measures. These could include rotating IP addresses or frequently changing system configurations. The aim is to keep attackers guessing and minimize their chances of success.
You can also distribute different cybersecurity tools across your environment in waves. By doing so, you ensure that even if one tool gets compromised, others remain operational and continue protecting your assets.
Distributing Cybersecurity Tools Across Your Environment
Deploying the right tools is only part of a successful cybersecurity strategy; deploying them strategically is also essential. Distribute these resources strategically throughout your network instead of concentrating them all in one place. Consider using defense-in-depth strategies, which layer multiple defenses (firewalls, intrusion detection systems, etc.) throughout the IT architecture.
Making Things Static Does Not Reveal
A static environment can give away too much information about its structure and vulnerabilities. Instead of leaving things as they are post-recovery, continuously evolve by integrating new technologies or practices into your security protocols.
Incorporating New Technologies into Security Protocols
New technologies like AI-based threat detection or blockchain technology can add another level of unpredictability for potential attackers while enhancing overall cybersecurity resilience. AI-based solutions, for instance, can analyze patterns within vast amounts of data to identify anomalies indicating possible attacks. Blockchain technology, on the other hand, ensures the integrity of data through decentralization and encryption, making tampering extremely difficult.
This section discusses the steps small and midsize businesses can take to improve their cyber resiliency. It emphasizes the importance of creating an unpredictable environment for potential attackers by implementing dynamic security measures, distributing cybersecurity tools strategically throughout the network, and continuously evolving security protocols with new technologies like AI-based threat detection or blockchain technology. The goal is to reduce predictability for potential threats and enhance overall cybersecurity resilience.
FAQs in Relation to Cyber Resiliency Steps
What are the 7 steps to cyber resilience?
Protect your assets by identifying them, implementing robust security measures, detecting threats early, responding effectively, recovering quickly, learning from incidents, and adapting your strategies accordingly. Check out NCSC’s guide on principles of cyber resilience for more information.
What are the 5 pillars of cyber resilience?
Identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover – these are the five pillars of cyber resilience that form a comprehensive approach to managing cybersecurity risks. Learn more about these pillars in detail with NIST’s Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.
What is the cyber resilience process?
The cyber resilience process involves anticipating possible threats, withstanding attacks without major disruptions, recovering swiftly post-incidents, and adapting strategies based on lessons learned. For more details, check out NIST’s glossary term ‘Cyber Resiliency’.
What are the three critical components of cyber resilience?
Anticipate threats proactively, respond effectively to withstand and recover, and continuously improve your strategies – these are the three critical components of cyber resilience. Get additional insights from ISACA’s blog post ‘The Three Components Of Cyber Resilience’.
How can cybersecurity certifications help your career?
Cybersecurity certifications can help you stand out in a crowded job market, demonstrate your expertise to potential employers, and increase your earning potential. Check out this article on the best cybersecurity certifications to boost your career.
What are some specific cybersecurity companies or products to consider?
Consider companies like Norton, McAfee, and Kaspersky for antivirus and internet security software, or Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Cisco for network security solutions. Do your research and choose the best fit for your needs.
How much does cybersecurity services cost?
Pricing for cybersecurity services varies depending on the provider and the level of protection you need. On average, small businesses can expect to pay around $1,000 per month for managed cybersecurity services. Get a quote from a reputable provider to get a better idea of the cost.
Conclusion
Cyber Resiliency Steps are a must for businesses to shield themselves from cyber attacks – MITRE’s CREF NavigatorTM is a customizable approach to aligning objectives with NIST guidelines.
The four-step approach includes anticipation, withstanding attacks, recovery process, and adapting strategies – practical application involves identifying high-value assets, determining minimum system requirements, and testing plans through simulated exercises.
Adaptive response tools are crucial during attack mitigation as they maintain functionality by using redundant systems – restoring normal functionality post-crisis requires segmenting recovery to prevent re-compromise.
Future-proofing against likely changes in the threat environment means creating unpredictable environments for future attackers.
Start Setting Up Essential Cyber Resiliency For Your Business
In the face of escalating cyber threats, it is paramount for business executives, IT professionals, end users, and vendors to adopt robust strategies that will bolster their organization’s system. There is no One-Size-Fit-All when it comes to Cyber resiliency as many businesses or organization are unique, however following the recommended four steps in this article i.e. Anticipitation, withstanding attacks, recovery process, and adapting strategies – along with its practical application can go a long way to get you started.
Cyber Resiliency measures are not just about preventing attacks but also ensuring your business can recover quickly from any potential breaches. Should you require the help of skilled experts, you can reach out to our team at Olayemis.
